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China's New Military Space Stations Coming Soon
WindBourne writes "China will be launching 2 new space stations this next year. One is for their civil program (as run by the military), while the second is openly for the military. It appears that there will be multiples of the military version to be launched in 2010, and that they are developing the same US Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) that was canceled in 1969. In addition, it appears that China is accelerating their timelines on a number of the earlier space announcements."
To what degree is this a novel phenomenon? TFA didn't mention any weapons systems, or anything besides probable surveillance gear and being under the administrative control of the military. That seems pretty much identical to everybody else's use of military satellites. It is interesting that they'd see some value in building two manned stations; but the purpose seems to be pretty similar to what satellites have been used for for decades now.
isn't all their tape red?
Actually, China has been hit worse that most countries, especially the US, and it's just going to keep getting worse. The Chinese government announced that over 7% of all domestic companies went out of business over the last year, and that China is now experiencing deflation. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, deflation is very, very bad, espeicially for a manufacturing-based economy.
That isn't an example of irony at all, unless you are following the "Alanis Morissette" theory whereby anything can be called ironic without consideration of it's actual relevence to irony.
Our trade-deficit has largely funded them (and killed our industrial base as a side-effect). If they turn into a large menace, we largely have ourselves to thank/blame. Blowback Theory is live and well. The belief that doing business with a country creates a democracy has proven to be horsewash. It seems the US creates most of its own monsters.
Table-ized A.I.
That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. When our currency tanked it was an economic nut-punch to China. When our economy tanked it was like a fricking sledgehammer.
China is in a seriously bad situation right now. Their crazy growth has been a calculated attempt to try and build up their economy before their demographics catch up to them: their "all families get 1 kid" bump makes the baby boomers look like a population contraction. They must build up a cushion before those people get too old to work.
This happening right now is about the worst thing imaginable for them. Manufacturing economies are critically reliant on other countries buying their goods, and China cannot afford an economic contraction at this point in their development.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
NOTHING will kick NASA (and Roscosmos) in the ass like some actual competition.
We beat the Soviets to the moon... now, can we get back there before the Chinese?
Of possible interest, the Soviet Union had a number of military space stations. The Almaz project culminated in a Salyut analogue that actually had a 20mm cannon that was test fired in orbit.
In the 1980s, they built the Polyus Space Battlestation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)) which was to be equipped with nuclear mines, a boron field generator, frickin' laser beams, cannons, etc. As part of a last gasp effort to regain relevancy by showing command of the sky, a test battlestation was launched on one of the two Energia boosters that flew. A funny thing happened on the way to orbit, though...
Because of CG issues, the battlestation (about as big as a US space shuttle) was mounted upside down on the booster. Once it separated from the Energia, it was designed to fire a thruster that would turn it 180 degrees, stop rotation, then the final stage would boost this Cyrillic emblazoned death star into orbit.
The Energia booster completed it's cycle, the explosive bolts detonated, and the Polyus slowly pulled away. A thruster at the bottom fired, and the ponderous bulk began to rotate. With steady precision, it rotated 90 degrees, 135 degrees, then finally 180 degrees.... ....and kept rotating. As it completed a _complete_ rotation, the rocket fired again and smartly placed it back in the exact same angle it had been when it started.
The rocket fired as scheduled, but unfortunately for this military menace, the effect was the opposite intended. With typical maniacal mechanical thoroughness, the rocket ran, slowing the station and neatly dropping it into the Indian ocean.
I've heard rumors (for what that's worth) that one of the US Nuclear subs equipped for deep sea salvage just happened to be in the area at the time. If true, that's the goddamndest thing...
Nonetheless, it's interesting to speculate about what might have happened in the end-stages of the Cold War if the Soviets had gained control of the high ground in this fashion.
An aside, a great site for learning more about the military efforts in space during the 60s and 70s is Cold Orbits: http://www.deepcold.com/
Let's say you're a Chinese manufacturer. You buy 100 yuan of raw materials, and you plan to turn them into 100 widgets and sell them in a month for 110 yuan. In the meanwhile, deflation is gripping your country, so while you're running your assembly line, the market price for widgets drops from 1.1 yuan to 0.98 yuan. So now, you have to take a loss on your manufacturing operation. Why would a company even bother in that kind of environment? Answer: they wouldn't - they shut down instead.
This is a pretty fundamental observation of economics, but if you can refute it with something besides "you're a brainwashed sheep," I'd be interested to hear your argument.
Tell that to the Tibetans. Of course, China, like an imperialist state, used some old, and even at the time, dubious claim to seize a sovereign state. So, if you redefine annexations of other territories purely an internal issue, maybe you have a point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
tell the same to vietnam, granada, panama, iraq, afghanistan...
Why, I would have said "tell the same to the Sioux, the Apache, the Comanche, the Pawnee, the Alaska natives," and so on.
It has always puzzled me how some Americans can double-think on such a grand scale when talking about Tibet: almost the entire area of the US was taken by outright theft, swindle or larceny.
At the same time, while China is the evil empire persecuting Tibetans, Israel is "just defending itself". Would be interesting to see how the US public opinion would react if China bombed Tibet the way Israel bombed Gaza, and whether it would be considered that Tibetans actually killed more Chinese of other ethnic groups last year (see Lhasa riots) than Palestinians killed Israelis.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Joss Whedon was on to something when he gave the Firefly characters chinese phrases throughout the show...