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China To Snap 4 Space Ships Into a Station
hackingbear writes "According to a report by Hong Kong newspaper Mingpao Daily (poor Google translation), quoting the Director of Jiuquan Launch Center, China is set to build a space station by snapping together four spaceships (Shenzhou 7, 8, 9, and 10), to be launched sequentially. Though other reports indicates that taikonauts abroad SZ 7 will return to Earth on September 28, the official said the ship will remain in the orbit to be docked with unmanned Shenzhou 8 and 9. Finally, the manned spaceship Shenzhou 10 will be launched and dock with the other three, completing the space station." A story at Space.com also briefly mentions Shenzhous 8 and 9 (with no mention of number 10), and adds that
China has selected its first spacewalker.
I dunno... I used to build those "snap together" model kits. They really might want to consider going with cement.
I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. I tagged this with "voltron"
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Does anyone else find the practice of using the foreign-language version of "astronaut" a bit annoying? It seems a bit bizarre.
A Chinese astronaut is... an astronaut. A Russian astronaut is... an astronaut. You'll notice that during the Olympics, Chinese athletes were still called "athlete."
Why arbitrarily translate some words into the foreign language?
China doesn't snap space ships together to make a space station, it secretly fits engines to its space station and uses it as a ship and plans to refuel on Europa.
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One feature of the Shenzhou capsule is that the orbit module (which detaches from the reentry module before reentry) can stay in function as a separate spacecraft.
Thus part of Shenzhou 7 will stay in space to form part of the station, and part of it will return the men home.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
They don't. They wanted to, and given that the shuttle replacement is falling behind schedule and relations with Russia are putting access to Soyuz in jeopardy, having an alternative means of getting there would be great. Pity the west had to be petty about it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Sky lab was hurried to put together and the only tragedy was that they couldn't keep it in orbit. I suppose the Chinese attempt will also end in falling from space if they can't figure out how to refuel it and keep it higher in orbit.
They must be talking about leaving the Hab/Orbital module on orbit for SZ7. Since ShenZhou is a modernized Soyuz, it's fairly simple. The pressurized top module has independent RCS thrusters and is designed to act as a satellite after detaching from the descent module. The previous SZ flights have included experiments and observation packages that continued long after crew return - this is a logical extension of that concept. The article refers to SZ7 as a "target vehicle" - guarantee that is referring only to the orbital module.
IIRC, the Chinese were shopping around a "long node" station design a decade ago - this is the operational version of those viewgraphs.
Unless they plan to dock the orbital modules in sequence, one of the vehicles must include a Node - my guess is SZ8 but it could be 9, these are both uncrewed so that helps with the mass of additional docking adapters.
j
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I was reading about the fighter pilot china chose ( http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080916/world/china_space ), and this is crazy ...
A 42-year-old fighter pilot has been chosen to become the first Chinese person to walk in space... Zhai Zhigang, a colonel in the People's Liberation Army...His pressurised spacesuit, which cost up to 100 million yuan (15 million dollars), is largely based on Russian designs and will include two lifelines that will supply oxygen and communications
China is spending millions on space suits and America is spending millions on bailing out big corporations. Strange how that works, huh?
Look. "Astronaut" is Greek. "Cosmonaut" also Greek. "Taikonaut" is dumb.
But it's not the fault of the Chinese. They call their space travelers "Yuhangyuan".
First country to establish a permanent lunar base?
First country to establish a permanent martian colony?
I know where my money is riding.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
following the launch of manned spacecraft "God 7", "God 8" and "God 9" will be unmanned spacecraft, "God 10".
Snapping four gods together to form one orbital god?
Or is this just a bad google translation?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Tibet? Tibet was peanuts. Ditto Iraq.
If we're talking deaths, let's talk about "the great leap forward" or the "cultural revolution." Now we're in the big leagues.
China is spending millions on space suits and America is spending millions on bailing out big corporations. Strange how that works, huh?
