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China's Second Manned Space Flight
desert island writes "As if to coincide with Russia's space tourist, Beijing News speculated that China's second manned space launch will occur after the October 1-7 holiday. The spacecraft Shenzhou VI, with two astronauts, will be launched from the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu province and will last 119 hours." From the article: "The mission will differ markedly from China's first manned space voyage, the Shenzhou V, which was a solo flight that lasted 21 hours in October 2003. China's space program is still shrouded in secrecy with little known about events until several days before they happen. However since the success of the first manned flight, authorities have shown a little more transparency."
The article is about twice the length of the writeup, with most of the content simply cut and pasted into the writeup.
It would be nice to have more information about this. I wonder what China's plans are as to space, and whether their centralized government will be able to make better progress than the American system. Then again, beauracracy is beauracracy, so I don't have high hopes on China getting much further than developing extra-long range rockets.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Oh, and since this article is specifically speaking of China, it's worth mentioning that the first Chinese born astronaut also holds the record for the female who spent the most time in space. (Shannon Lucid, born in China in 1943 was in space in 1979)
I wanna know what the two'll be eating during their mission. Do you think spin-off technology would bring us instant-dehydrated-dimsum, maybe? or perhaps space-roast... *duck*
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Her first mission was 1985, she joined NASA in 1978. She was also the Capcom for the most recent mission. See: Shannon Lucid.
Yeah, in case you haven't noticed in movies like 'Crouching Tiger' the Chinese special effects can now show a man/woman floating without the little strings that were present when the Americans faked the first moon landing.
This is probably just my paranoia talking, but the little tinfoil hat guy on my shoulder is wondering: is one of their objectives on the moon to look around and say "Hey! Where are the Apollo modules? The Americans didn't make it to the moon, after all!"
I wonder if they might even go so far as to destroy any evidence they do find.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
The Soviet Union could build nukes but it could not build refrigerated trucks so most of its vegetables never made it to market. Centralized systems frequently fail to do important things, or put vast effort into spectacularly stupid things because there is no system of checks and balances. If China deflects its modernisation plans into space exploration, it may just run out of resource and collapse like the Soviet Union did. The Cultural Revolution hardly bodes well as an example of Chinese centralized planning!
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Chinese (astronauts) are called taikonauts, just as the Russians should be called cosmonauts... I know nobody cares...
I hope their technology has evolved since their first attempt.
Oh~ It is no news. The media in Hong Kong and China reports the launch of Shenzhou VI few months ago, which says:
- The spaceship will launch in the coming October
- 2 astronauts will be onboard
- 3 pairs of astronauts will be chosen for final stage training, and the authority will pick 1 pair before launch to carry our the mission
- Team work ability is an important criteria during the astronauts selection process
- The ship will fly for 5 days, five times more than Shenzhou V, and the authority claims that the stability and reliability of the ship has been improved.
- The carrying rocket is CZ-2F (Long March 2F), same as the one for Shenzhou V
- No spacewalk (will do it during the 3rd manned spaceflight, which is scheduled for 2007)
- The astronauts are allowed to take off their spacesuits when the ship is in orbit, which is different from the arrangement for Shenzhou V's astronaut.
- The astronauts will enter the "Orbit Module" and carry out experiments during the journey
- One of the experiments is to test the response of pig's sperms under space radiation
- Many delicious Chinese traditional food will be packed as space food for the astronauts, which will include spicy chicken, preserved vegetables, and assorted beans and rice
Source:
hk.news.yahoo.com
military.china.com
www.people.com.cn
Would there be any thoughts towards NASA asking China to help out with Hubble? The chinese seem to want to spend money going out into space. Might be worth NASA sharing/selling knowledge. If the main point in the mission is making the citizens feel more nationalistic they may not care to enter any partnerships with other countries though.
euh, they can get the jeans over there too you know... Actually they are quite a lot cheaper there... Get to think of it, they are actually made over there...
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
In the 20s and the 30s useful idiots told everybody how the Soviet Union was unstoppable and unbeatable, and how its tremendous resources and central planning would enable it to overtake the rest of the world. As Krushchev told the US, we will attend your funeral...almost correct, just the wrong way round.
