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."

Comments

State run media?

[Tom90deg]

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.

Re:State run media?

[oodaloop]

A little competition never hurt nobody.

Except the loser.

Good...

[interactive_civilian]

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.

Re:Good...

[damburger]

Catch up? I would say that Shenzhou is at least comparable with other manned space flight systems. The shuttle is on its last legs and crippled with problems. Soyuz is also due to be retired.

As essentially a larger version of Soyuz, with an orbital module that can operate indepedently. The program might not be moving fast (although now the Chinese have finished with the olympics they might redirect more resources) they do have the most technically impressive craft currently flying.

Re:Good...

[inhuman_4]

I am afraid I must disagree. The Shenzhou is certianly newer, and probably better then the Soyuz. But it is far from the most impresive.

The big deal with the Space Shuttle is that it can carry seven people, a large chunk of cago, and the shuttle can be re-used (although not as well as was planned). It may be near the end of its life span, but as far as capabilities go it is still the best the world has.

For the Soyuz is claim to fame is its consistancy. The Soyuz design is the most tested manned flight system out there. So while yes it may be old and crappy, its got a solid reputation. Not to mention that it is cheap, and fast to launch.

Give the Shenzhou another decade and it could replace the Soyuz as the cheap way to get to space, but the Shuttle is still the king in terms of capabilities.

Re:Good...

[damburger]

The ability to carry up cargo and passengers isn't that impressive when you look at the costs. Putting up the same quantity of people and cargo with 2 Soyuz launches and one Proton costs $180 million whilst a Shuttle launch costs over $400 million.

Reusability isn't all its cracked up to be for the Shuttle. It has made it more expensive than throw-away alternatives, and the thing has to be practically rebuilt every flight as well.

The only capability the Shuttle has which the Russian launchers do not is returning cargo, and that hasn't been used in a while.

Re:Good...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

A permanent moonbase is like the war in Iraq: Sure, some profit off it but essentially you are throwing money away.

Yeah, just like the war in Iraq, except without the part about, you know, killing people.

The US is still a very rich country (not, granted, as rich relative to the rest of the world as we were in the 1960s, but still) and we can afford to do things that don't show an immediate profit. Speaking as someone who has seen war up close and personal -- and whose father was one of the people who made the moon landings happen -- I'd much rather have us spending money on space exploration than on wars of aggression.

Nine comments...

[tgd]

All nine of you are totally busted for pretending you read the article, since the link doesn't work.

Re:Smart testing

[v1]

From the sound of it, this "vacuum module" is there so they can evacuate it slowly and check for leaks, and if a problem happens, re-pressurize it quickly. That's safer for lots of reasons. Firstly, you don't need to get the guinea pig back IN the ship before you can begin to re-pressurize them. Secondly no risk of a hose splitting and causing them to rocket away from the ship. (and break a tether)

The use of two suits is a good plan also. I'd expect them to have two people in the vacuum module, one in the russian suit and one in their new suit. If there's an emergency with the new suit, having someone in the module to help could make all the difference.

Does make me wonder though how much ground testing they've done. One would assume they've done a lot of vacuum testing on the ground already, but they sure are going about this slowly despite that. They should already know if their suit is OK before flying it up into space. The lack of gravity seems unlikely to change the behavior of the suit.