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Chinese Astronauts Complete First Spacewalk
As_I_Please writes "At 8:40AM (GMT) this morning, Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang successfully spent 18 minutes in a tethered spacewalk outside the spacecraft Shenzhou 7. This is an important step in China's goal of building an orbiting space station and sending astronauts to the moon."
I read about this last week on an English language Chinese news website.
Why are all posts so anti-chinese?
I love democracy and I live in a liberal western democratic country (Sweden), but I do not at all understand why all posts have to be so negative.
Lets critisize china when they do something bad. When they do something good like this, lets congratulate them! This is a great step forward, not only for china, but for all of humankind.
I honestly believe that China will be the space super-power during the 21st century and the faster they get there the better for ALL OF US - EVEN AMERICANS!
So lets just cheer and celebrate this success! Congratulate the astronauts and engineers that made this possible. It is impressive and it is a fantastic work no matter if you are a russian, american or chinese.
Hopefully China will make a real push for space forcing the US to get off its arse in regard to the final frontier...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
...your local Walmart.
The point is that they are building their space program. You have to consider Asian, and especially East Asian thinking. They aren't like the west with its "profit immediately or forget about it" thinking. When I see China putting men into space (the third country to do so after Soviet Russia and then the USA) and now doing space walks, that means they already have a long term plan to set up semi-permanent if not permanent colonies in orbit or on other celestial bodies.
See, they are not in a space race. They are doing this for their more distant future. When they do something like this, they aren't thinking of the next quarter's profits or even the next year's. They are thinking in terms of the next generation or the generation after.
And, I applaud them for it. It is nice to see homo sapiens thinking long term about getting off this pale blue dot of ours, and not only thinking about it but taking active steps towards such a goal. I couldn't care less what language they are speaking or what country they are from. They are humans and they are making the effort that others seem to have given up on. Power to them.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I think it's something about announcing launches, with detailed transcripts of conversations, before they happen.
If I am remembering correctly a news outlet in China published "accidentally," the story with a conversation transcript. While it is possible that that was exactly what was going to be published following the launch/spacewalk it could well have been a "template" for the real story to be published after the launch. China likes to script and practice things with meticulous detail prior to the actual "public" event. They're trying to prove to the world and themselves that they are worthy of attention as a global powerhouse and it starts for them by putting their best foot forward. They don't want mistakes and/or embarassments and this is their way of mitigating it.
These folks have done in 10 years what has taken over 100 in the US in terms of industrialization and economics. Cut them a bit of slack... I'm grateful to the Chinese for their pursuit of space exploration. It provides healthy competition that has been lacking since the fall of the USSR. It may well be what is needed to get the money flowing back into NASA and instead of the likes of Blackwater and DoD more generally. Even if there's a bit of exageration--which may or may not be the case--it isn't as if we weren't doing the same thing to the Russians with our own space program.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Riiiiight. Because putting melamine in milk powder and antifreeze in toothpaste isn't about immediate profits, it's a long-term strategy for building a trusted brand.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
The Bush administration did fake the Iraq war to scare Americans into voting Democratic. I am so sick of these liberal ploys to take over the white house.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
china faked a spacewalk and the US faked a moonlanding, US still ahead
Nothing to see here...
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity!
i think most people recognize that. it's a pretty ethnocentric attitude to think that only the U.S. can conduct legitimate space research and everything China does must have an ulterior motive behind it. of course, if you see China as the enemy, then you can't concede to the fact that they might be genuinely interested in space exploration or recognize any achievements by the Chinese people.
it's really saying that we can be proud of our own space program, but China can't be proud of theirs. frankly, i think the more countries venture into space, the closer humanity as a whole gets to the possibility of space colonization. so who cares what flag is sewn onto their uniform? the are far worse things to spend time and resources on than space exploration.
I am seeing a lot of uninformed, and often racist, sentiment regarding this. Here are the facts.
1. This is not a Russian capsule. The three module shape is dictated by the principles of capsule design in general, not by China simply buying a set of blueprints
2. They are not moving that slowly, they are simply being economical with the number of missions they fly. It took Russia and the US 4 years to get from men in space to spacewalks, it has taken China 5 years.
3. Their spending money on this whilst there are *gasp* still poor people on China is not something that can be criticised from a country bailing out wall street whilst letting the poor rot. At least Chinese people will eventually benefit from space technology. Who will benefit from bankers being insulated from the consequences of their actions? Everywhere has inequality. No reason to crucify China specifically for it.
4. Shenzhou is the most technologically advanced manned spacecraft flying. The Shuttle has more capability but it is nearing the end of its life and when it retires, Americans better get used to play to second fiddle to China for a while.
5. Being racist makes you a dick. Chinese people are just as capable of this as you are.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?