Chinese success stories? Taiwan - er, covertly US supported, not part of Chinese empire yet. Hong Kong - er, UK administered free market until very recently. Shanghai - interesting history, not really part of mainland Chinese economy. Beijing - well, I'd better not give identifiable information about contacts there, but don't try running a business without regular "donations" to the local party official.
The giant Chinese economy? The one that's being funded by US indebtedness. The Chinese economic boom is already starting to strangle itself because they are not producing the necessary materials and resources themselves, so the price of oil, steel, copper and concrete has been rising rapidly. Unlike the former Soviet Union, which actually produced huge excesses of raw materials, the Chinese boom is credit and resource constrained. And all the investors are afraid to say so for fear of a lack of business confidence (i.e. exposure to reality.)
I'm probably wrong, as about a lot of things, but to my mind the axis to watch is Russia/India. Russia has the resources. India has the people and the education. India also has a huge business presence in England which gives them access to the EU. Russia and India go back a long way together (the only successful communist governments in the world were in India.) Unless the US deliberately moves its economic and military power to support China, in an effort to stave off economic collapse, I know where I'd invest.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
How many countries would just rebuild a destroyed city? Or for that matter, rebuild destroyed nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, or Japan and Germany? It takes enormous centralized wealth and control to do these things. The big advantage of the US is that it allows a large sphere of free economic activity that generates wealth and talent, which are then available for ultra-projects.
Let me prick your typical commie Chinese propaganda bubble please!
f ebruary/17/newsid_2547000/2547811.stm
h tml
>> Tibet has been part of China more than at least 300 years ago in Qing Dynasty
India was part of the British Empire for > 200 years (starting from the time when British East India Company victory at Plassey in 1757 to Indian independence in 1947)
That does NOT give Britian any right to invade India again and capture it..
The Chinese Communist Propaganda machine uniquely and illogically takes advantage of an earlier colonisation of Tibet to justify a more recent and brutal one.
It was plain invasion and no amount of whitewashing will do away the stink.
>> China in its long history proved to be a peaceful country. Almost never invaded any neighbours, instead, attracts its neighbors with more advance culture and economy.
Wow, more propaganda!
just a few invasions of china are here.. rest can be mightly googled!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/
1979: China invades Vietnam
China has sent hundreds of troops into Vietnam after weeks of tension and a military build-up along the border.
http://www.2neatmagazines.com/life/1962cover.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/india/timeline.
16 Nov 1962 China invades India
After a short war India loses territory in the northwestern state of Jammu and Kashmir.
China still holds to occupied lands of Indian Territory in Aksai Chin.
China today threatens to invade Taiwan.
What do you want to say, China became such a large country through non-violent and peaceful means? Nay, it was through continous invasions and extermination of other nationalities that today China is predominantly and uniformly of the HAN population.. what happened to other ethnic communities of that region?
China is a bully of the region and will always remain as such.
>> is one among over 30 provinces that accepts most fund from the central government
Yeah, those funds are for Han Chinese to build factories and colonise the Tibetian Land.
Do the Tibetians profit from the money flow? Hell no.
>>Today's tibet are not oppressed by any one
When ordinary Chinese students were massacred by the Authoritative Govt. in Tiammen Sq.. what about the fate of the colonised people, one can very well guess.
Where were China's borders during the rule of Qin kingdom? Exactly, they were around the territory that belonged to his subjects, the (Han) Chinese people.
What happened to the peoples living outside those borders of the original Chinese homeland? How many wars did it take over the centuries to turn those former neighbors into minorities under Han Chinese rule?
Now, if you knew about Tibet's actual history, instead of the neo-imperialist propaganda conjured up by China's current dictators, you'd realize that only in 1950 Tibet lost its national self-determination, thanks to Mao's invading communist army. China's past god-kings have always made silly claims of ownership of foreign lands, and especially China's neighbors, but like Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, India etc. etc. Tibet was de facto independent before the communist invasion. Heck, there are even some brave Chinese historians who understand this, but thanks to the CCP's imperial agenda the Chinese people only get to ever hear about the make-believe propaganda version.
The claim that Tibet was somehow even nominally under a Chinese despot's rule some 300 years ago -- a time of imperialism before the birth of a modern nation state -- and that nominal imperial rule should somehow translate into an acceptable modern-day occupation of one's peaceful neighbors is a violent and anachronistic claim indeed.