Maybe they should spend that to keep people from putting melamine in their food.
What the US has done in Iraq is orders of magnitude worse than what China has done in Tibet.
Has it occurred to you that the parent coward could be against both China's human rights abuses AND the war in Iraq? Why in the world is it okay for China to act like a dick just because you think the US has acted like a dick?
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Instead of wasting all that thrust getting big liquid/airtight tanks into space only to let them fall back down, somebody will use them to expand our spaceborne volume.
Spacestations would be much cheaper if every rocket became an addon, even if they were only useable as liquid storage. Larger air capacity=less crisis when the scrubbers/recyclers fail.
Hell, grew some veggies in them, cut down on the vitamins we have to ship up.
They want their own space station in order to technologically advance their country, and because we told them to piss off when they offered to contribute to the ISS (Which kind of throws the 'international' bit out the window). None of the reasons you suggest have anything to do with it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So they are after their own Mir station, so what? USSR has done that on multiple occasions (put together space capsules into some sort of a space station configuration.) It's just good engineering, but in this case it is not surprising at all, considering that Chinese space industry is sort of regurgitation Russian space industry.
You can't handle the truth.
I know this is Slashdot, but here T properly translated FA. Contents inside [] are mine.
Bad article (it's tautology -- blame the writer) and bad translation (blame me).
Space Lab Planned after Shenzhou-X Launch
Mr. Cui Ji-Jun, director of Jiuquan Space Launch Center, today told the media that the Shenzhou-VIII and -IX spaceships, which are scheduled after this year's manned Shenzhou-VII unit, will both be unmanned. The tenth of the series will again send astronauts into space and snap with an orbiting target. After that, work will be done to construct a space-based laboratory.
According to the Qilu Evening [a Shandon-based newspaper], Mr. Cui said the featured task of Shenzhou-VII will be a spacewalk. Three astronauts will be aboard: one will take the walk out of the ship, another one will assist him in the orbiting unit (of Shenzhou-VII), and the third in the return unit. Cui also explained the reason behind the decision of launching the spaceship at night. [However the news fails to tell what it is:(]
Shenzhou-VIII and -IX, Unmanned
Cui said after Shenzhou-VII gets launched, a Target unit will be sent to space, and later the VIII to X units. Shenzhou-VIII, unmanned, will go after the Target unit and join with it. The IX unit will do the same. Shenzhou-X, piloted by astronauts, will also join with the Target. After this is done, the first task will be the making of a space lab.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Because people, as a whole, are jackasses and morons who don't think, they rationalize.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
It's simply the most logical thing to do. Launching stuff into space is so incredibly expensive that scrapping the stuff or even bringing it back to earth makes absolutely no sense financially. I've never understood why there has not been some prior planning to do this with just about any spacecraft. We'd have had a space city by now and if something broke, it could be ditched after all. Even stuff that's completely useless at the moment could still come in handy later on.
In space useless crap is worth billions, you just have to keep it around long enough to find a use for it. There's more than enough space up there to do that;-)
0x or or snor perron?!
This brings up an interesting point. Fifty years ago, we had a similar view of Japan. That is, that they just made cheap little trinkets, but REAL manufacturing was done in the U.S. Then, almost overnight, they began making extremely good quality automobiles, electronics, optics, etc, and did it at less cost. I think we'll soon see the same pattern with China.
Proverbs 21:19
As the parent pointed out, Chinese, Russians etc.. have their OWN words for "astronaut"... kosmonavt, taikong ren etc... ****naut isn't what they call their own astronauts.
A 'taikonaut' is actually what "English people" (mostly media, I imagine) call a Chinese taikong ren. I would assume translators and english-speaking media do so because languages based on a different alphabet systems are difficult to pronounce and spell phonetically... And while astronaut would be just fine with me, I guess there is some need to supplement 'naut' (which seems to imply 'explorer') with a version of their native word for space.
