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China Reveals Its Space Plans Up To 2016
PolygamousRanchKid writes "China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum. China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in space technology and experience. The country will continue exploring the moon using probes, start gathering samples of the moon's surface, and 'push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun.' Some elements of China's program, notably the firing of a ground-based missile into one of its dead satellites four years ago, have alarmed American officials and others who say such moves could set off a race to militarize space. That the program is run by the military has made the U.S. reluctant to cooperate with China in space, even though the latter insists its program is purely for peaceful ends."
At this rate, if we want Star Trek to remain at all within the thinnest stretches of credibility, the next reboot of the series will have the Enterprise captained by Sulu and Kirk will be pitching manure in Iowa.
From TFA:
China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time
NASA went from the first manned spaceflight to walking on the moon in around seven years. China first flew a manned spaceflight eight years ago; what major breakthroughs have they made in comparison?
Feels odd to be living through the prequel to a Vernor Vinge novel....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky
we should start nuking nascar events. biggest concentration of retard mutants I can think of.
The private sector may be about to take the space torch and run with it. In which case, they'll soon outdistance every govt, whether American, Chinese, or otherwise.
Because the world needs mutant hillbillies running around...
Just to correct, but it was the research team led by Carle Pieters of Brown University which discovered water on the Moon, using the M3 instrument on the Indian-launched Chandrayaan-1 space probe.
NASA just followed up with a bunch of announcements after the fact, to drown out that landmark announcement with their own also-ran announcements.
Well at least one of the American funded (Walmart shoppers, etc) space programs has a plan. Too bad its not the US based one.
Sorry, not even going to post this anonymously.
Whatever you think of how China's gov't works. No matter the motivations. How is this anything other than an overall good thing? Seriously? We have a space agency in the world right now with both the government funding, the will and potentially the skills to advance manned spaceflight again!
Worse case scenario, things don't work out and remain as they are(not counting deaths here since that's always a possibility with these and NASA as well as the Russians have had their fair share).
Best case scenario: They pull off something here and either succeed or encourage this awesome spirit of competition we've been sorely lacking since the Soviet Union and the US fought over the moon.
Please, keep your racist, xenophobic, nationalist or just plain ignorant bile to yourselves and enjoy what MOST people who admire the stars have been wishing for for a very long time: a renewed interest in space travel.
Depends on which Star Trek you watch (John Cho, Sulu in the new Star Trek, is from Seoul).
hey, how come i can't get no tang round here?
"China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes weaponization or any arms race in outer space," Thursday's white paper states.
And yet, ppl will ignore the fact that this SAME PEACEFUL SPACE PROGRAM shot a sat out of the sky.
But even this article missed some interesting points by China. The Chinese government on Thursday (Dec. 29) issued a broad statement on its five-year space program, saying top priorities include developing three new launch vehicles — including a rapid-response launch system —
Basically, they want their civilian launch system to be able to launch on short notice. The west's DOD units want that as well. But none of the civilians systems make that a priority.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It'll be the same cramped tin can with not very much useful going on. Sure, many papers will be published, a few billionaires will get their equivalent of a "billionaire merit badge" to show off to their millionaire friends.
Get over it, geeks. China is re-living our past. Let them. The future is all about energy, adapting to our new expensive-energy future (you don't think we'll ever see the Concorde again, do you?). It's also about bio-tech and the thousands of little things we'll be discovering about biology.
Space? It's dead. It's nothing but a cargo cult now.
The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress.
The second problem is that you fail to comprehend that the amount of money required isn't a drop in the bucket, it's the evaporation off a drop in the bucket.
Your scenario isn't so much 'contrived' as it is 'a drug addled hallucination'.
Other than the considerations of zero gravity environmental safety, radiation protection, and atmospheric preservation, I can't think of anything special about "space technology." Sound engineering practices and safety standards come from long established research and experience and are applied to space exploration by NASA and others.
It seems trite, but even rocket science isn't rocket science any more. The nations have shared too much data and information for anyone to really be starting from scratch.
China has some pretty aggressive schedules tabled. It's interesting how much more can be done by a government which supports a space program than one that lets the bean counters cut such budgets. But it's not surprising -- China has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to tackle huge long term projects that would never even get approved in the US or Canada over the bleating of NIMBYs and environmentalists.
