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China Plans 5-day Manned Space Mission
rune writes "Both the BBC and The Register have articles on China's next manned space mission. This time two taikonauts are planned to be on board the Shenzou VI spacecraft sometime during 2005 for about five days. There is also a brief mention of the plans of the Chinese Space Agency for lunar exploration." hrld1,kon adds a link to this article on Chinaview, the official English-language news source for the People's Republic of China.
Russians will be there first...
but does anyone else think this sounds like some cheezy anime cartoon??? taikonauts on the Shinzu??
I'm hoping that with China, and maybe India getting involved in exploring space, maybe the US might get involved too. A three or four way (with Russia) space race, could easily see humans "out there" in the next 50 years. At the current rate, I don't think we'd ever make it.
Meanwhile in North America, we've perfected manufacture of the double bacon cheeseburger. Gulp.
they will remain in orbit for five days, although their craft could support them for up to one week.
wow, IMO that's a pretty a small buffer! i would add more to accomodate for any miscalculations or if they must stay up for londer for whatever reason.
From the Article.. "In order to create a craft capable of orbiting in space for five days, scientists say they have been trying to reduce weight and improve the performance of onboad instrumentation."
The funny part is... the US sent men to the moon in the late 60's and the entire spacecraft had less computer power then a 486 computer... And they need to improve current technology???
Just goes to show, with todays technology, we sometimes forget we can simplify things.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Is happy to note they may be able to get manned craft into space as early as late next year
Maybe they could develop (or copy) a NERVA-like design such as the one Pratt & Whitney has shown about a week ago.
If I remember correctly, the Chinese government never signed anything that forbids them putting fission reactors in orbit.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
to welcome China to the mid 20th century.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Currently, the International Space Station consists of pretty much every spacefaring nation on Earth, with the exception of China... due to US uncertainty over its motives. So China is planning to go its own way, build its own station, etc.
I don't know about you, but as a Chinese living in the USA, I would really like for China to join the ISS -- we don't need another Cold War style space race, and cooperation with the world will, I believe, lead to greater transparency and scrutiny of China's space program anyhow.
Indeed, it's absurd that China is currently one of only two nations with a operational manned spaceflight capability, but isn't allowed to join the ISS -- when the ISS is suffering from major logistical resupply problems due to the grounding of the shuttle.
China has, for years, been on a path from isolation back in the 1950s and 1960s, to being a part of the world community in many ways. The US needs to ditch its outdated paranoia, or else the other nations (Russia, EU, etc) need to grow some balls and admit China into the consortium for the benefit of all sides concerned.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Not exactly... As people have been mentioning with Space Ship One and the private space industry in particular, there is a lot of borrowed technology and knowledge from previous missions. A lot of the legwork has already been done. But you are absolutely correct in saying that competition is good. Ain't no good capitalist gonna let no pinko commie space rocket beat us to space again!!! (Holy crap that triple negative actually came out logically correct!!) I think it'll be interesting to see who gets to Mars first, China or non-government private enterprise. We're in for a good show no matter what.
Sorry, but the word "Cosmonaut" was there first.
The first man in space was Russian.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Something is always better than nothing.
Ever since the space shuttle disaster, and the bankrupt of Russia, both the Americans and Russians are stuck with the ultra-expensive ISS.
The Chinese are doing something, and they ought to be congratulated.
If the Indians can do it earlier than the Chinese, so much the better. I also heard that Brazil also has something under development.
How about the Europeans ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And I'm also certian that the US didn't just complete the first non-government manned space flight and doesn't have billions of dollars going to develop private space flight.
Give me a break.
China is emerging as an ecenomic powerhouse, and it looks like it will continue down that path, provided their government doesn't screw up. However please don't pretend like all good things come from China. I gave just a small list of the US companies that produce advanced hardware, including what drives almost all the devices you listed. Your MP3 player may be built in China but it's usually using TI DSPs and AD opamps.
You know it's perfectly possible for China AND the US to be economic powers, and for both to benefit from trade with each other.
