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Space Race Heats Up in Asia
SushiVSYamcha writes with a link to an article on the Seattle Times site, discussing the newly-heated Asian space race. Following Russia and the US into orbit are the nations of Japan and China, now struggling to one-up the other in a competition for scientific and national pride. The piece covers Japan's new initiative to catch up to the Chinese program, as well as some history of the competition "China launched its first manned space flight in 2003. A second mission in 2005 put two astronauts into orbit for a week, and a third manned launch is planned for next year. This year, China also plans to launch a probe that will orbit the moon. Earlier this month, the country launched a Long March 3-A rocket that sent a navigation satellite into orbit as part of its effort to build a global positioning system. The satellite is the fourth China has launched as part of the Compass navigation system, which is expected to be operational in 2008."
NASA has the capability NOW to send a manned mission to Mars. We have the necessary technology.
Estimated Cost of a Manned Mission to Mars: $75b
Cost of 1 year in Iraq (not including interest, long term costs): $100b
If America wants to be taken seriously I highly recommend that they restore confidence in their own scientific programs.
China's too busy taking our money to want to nuke us.
Now if we go bankrupt, then we'd have something to worry about.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
In historic terms, spending may be down since that great space race and cold war and all that, but it would be hard to say any government cares more about space than ours. The shuttle may have been a colossal waste, and the Hubble isn't worth giving up for the space station, but we have men in space, and we continue to put man in space.
I'd even venture to say our Mars pipedreams are closer to reality than anything Asia is actually doing. Give them a couple of years to decades and maybe we can talk. And what's wrong with an Asian space race? Sounds like all mankind can benefit from the results with less strain to our taxpayers. I'm not advocating less NASA spending, I'm just saying other governments throwing in their chips isn't necessarily bad for us. We need more choices of governments and private industry that can get man and materials into space. Heck, maybe the real space race hasn't even started yet. Maybe history will see the cold-war space race as a prelude to the real global space race that lead to actual markets and residents of space.
Do not forget India, although they seem to be falling behind.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
They are draining us of jobs and money. But that is because they have fiexed their money to ours rather than allowing it to float free. The amazing thing is that W. is now speaking up about piracy (mostly of software), which does NOTHING for us. If he really wants to fix things, then he would have pushed against the fixing of the monies. He is just offering up an election deal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Both China and Japan have a LOT of catching up to do. China's space program is arguably at the Mercury/Gemini stage, although they have far less hours in space than either of those programs had. How many space walks have they done? How many docking maneuvers? How about a reusable space craft? It will be hard for either one to go to the moon soon, and so long as the US continues to fund the NASA at current levels, we will continue to outpace them. Our next ship is going to be more advanced than even the shuttle was, and will be capable of a Moon mission - perhaps even a Mars mission.
What is far more interesting to think about is the parallels with early continental exploration... I mean, Columbus comes to America in 1492, and serious colonization takes much longer than that. Almost a hundred years goes by before even the start of real, multinational colonization of the New World... And the differences are interesting. One can argue that those explorers had an easier time of it because they didn't have to bring all of their food, water, and air with them. OTOH, they often met hostile natives along the way, and many colonies were wiped out before they could be self sufficient. No one seriously thinks we are going to meet hostiles along the way in space exploration, but the obstacles are formidable.
At the end of the day, real colonization won't take place until there is a more compelling reason than just science to do it. Continental colonization didn't take hold until there were private companies of people doing it for profit. The same will likely prove true for space exploration.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
The US can't prohibit a superior economic power from becoming a superior military or space power. China is on track to pass the US in GDP at some point in the next 50 years.
Arguably, the US has already let other countries achieve automotive superiority. Rail system superiority. Internet access superiority. Health care superiority. Manufacturing superiority. Judging by the way the US is spending its taxpayer dollars primarily on the military, I think that would be the one thing it would be reluctant to give up. We only entered the space race in the 50s and 60s because at the time it seemed like that would be the next military front.
Now that all these 'scientists' with their 'peaceful exploration' want to go to space, we somehow conveniently don't have the money. In time, as space becomes militarised, we will develop a huge presence there. Until then, consider private companies to be the primary development resource.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
A frequently occurring debate I have is with the question whether or not we should have space-exploration (and as a subset: human vs. robotic space exploration). This involves the "we should spend the money on other things, like combating worldhunger"-arguments, as the more subtile arguments which is better: human or robotic exploration.
;-)
I have pondered a long time about this, and this is my conclusion:
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particular human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.
But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrow-minded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.
If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner
Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognize other incentives apart from economical ones.
And the reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonize with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.
A species that doesn't colonize new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their spirit of adventure and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.
So, to to all the people saying we don't *need* space-exploration (human or otherwise); we don't *need* the pyramids neither, nor all those great buildings and artworks, nor any luxury, etc. The only thing we 'need' is food and shelter. Based on what we truly 'need' thus, we should go back living like cavemen. But of course, we don't, and the reason is that we, as humans, look beyond our immediate needs and have (and should have) grander visions.
So, economics (and also the ratio of costs/science output) is often less good with human space-travel then robotic ones. Contrary to some zealots, I do not dispute that. But, as I have indicated, I do not think one should measure everything in terms of economic benefits. Even if you could send a hundred, or a thousand robots for the price of one human mission, it still would not change the fact that robots can't colonize planets, and augment the survival chances of the human race (and earths' ecology) through interplanetary spreading.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I think that spacex is a bit behind, but not terribly. The fact that they have done 2 shots and have gotten it most of the way on the 2'nd shot is pretty impressive. But I would rather see them do a third launch before attempting to send another payload. But I think that they will launch again BEFORE the end of the year. As it is, they have falcon 9 first stage built and ready to go. But the truth is that falcon 9 (even heavy) is not what will take us to Mars. We are going to need the BFR that they have already started on.
I am hopeful that Scaled Composites will come out with more than they are letting on. It seems to me that if they build the new SS2 to handle true space, then all that is needed is a liquid or solid booster to push it the rest of the way.
Finally, the new space stations coming from Bigelow looked interesting; a triad making use of 2 nautilus and one galaxy. It seems that looking at it, that it would make a NICE way to travel to mars. It would behove NASA to do a COTs thing with them and push to get a nautilus hooked up to the ISS. Even if they paid 100 million for it, it strikes me as a bargain.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.