It's a subtle difference, but Chinese society has always emphasized the importance of the nation over the rights of an individual. I realize it's shocking to North Americans, but the Chinese immigrants and exchange workers I've talked with over the years think it's a good idea for the government to restrict the activities of protesters to quell dissent and social unrest. Most seem to consider it an honour to make a personal sacrifice in support of a big government program, rather than doing their best to stop the government from proceeding because it would inconvenience them.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's always plans of what China will do after 10 years, 20 years, 100 years. China seems a lot bigger on plans and intentions than on things it's doing right now. It's like the hunter bragging how much game he's going to kill, or a fisherman saying he'll catch the entire lake. Well, I say why don't we wait untill after you've come back and see what you've got. Let's not put the oil in the frying pan while the bird's still in the forest.
The largest problem with the Chinese space program is mainly one of operational tempo. Other countries; notably Russia and even America.... if you consider commercial enterprises like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and other endeavors; are launching vehicles on a regular basis. The Soyuz rocket is flying at a rate of about one launch per month, and in the case of Virgin Galactic they are hoping for weekly flights when they get going. Contrast that to the Chinese who are launching one of their manned spaceflight rockets about once every year or two. When the Space Shuttle was being flown, it was at least flying at the rate of about 4-6 flights per year, with as many as eight in one year.
The reason why this matters is because you need to have people who are doing this kind of stuff the ability to practice their craft. Yes, rehearsals and "dry runs" are useful in some situations, but until you actually do it you won't really know what is going to be needed. Simulations can't substitute for the real thing, and without actually getting stuff done you won't know if your ideas will work or not.
I'm not saying that it is impossible for China to catch up or to even become a major spacefaring nation, but at the moment they aren't showing the commitment necessary to really pull it off. I see a whole bunch of press releases coming from China like this which can be used as a sort of "Red Menace" to try and scare people into action, but until the Chinese government stops flapping their jaws and decides to fund a real space program, I will continue to be underwhelmed by their capabilities. The current flight rate and operational tempo of their space program is soon going to be hitting the hard cold reality of physics that doesn't care about political philosophies or what the will of the "great leader" wants to have happen. Ultimately that means a commitment of a large amount of money and manpower to see that it happens.
By far and away I'm more impressed with the European spaceflight efforts, and I think it will be European countries that are ultimately going to be the real challengers to American and Russian efforts in space. No, I'm not talking just ESA (which is pretty impressive in its own right), but much of the commercial activity in Europe doing things in a very European way where I think more than a couple of those efforts are going to succeed. China might make it to the Moon before Europe, but I wouldn't count out a bunch of crazy Danes from making the trip to Mars before anybody else.
I guess ultimately the issue is an open society that is willing to tolerate a little bit of risk and let its citizens try new and crazy things. China is following the rocketry development cycle that America and Russia did in the Cold War and are trying to duplicate those efforts. Sadly, that is the most expensive and least productive way to get things done. Perhaps China will discover that for themselves, but I wonder how many Yuan are going to be dumped into that effort before they finally notice?
"The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress." -> Ad Hominem attack which fails to address my point. Anything flying under the guise of national security these days gets allocated a nice fat budget. Any regular /.er wouldn't have noticed the TSA article not a few posts earlier that despite massive amounts of negative press and a huge infringement on civil liberties, the TSA got everything they wanted from Congress, and more.
"The second problem is that you fail to comprehend that the amount of money required isn't a drop in the bucket, it's the evaporation off a drop in the bucket." -> *Shrugs* I have seen different estimates, when compared to the GDP of the economy at the time, that suggest a second attempt to land on the moon today would bankrupt us. Wikipedia is quoting somewhere around the $40 billion dollar mark, while other places imply that the total cost was much higher. By the way, this is coming from someone who wants to visit other planets. I just don't want to kill what's left of the economy in the process.
"Your scenario isn't so much 'contrived' as it is 'a drug addled hallucination'." -> An another Ad Hominem attack.
Seriously, mods, Score: 0 Troll?
I am John Hurt.
