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China To Launch 2 Into Space In September
Doug Dante writes "China Daily reports that China's space agency plans to launch two Chinese astronauts into space for a 6-day mission in September. The spacecraft includes both a re-entry and an orbital module. The article, an official publication of the Chinese government in English, also extends a plain invitation for the U.S. to partner with China on space."
Not sure how much I buy into that invitation. There is no real chance of anything substantial happening. China is trying to cooperate with a lot of countries now, but only the European Space Agency has really moved forward with chinese cooperation on Galileo. China did buy a couple Soyuz to help with their design work.
The biggest red-herring is all that stuff about tech transfer. China gets more tech transfer every day from US tech companies moving to China than anything they can get from building equipment to spec for joint space ventures. Most space work is pretty basic and is only a subset of regular industrial processes. There isn't really anything that special about it.
it's my opinion that while western countries are good at cuturally breeding innovators, the eastern countries (while they also breed innovators) are better at breeding refinment. breeding sounds very commoditized, but it is meant in its broadest sense of cutural/societal influence... yes, the chinese contribution to global innovation include paper, printing press, gun powder, military strategy, martial arts, holistic medicine, feng shui and pasta, to name a few. what other innovations have asia brought us in the 19th or 20th century? the western world, on the other hand, are responsible for a fucking butt load of innovation for quite a few centuries (3?): internal combustion, pnumatice tires, radio/tv/sattelite communications, electronic computing, internet, medical and pharmacueticals... the list could keep going. this whole innovations/refinement discussion could be it's own topic of discussion... the asian countries, on the oher hand, have been really good at taking western innovations(cars, electronics, entertainment), digesting it, and regurgitating well thought out refinements. honda element, sony ps2, ringu, these are things that are now feed back to the innovators, but in the end they are really only refinements to the original.
the chinese will be the country to watch in the next few decades. they are still one of the few communist countries in existance, they have the biggest population on the globe, and they are entering the growth and refinement stage that japan, korea, and other southeastern dragons went thru in the 19th and 20th century. they also have some of the biggest problems in the world; they have the biggest population on the globe(organization will be difficult), they are still communist(not good for innovation), and they are entering a stage i their cutural development which might require more capitalistic injection from the west.
the fact that the chinese will fly more taikonauts this year has IMHO a few big implications:
1) we have the economy to support a state run space program
2) we have the cultural drive and support of the people
3) we have the resouces to make this happen
4) the biggest one is this-we're flexing our muscles-don't fuck with us!
it's also interesting that according to the article, they are extending a welcome hand in talking about working together with nasa. this is a simple publicity move to bolster their rising technical position within the world and it basically says, "we're growing up as a country and we're not to far behind you. team up with us now, and you won't be eating our dust. don't and you might get fucked". afterall the united states government has really taken a beating in the last few years regarding space, space travel safety, and global joint projects(ISS). right now the chinese are on the upswing, they are just entering the golden area of space travel that the uinited states and ussr were going thru in the 1950-1990's(golden area in terms of economic and workforce resources as well as national support). there's really a lot of multi-facet/multi-layered pros and cons teaming up with the chinese... some are good, others could be not so good. hope this venture doesn't turn america into an obedient dog on a chinese leash...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
"Besides being inaccurate, your observation is just so much 20-20 hindsight."
Actually you are the one who is probably innaccurate though we will never know for sure. NASA was probably under substantial political pressure from the Reagan administration to launch on schedule. Reagan was going to trumpet the "Teacher in Space" in his imminent State of the Union address and they probably wanted he to actually be in space when he made the speech.
If you weren't under some kind of pressure why would you press ahead with a launch on "a bitterly cold day" The launch pad was completely iced up, they had NEVER had a day that cold for a launch. The freezing and the ice created all kind of potential dangers, the brittle O rings was just the one that led to disaster, falling ice damaging the shuttle was the one they were very worried about. If they weren't under pressure why wouldn't you way until a warmer day. If they had the O rings most probably wouldn't have failed. NASA postpones launches for a lot less than the launch pad bering covered in ice and all the components being below typical temperature.
@de_machina