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China's First Spacewalk
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
The Shenzhou VII flight will feature
China's first-ever space walk, which will be broadcast live with cameras inside and outside the spacecraft.
For the spacewalk, two crew members will go into the spacecraft's vacuum module. One yuhangyuan (astronaut) will carry out the spacewalk; the other is there to monitor the activity and assist in case of an emergency.
Two types of spacesuits — one made in China, the other from Russia — will be carried up on the flight.
It is unclear why China has opted for two different types of spacesuit.
Spaceflight analyst Dr Morris Jones commented that China might want to test the suits against each other. Alternatively, he said, it might not be ready or willing to fly a mission exclusively with its own suits."
...and I can't stand by to let it happen! To arms, people, they're going to censor the IIS's wifi!
before they build a sphere around the earth to keep us inside.
What kinda link is this:
http://science.slashdot.org/ChinawilllaunchitsthirdmannedspacemissioninlateSeptember,state-runnewsagencyXinhuareports.TheShenzhouVIIflightwillfeatureChina
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
Hmm..Well, while I wish the Chinese astronauts the best of luck and hope they get back safely, I doubt that the film is going to be "Live" More likely? A nice safe delay of, oh...a hour to make sure that nothing gets shown that's not supposed to be shown.
China has too much media control to trust something as unpredictable as live TV, especially in a situation where so many things could go wrong.
On that note, good luck! Maybe this'll get us off our asses and back up into space! A little competition never hurt nobody.
I'm just asking myself how they decided which of the two astronauts will have the honor to try the Chinese spacesuit?
I realize that China isn't the moral leaders of the world, but I'm happy to see them playing catch-up when it comes to manned space-flight.
Because, given the way China tends to think, when I see them putting men in space, it makes me think they already have long term plans for trips to the moon, and perhaps even a permanent presence off-planet. And I say, it's about time.
Humans could do much worse than start making the steps to get us off this rock.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
China is fast tracking their progress in space, and they're doing pretty good risk management to get it done. They used Russian experience when designing their capsule system (their spacecraft has a number of big similarities to the Soyuz capsule, very very big similarities, and now they're taking up a backup suit in case a design flaw appears during the test that would affect a rescuer. It's a fine idea and doesn't indicate some big uncertainty about their own design, it shows a clear headed decision to trade a possible nationalistic PR win for a measured, risk aware backup plan that puts the lives of their Taikonauts ahead of the usual spin goals.
I'm not a huge fan of PRC in general, but their space program has been well executed so far. They're making good use of available data while still innovating on their terms instead of having to build everything from scratch.
And they both resulted in failure. Of course, you don't have the luxury of editing the story afterwards to reflect your "success".
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
All nine of you are totally busted for pretending you read the article, since the link doesn't work.
Why does the media use foreign names for astronauts from other countries? We've got cosmonaut and now "yuhangyuan"? That's ridiculous. Is "astronaut" somehow reserved for only US spacefarers? I think this whole thing is a leftover from the cold war, where it was somehow insulting to use the same terminology for Soviet and US astronauts, probably because of the fierce competition.
On another note, if the astronauts don't leave the confines of their ship, and merely evacuate all the air, is that really a "space walk"?
Better known as 318230.
If I were the yuhangyuan on the tether, I'd be yelling "You Hang You On!" like crazy!
Joy luck, gentlemen.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I wonder if at the last second they will replace the astronaut with a better looking one, while still flying the uglier one in a storage compartment to do all the work.
Because the first type of suit doesn't come in child sizes
UTF-8: There and Back Again
America was one of the great nations in the space race. But we are about to be grounded. Again. This time, for 5 years. Why? Because Bush would not allow either NASA OR the airforce to complete the X-33. It sat in a hanger for 6 years and only last year was dismantled. The air force kept asking and cheney said no. Sad that Sick politics is what has grounded America. Even now, We could be up there in 2 years, by having congress and NASA authorize COTS-D as well as have NASA consider alternatives such as Direct. Nuts, simply moving orion or dragon to an eelv would keep us going, and that is doable within 2 years. But politicians and NASA are afraid that it might kill ares I. Personally, I would rather see the I killed and worked started on the IV and V. As long as have multiple launchers (EELVs, Falcon, Tarus), as welled a rated capsule, then we would be ok.