Why do you, as a Chinese invidual, feel the need to accept and publically support the occupation of your neighboring peoples?
Don't just take my word for it. Grow a conscience and check out even one of the uncountable videos about the tortured Tibetans who managed to escape into exile from the police state that is occupied Tibet. Talk to some of the thousands of Tibetans who escape from their own land every year (because those still under occupation are too afraid to talk, especially to the Chinese) and then come back to defend China's ongoing military occupation of Tibet.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Have you wondered why China is pushing so hard for Space exploration? If I may interject this, they have realized that a Space Program is the fast lane to technology. Case in point, the USA Space Program. We have more than just Tang to thank the space program for. Most of the technolgy we have today is either a direct or indirect result from space exploration. Who likes football? Who likes the abilitiy to watch every football game if they want? That's right Direct TV's Sunday ticket. Hmmm... satellite TV, Howard Hughes, government funding of video and GPS projects in the 70's. That is just one and it is entertainment orientated. Advances in polymer science, computer science, minaturization; all these effect things from Ipod's, microwaves (especially microwaves), LCD technology, safety gear that firemen use to save lives. I think you see the picture.
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
In the post cold-war and freer-trade era, there are few zero-sum games around, but apparently someone hasn't told some folk on here that the world has moved far beyond them.
Two years ago, the Chinese and their space program were dismissed as repeating missions accomplished back in the early '60s. Back then it was redundant, not progressive, not scientific or just not necessary to a lot of Americans, including a few Slashdotters.
Visions of faulty foam panels aside, I just thought it was interesting that this particular mindset is running late this morning.
Tibet? Peaceful? Ha! :-)
You should read about their history before Buddhism came in. No its not recent (Buddhism was introduced hundreds of years ago.), but it's just funny to me that one of the most martial cultural groups are now considered one of the most peaceful.
Anyhoo:
If you know about Tibet's actual history then you know that the Tibetan peasantry were dominated by the ruling Buddhist priest class. Sure it's all well and good to give up everything for the religion if thats what you want, but if you didn't then there wasn't anything you could do about it.
Nowadays many peasant farmers have a picture of Mao next to a picture of the Dalai Lama because "The Lama grants me heaven (in English, somewhat different concept in Tibetan) and Mao gave me land."
Yes I've studied Tibetan history specifically.
If you want to get irate over the absorbtion of differing cultures by what we now call China then you have your work cut out. There are no less than eight languages spoken in China, and dozens of dialects --- the only thing that nominally holds these languages together is that the use the same writing system.
Emperor Qin unified a great number of disparate people, not just the Han. Sure they were Han when he was through with them, but not necessarily before. That map is also overly simplistic, wikipedia's article isn't perfect but its decent enough to start with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Dynasty
You just have to face the fact that China is an alien culture. Yes their human rights abuses need to stop, but if you compare US in the early 1900s when the pace of modernization was wreaking all sorts of social havok with that of modern day China which experienced and is experiencing similar growing pains; China has done a great deal better. Compare Native Americans to Tibetans. Unless you argue that we should return all land stolen from the them by the early Americans (which is a valid argument from a human rights standpoint) then you cannot speak too loudly about the Chinese encroachment into Tibet.
The native Tibetan people get to own their land. They haven't been moved to reservations. Their economy is almost 100% subsidized by the Beijing government. In short, many Tibetans are better off now than they were before 1949.
Chinese space exploration budget: ~US$2B
NASA budget: ~US$16B
China population: 1300M
US population: 295M
1 Chinese Citizen's Share: US$1.54
1 US Citizen's Share: US$54.24
1:35
China GDP per capita: US$5600
US GDP per capita: US$40100
1:7
China GDP: 7.26T
US GDP: 11.75T
"Obsolete equipments"? Have you worked in the NASA building rockets and spyed in the Chinese space agency? When Chinese goverment got something working it's ALWAYS because of a draconian government (so is when something goes terribly wrong). Dude, US government is taking effectively 5 times more than the chinese government for your space program.
"...Mars shot and be done with"? Not before the Republican wins again and they boost the budget by 10 times, not counting the additional number of years.
"a draconian government mandate at the back of its ten millions of poor destitute citizenry". In US, we have Bush and 37M people in poverty.