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China Plans Space Station By 2020
RedEaredSlider writes "China unveiled plans for its own space station, to be completed by 2020, along with a cargo ship to ferry supplies to and from orbit. The fact that the country is proposing one is a sign of the Chinese government's ambitions in space. China is the third nation to launch its own manned rockets into space, sending its first astronaut into orbit in 2003 aboard the Shenzhou 5 rocket. Since then two other manned missions have been launched."
Hopefully the emergence of the Chinese and others (India?) will fuel a new space race, with bigger ambitions than last time around. Mars maybe?
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
I bet the orbit will take an hour - so they'll be back around as soon as you are hungry again.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Not sure why every news source is banging on about the station being low mass; once the principle of on-orbit assembly is mastered the only real limits to mass are how many modules you choose to launch, and how much fuel you need for a reboost. Getting from 60-tonne station to 400-tonne station is a far smaller step than getting from nothing to a multi-modular station.
The fact China isn't going to build a very large station may indicate firm intentions to go to the Moon. If they are just using this to practice techniques for longer range exploration, there isn't much point making it huge.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Just because China is planning to planning to build something does not mean they will. Remember we we planned to build that super mega particle smasher in Texas? I don't recall that plan working out.
Remember when the US planned to have colonies on the moon by now?
Remember when I planned to marry a super model when I was a teenager? I am sure you can guess how that worked out.
That aside, I hope they do it. It seems the world will only move forward with competition from an "evil" empire.
China first launched an astronaut in orbit eight years ago.
Seven years after the US launched its first astronaut in orbit, they had sent people to the moon.
Look for a video called "China's Ghost Towns" to see how China is inflating their GDP by building cities that no one can afford to live in. It's freaky to see all these empty supermalls and highrise apartment buildings. When China's bubble explodes it's going to be a whole new disaster for the world economy.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Why not? In six months, you will have completely outsourced it to Russia...
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
China is under no obligation to recognize any "oversight committee." Unless you want to go to war with them, I'm pretty sure they, as a sovereign country, can send whatever they damn well please into space.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Who cares if it's militarised or not as long as they don't use it? People kill people, not laser weapons in space!
This is blinging
'Low' Mileage, Great Location...
Isn't "Great Location" one of the problems with the ISS? The orbit was a compromise between what the shuttle was capable of, what the soyuz was capable of, and an orbit not already full of junk? The end result being a fairly crappy orbit for everyone involved?
Perhaps they are waiting for us to finalize our designs for our Back to the Moon missions so that they can finally start building their ships. I doubt they want to replicate our Apollo Era technology at this point.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I'm pretty sure all these products would have been invented/produced even without a manned space program, and on a lower budget.
NASA put a man on the moon 8 years after putting one in orbit.
US spacefarers are astronauts. Russian spacefarers are cosmonauts. Chinese spacefarers are taikonauts.
You do of course realize the stupidity in inventing a new English word for people doing the exact same profession but in a different country? We don't have 100 different terms for scientist either, that's the whole damn point of having your own language. Astronaut is more then acceptable general term for spacefarers from all nations when speaking in English. Not to mention official texts from China when written in English use the term astronaut.
I hope my Chinese made sarcasm detector is just off today, because I'm not sure if that was a joke or not. The crap they sell you is cheap, because frankly you keep buying it and they don't care what you do with it; they aren't investing in you. A space station on the other hand, is something they are interested in investing in, an investment in themselves (or at least an investment in sabre rattling).
Unless Beijing wants to start spewing propaganda that they invented space travel, have had it since the beginning of time, but graciously let the west ungratefully steal it from them, I can think of better places to use my stereotyping.
It probably would be cheaper, for another reason. Both NASA and the ISS are very, very careful with the safety of their astronauts. Everything is triply-redundant or more. Everything has a procedure. Every last bolt is tested and retested, and then tested again by someone else. China, though... well, they'd probably consider their people a bit more expendable. If the rocket crashes, just send up another. Plenty more crew where those came from, and with their media control and non-democratic government they don't have to worry so much about public outrage.
No, the Chinese space program has been formed in the sustainable 'slow but steady progress' mode, rather than the unsustainable 'boom and bust' mode that the US and USSR followed. Their manned launches up to this point haven't really been oriented towards proving anything, like Apollo and Mir, but just as sanity checks to make sure that stuff really did work the way they thought it would. Someone above mentioned that this is part of a 'Plan 921' which started in 1992 and is still continuing. I'm going to have to check out now. That's one of the advantages of a stable political system, the ability to carry out a multi-decade or even multi-generational program. Our governmental/societal attention span is far too short for that.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The question shouldn't be one of how quickly it was done, but rather how cost effectively was it done and how long was the technology viable for? The US has consistently thrown money at space projects that are short term, expensive jaunts and called them successes.
An American physicist named Gerard K. O'Neill explored ways to boot strap an in-space economy and the notion is sometimes referred to as The High Frontier. A permanent presence in space, and an in-space industrial economy would be useful for many things.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
We can not compare them. SpaceX has put up a capsule and returned it with only 7 years worth of work. They will in the next year or so, put up a rocket that will be 2.5 x the size of what China has done for the last 45 years. China has said that they can not approach the costs that SpaceX has. Bigelow will have a space station started in 3 years.
So, yeah, you are right. We should not compare CHina to America. It is not fair to China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
the future of space is commercial there is no point if we can't make money
words entrenched from a broke government with the wrong focus. If china starts a new space-race, expect America to go the way of the soviets, they are already almost broke to the point of collapse.
A space station on the other hand, is something they are interested in investing in, an investment in themselves (or at least an investment in sabre rattling).
I hope they do a better job with their space station than they did with their high speed rail system.
True, the US sent men to the moon a few years after their first manned space flight. But, was it sustainable? Did the US followed through with a moon base and all that 2001 Space Odyssey dreams? Maybe the Chinese had studied the history of space exploration and decided not to repeat the US mistakes. Maybe they have a longer term and more sustainable plan for space exploration. You have to remember, the Chinese have more than 4000 years of advanced civilization behind them. This tends to make them more farsighted don't you think?