Bush and his admin will go down in history as the worst American presidency.
They are testing the Chinese suit. And, testing with humans is easy if you don't care if the test subject dies.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Russia sold them some things. But it appears that China has a great deal more tech than Russia sold them. In fact, they are showing up with loads of Russian AND American know-how on their crafts.
Since China is such a media-controlling country (apart from other kinds of control), they most likely would film their so-called spacewalk in Bird's Nest Stadium or somewhere similar.
In latest news, NASA returned the sets they borrowed from China in 1969 for their moon walk.
slashdot rocks
Wait... a Chinese guy will be wearing a "Made in Russia" suit?
Man, it's the first time someone will be a live embodiment of an inverted "Soviet Russia" joke.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
When I try to pronounce 'yuhangyuan' it sounds like "You Hang On". I've got a bad feeling about this....
When China starts exploring space and developing new technology for it (not just retracing the USA's pioneering steps), will China publish as much of its results for free consumption by the rest of the world as the USA has? Did Russia ever publish as much as the USA has?
Or will the capitalists just freely subsidize the (ex/) Communists' space industries without getting as much back?
--
make install -not war
Spacewalks are old news these days.
While...
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Been there, done that. If you manage to put a permanently-manned base on the moon or Mars, then I'll be impressed.
let the politicians do the naming and drum-beating. scientists have more important things to do, like making sure they dont turn their first spacewalker into a floating corpse-cicle.
Good people go to bed earlier.
=>the US would benefit more with exploring the Universe than exploding Iraq
Here, I done it for you.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
59th Anniversary of the founding of The Peoples Republic of China Oct 1, 1949. (If weather holds and no saftey glitches.) Originally they were considering tying this into the Olympics, but decided to spread 2008 events out.
They're dealing with human lives. And while China may not have the best rights records, they do realize that on a live broadcast of a spacewalk, if they lose their astronaut it isn't going to go well for them. Given they have the option of sending up extra suits that are well tested, why wouldn't they? (fuel/cost being the answer.)
Fuel/cost concerns versus the visibility of the disaster should make the final solution obvious.
It's the way all the new Wordpress blogs are doing it. Isn't it much easier than some ugly url like http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/08/1212252?
Either you're for the new Apache mod/rewrite enabled Wordpress URLs, or you're against progress! Sort of...
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
We used to call ships that sailed on water "Sailing Ships" and then when we moved to space we now call them "space ships"
The Chinese term for sailing vessel is "Junk" so does that mean they are going to contribute to the whole "Space Junk" problem, by sending out more pieces of Space Junk?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I heard they had to postpone the spacewalk until they found new astronauts... Turns out the ones they already had qualified were under-aged. :-)
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Since the link is messed up, can we just assume that they're doing a Chinese Fire Drill in space? That would be funnier.
China does not supply spacesuits, so only REALLY bad people go into space.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Oh, come one... no one sees the humor in this???
"yuhangyuan (astronaut)"
No doubt pronounced 'You-hang-on'... Funny, but redundant, if you ask me.
-jg
Space Walks You!
A pilot and copilot of a passenger aircraft both eat different meals in case one of them gets sick or whatever and is unable to do their job, at least there will still be the other person who is ok and can continue on. Probably ONE of the reasons why they use two different space suits, in case one fails
What are Chinese astronauts called? Chinonauts?
For a moment I thought it was China's first moonwalk, you know, moonwalk? Get it? Oh, hell.
Moderation +1
30% Funny
40% Flamebait
30% Insightful
Just so you know...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Well, given that it's projected that in about 2-3 years the Americans will no longer have the ability to put someone in space to do anything (unless they rent space from the Russians), I'd say it's a pretty big deal for China to be ready to do this.
Don't underestimate how big of an achievement it actually is to do this. It's a pretty small club.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.