The word taikonaut is not used in Chinese. The Chinese word for astronaut is yuhangyuan, and the official English term used in Chinese media is "Chinese astronaut".
It's good to see that China and India are getting their feet dirty in the Space Race. More information about India's Space program can be found at www.isro.org and its previous achievements can be found at http://www.isro.org/programmes.htm I wish them good luck. I just hope that China's Space program be as open as India's
Um, no. Just because the Russians beat the US and English-speaking world to space does not mean the word was there first.
In fact, the first recorded use of "cosmonaut" was in 1959, while "astronaut" was first recorded in 1929. Check the OED before you make silly, easily disproven statements.
FYI: even today, you can't send more than a 486 in orbit, mostly because of feature sizes. The smaller the feature size, the easier for cosmic radiation to screw things up.
The Raven
... does this mean that we can stop sending them economic aid? (http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2004/4/6_5.html )
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
motorola makes PPC 603/604 based cpus for sats these days.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Why are you even scared - so what if China is developing fast, has 1/6 the world population, you can just be thankful (if you like) that for the last few millenia they have been content stuck behind a wall.
:-) hahahahahahahahhaha laugh. Oh read Neuromancer and see for yourself the Asian overtones that sweep the entire future worlds.
I think China is interesting, they will grow rapidly, with ever increasing ties into Japan-tech and don't forget a little sporting event in 2008 that will wake up most of the western world to how great China is.
I wouldn't think for one moment China wants to barrage the US with bombs, I think barraging them with LCD's, Chips and assorted gadgetry will suffice.
Look what happened ot Japan after 2 nuclear bombs. They didn't reinvest into thier army, but in developing technology.
If in 4 years I here rhetorical war mongering amongst a (hopefully not, why not go and vote today?) Bush administration I will wonder what country they will hype up as a threat to world security in order to keep their little club in power.
You see, we have no right being scared, trying to hold back other countries. You cannot be anti-monopolistic and worry about China at the same time.
Fact: China will become a (the) world super power within 40 years, and export technology, culture and politics around the world.
I for one welcome our Chinese overlords...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
No, I think that you'll find that the English translation "cosmonaut" of the much older Russian word is what you're talking about: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was talking about cosmonauts in his native Russian in the 19th century.
Check history more thoroughly before you make silly, easily disproven statements.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The word "taikonauts" is invented by western media. If you check the Chinese media websites, they use "astronauts" for the English term.
Example: Xinhua news international (this is their government news agency so you can't get much more "official" than this)
What the official Chinese media call their astronauts
In my opinion, the reason for the word taikonaut to exist is because it carries a Chinese background. You can say "Chinese astronaut", but it's too long and people don't like it when they can use one word. Also, "Chinese astronaut" could be confused with Chinese-American astronauts like Dr Leroy Chiaohttp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/chiao.h tml.
As a Chinese speaker, I'm not satisfied with the word "taikonauts" either. It sounds wierd to a Chinese ear, especially when pronounced by a non-native English speaker like myself. But it is not possilbe to let the western people read Chinese characters. Even the original pinyin form "taikongren" would cause trouble to most English speakers. Since now people are using it more and more, I can only accept it. That's the way languages evolve.
Language is a living thing. An lively language like English can never be pure. If you want a pure language, there is Latin. But I'm afraid few nowadays know how to pronounce it. During the past centuries, English has absorbed words from Latin, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and many other languages to accommondate ideas from different cultures as well as the new things happening everyday. It can't be perfect in translating these ideas, but certainly it has so far done a good job.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
Because you chicks are so cute when your act like pouty feminists.
Sincerely,
W.J. Clinton
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
The day they are to return to earth, I saw we all don gorilla masks and give the "taikonauts" a wonderful surprise.
Damn dirty apes!
I'm curious why the occupation involved with the exploration of space must use names derived from the language of the country doing the exploring?
In what way does "astronaut" convey that the explorer must be from the USA? Why the segregation? Because a precedence was set with "cosmonaut" during the cold war? Do russians and chinese use different names for the space explorers of other countries? Why doesn't the ESA have their own word in place of "astronaut"?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.