Personally, I'd like to see the word 'astronaut' used instead of flavor_of_the_month_onaut, because that's what they are in English.. an astronaut. Shame on the translator for making arbitrary, cultural concessions.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Oh no, you are using PPP values! You! You! Gah! ...Why don't people learn!? You use GDP nominal, as in real money, to measure the economic power of different countries.
With GDP nominal the figures are:
In real money terms China has the economic power equaling Germany that has GDP nominal of 3,32 trillion.
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The linked article simply discusses China's gradual but steadily improving manned space programme. It says nothing about what the Chinese call their Astronauts, Tibet, Iraq, or about NASA or the shuttle. Why on earth do you people have to diss any nation that does anything positive be it Chinese, Indian, Russian or European?
To me, it comes across as pure envy that someone else is doing things that you used to consider your own territory.
There is nothing wrong with the American space programme and it has a long and proud tradition, and folks like the ones making the Falcon rocket look to be making space reachable by private people in the future.
So why the pressing need to insult the Chinese?
Similar to Russian spacecraft, the Shenzhou has a separate re-entry module and orbital module (whereas Apollo for example, had a command module which functioned as the both the orbital module and re-entry vehicle). The orbital module is what stays in orbit to become a piece of the space station.
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Skylab actually spent several years in development and was intended to be used for a fairly long term. It was to be kept up by reboosts from the Apollo spacecraft that visited it, so it was possible to keep it in orbit. In fact, NASA was considering using the cancelled fourth manned visit to the station to primarily boost it high enough that it would stay in orbit until the shuttle's planned entry into service in 1979 (which ended up being two years late). However, the limitations of the station, compared to the capabilities of the shuttle (especially with a spacehab module in the payload bay), damage sustained during its launch, and the need for on-orbit maintenance led to those plans being cancelled.
Initial design work on Skylab began in 1966, 7 years before it was launched, as part of the Apollo Applications Program. The original plan was to use the second stage of a Saturn-1B rocket, which was actually the same as the third stage of the Saturn V. Because of the smaller capacity of the Saturn 1B, it would be a fully fueled stage with access points added so the first crew could enter the empty stage in orbit and convert the interior, which only had minimal gear at the time of launch. This was called the "wet lab" configuration.
The limitations and complexity of that approach led to a switch to the Saturn V, launching its converted third stage dry and much more fully outfitted (which they could now afford to do since it was full of cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen), including a large docking module at one end, plus all the necessary life-support gear. A large optical telescope was also attached. Three manned missions ultimately were conducted on board Skylab.
The Chinese should be able to similarly reboost this mini space station and replenish consumables each time they visit. However, this will be a very small station. The total interior volume of four Shenzhou orbital modules is barely more than 10% of the interior volume of Skylab and about 1/3 the size of the Soviet Salyut stations. It will also have limited amounts of consumables and power. It won't afford them a lot of versatility.
Actually, after Japan did it, Taiwan did the same, and they were also considered cheap crap in the beginning. Now they're considered high tech and produce first-class stuff.
Then after Taiwan did it, Korea did it. People used to laugh at Goldstar and their crappy TVs. Then Goldstar changed name to LG and they're one of the market leaders.
So yeah, it's possible that China will do the same, especially considering the pure volume they are producing and how much they're investing in engineering and education.
For what it's worth, we are handing Iraq back to the Iraqis with the pieces sort of bandaged together and a big "oops" for apology. When is China handing Tibet back to the Tibetans? BTW, Iraqi has the freedom to shoot and curse at the Americans and exercise their political muscles in between street mayhem. Is the same true in Tibet? I think you are forgetting one major difference between the more democratic part of the world and the more authoritarian part of the the world. True, both sides make mistakes and inflict costly pain and suffering in the past, in the present, and will most likely do so again in the future. But in the more democratic part of the world, we can discuss our mistakes and do something about it. The same can not be said for the Beijing government.