China Plans Deep Impact Mission

Comatose51 writes "China is planning its own Deep Impact mission. The goal of the mission, unlike the exploratory NASA project, is to push potential life-ending comets or asteroids away from a collision course with the earth." From the article: " The third nation to launch a man into space has lofty space ambitions that include putting two astronauts into orbit this September and eventually sending up a space station and even a manned mission to the moon."

Comments

China is being very ambitious

[DanielMarkham]

In addition to the comet mission, they are going to build their fourth space launch center , and they've also announced plans to militarize their space program.
I wonder, when they finally land someone on the moon, will they say "We came in peace for all mankind"?

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Re:China is being very ambitious

[FleaPlus]

And the Soviet Union before that... check out the photos of the Polyus weapons platform.

Re:China is being very ambitious

[ThreeE]

The US has two space programs: one is civilian, one is military. Both are needed.

Re:China is being very ambitious

[DynaSoar]

Aardpig (622459) sez:

>> and they've also announced plans to militarize their space program.

> What, like the USA did years ago?

The main failure of the US space program was that it was DE-militarized and turned into a white-collar corporate welfare program. The military was allowed to ride along more than drive.

If the US military space program was not cancelled and subsumed into NASA, Neil Armstrong would have soloed in a reuseable orbital space plane 40 years ago. The military's programs were cancelled supposedly to "save money". There has been far more money wasted just in the expected and allowed cost over-runs in the civilian programs that were started and then cancelled before completion than it would have taken to start and finish the military's DynaSoar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory programs.

When the US military got its own program half way back, it quickly surpassed NASA in time-to-accomplished-missions. Sadly it too is hampered by having to support corporate welfare.

The reasons for a militarized US space program would have indeed been different. The accomplishments would have been the same steps, but with different rationale, and much farther along than we are now.

G. Harry Stine was pretty much fired (range safety officer at White Sands, I believe) for saying in the 50s that if we didn't catch and pass the Soviet space race in a few years, we never would. If we don't make plans now to stay ahead of the Chinese, they will pass us, and we will never catch up. NASA cannot accomplish this in its present form, whether or not China militarizes their space program (and in China the difference between militarized and not is far less than in the US already). If the US space program was taken out of the hands of the contractors and returned to government control, we might could stay on top. The only organization we have capable of running such an operation without having to knuckle under to corporations is the military. And even THAT is starting to wane.

Let them ALL militarize. Who the hell cares how we get out of here?

"Please tell me Mr. Sagan, are we ever gonna get out of this planet alive?" -- PLANET EARTH ROCK & ROLL ORCHESTRA by Paul Kantner

Re:China is being very ambitious

[Veteran]

As a contractor who works at JSC, I can assure you that NASA is in charge; neither we nor our companies have any say accept for: "Yes sir". If the contractors are in charge then why did Lockheed, which had been at JSC for more than 40 years, lose the ESCG contract to Jacobs Engineering? Contractors exist because the space agency can get rid of both the companies and the individuals easily; firing a government employee is very difficult.

Contractors in charge is a ridiculous thing to say. From the inside NASA's biggest problem is that during the space race technical people who knew how to accomplish technical tasks were picked to lead and manage the agency at all levels; now most NASA divisions have "professional managers" who couldn't personally build and fly a model rocket - let alone make critical decisions about the real thing. It is these non technical "professional managers" who are the "NASA cultural problem" you have heard so much about. Such people have been directly responsible for most of NASA's technical disasters.

Re:What Goes Around

[Anonymous Coward]

China has much more pressing issues than [space exploration] This project is a cover for military operations in space.

So, uh... what stops the rest of the world from applying this same logic to absolutely anything and everything NASA does?

America has fewer truly hungry people than China, therefore their space development aims are benign rather than secretly evil?

Astronauts?

[gumpish]

From the blurb: From the article: "The third nation to launch a man into space has lofty space ambitions that include putting two astronauts into orbit this September and eventually sending up a space station and even a manned mission to the moon."

I'm pretty sure you mean taikonaut (unless the Chinese are really sending Americans into space...)

Re:Astronauts?

[Rangsk]

According to this Wikipedia article:
Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikng (), Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yháng yuán (, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism tàikng rén (, "space human") which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English text issued by the Chinese government uses astronaut.

So I suppose astronaut would be as good a term as any.

Re:China, the new SUPERPOWER(tm)!

[wibs]

Personally, I think it's just the comunist party making an attempt at trying to look like they are a competent government rather than the pack of stupid greedy thugs that they are.

What, you mean like every other government in every other country? A close friend of mine has spent almost 10 months of the past two years in China, from what he says the truth about how China handles its citizens lies somewhere between what China or the US would have you believe. Take what you hear from US-gov supplied press reports with a grain of salt.

There are exceptions, but a general rule of thumb is that the people in power got there because they put a lot of effort into gaining power. I don't care if they're democrats, republicans, communists, or whatever - most are greedy bastards.

MY GOD, WE HAVE A GAP IN OUR AERSONAL OF GIANT SPACE ROCKS!

rofl

Re:What Goes Around

[Zeinfeld]

One other factoid, population below the poverty line. China 10%, USA 12%.

That is from the CIA world fact book, admitedly the poverty line definition is probably different. But China does not suffer from mass starvation as many in the US seem to think.

India is not nearly as well off. 25% below the poverty line and only 3 Trillion in GDP. That could change rapidly however since the economy has been very much damaged by the autarky policies of previous governments that are being unwound.

Space rocks would be a lousy weapon system..

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Due to the unknown mass, irregular shape, partial breakup in the atmosphere, and lack of precision control, it would seem to be difficult to target the reentry to a specific CONTINENT, let alone the desired CITY.

You could end up dropping the thing on yourself as easily as hitting your enemy.

Re:A Chinese Moon Landing

[jolande]

True story, I was under the impression that the American flag was still standing up on the moon. But the other week I was reading about the apollo missions and it turns out that the flag fell over by the force of liftoff when they went back into lunar orbit.