Indeed. While I am not a history major, I have a passing understanding of how a number of the "Great" Civilizations fell, the policies they employed before they fell, and a general idea of where they stood when they were at their best and at their worst. It is by no means a complete understanding, but a careful search for a handful of patterns that always seem to appear in groups, and tend to correlate with that civilization's destruction.
A quick review of Rome implies two different stages of their civilization -> when they received their primary income through trade, and when they received their primary income through conquest. The United States has soured the usage of the dollar as a worldwide reserve currency, which is impacting its value and income through trade. Additionally, we've got quite a bill from the use of military overseas (warranted or otherwise), never-mind some of the things at home. As such, we may be reaching a point where the US cannot be supported primarily through trade, and will result to conquest for its income (if it gets that far, if this derived pattern holds). There is a somewhat popular belief among a small number of people that we are already there.
Me thinks that my earlier comment, with a mere mention of Reagan and a dim view of our printing of currency, has offended someone, as elections are coming up, and they believe they know my ideology / political affiliation. You'll notice the prevalence of ad hominem attacks in the other commentor's reply, which implies they lack any real evidence to counter my points, and are instead attempting to shift focus to my person. ^_^
I am John Hurt.
Manned space missions are a joke. Just a stunt by the flyboys who run NASA out of Houston. The real science is done by unmanded probes from JPL out of Pasadena.
No, that would be the Ruskies.....Phobos-Grunt is due to rain down on us a couple of weeks. Mars-96 dumped 200 grams of plutonium on Boliva and the Kosmos-... spy satellite dumped uranium on Canada
No, it's not an Ad Hominem attack, it's a brutal statement of fact. American's don't give a flying fuck about space, which means it's not going to be identified as "important to national security". Period.
And the same goes for your second program, you've got no clue as to how big our economy (even in it's currently reduced state) is if you think 40 billion is anywhere even *close* to the bankruptcy line.
It's not trolling to point out that you're utterly clueless.
Not much else is interesting that hasn't been done that doesn't require some kind of FTL travel.
There is room for a lot of improvement even in the slower than light spectrum. Currently we are hovering around 1/30000 the speed of light, if we could get that up to maybe 1/2 the speed of light, it would cut travel time to some of the nearest stars down from millennia to decades. Basically bring the nearest stars as "near" as the planets of the solar system, at least for unmanned probes.
Oh, and the other room for improvement is price of course
c) The Americans and the Russians have done the "Satellite, Moon Landing, have something survive to Mars" already. If China wants to impress the world, they need to do something different
If someone came up with a way to sent a Moon or even Mars probe with a budget that perhaps a singe university could afford for a scientific project that would also be pretty impressive, despite having technically been done before.
As long as we all can enjoy the fruits of this labor, who cares, if the russians, chinese, koreans, or americans, make this happen, IT WILL HAPPEN, just make sure to be part of it, so extend the arm of friendship and become a partner already.
Before 1940s most US scientists would do grad school or postdoc in Europe. There was a language requirement in many US grad schools well into the 1970s.
After WWII the US got many immigrant scientists and permanent government S&E funding. They started winning the bulk of Nobel prizes then. And led way in major engineering projects like the space programme.
China may be the dominant S&E country by 2030, if not earlier.
I guess this explains who will employe all those layed off Nasa workers after the space shuttle was scrapped
Yes, it is an Ad Hominem attack: you made various insinuations that I am disconnected from reality, and then, if the previous slur could be considered ambiguous, you went so far as to suggest I had a substance abuse problem, and it was affecting my judgement. You did not, however, attempt to address my argument in a meaningful manner.
Ad Hominem -> "An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it."
Finally, my statement pointed out that while ~$40 billion is the amount quoted by Wikipedia for the cost of the space program, other sources have indicated that the cost, in current dollars and as a measure of our GDP, would be cost prohibitive today -> the cost is much higher than reported. I do not mind the use of Wikipedia in an argument, but its accuracy tends to wax and wane (especially when dealing with numbers) more than other sources.
"It's not trolling to point out that you're utterly clueless." -> but is is trolling to purposefully misread / miss the point of my argument, in order to prolong a discussion and / or elicit an emotional response.
I am John Hurt.
If a space station falls to earth, China didn't fail, Gravity did.
Yes, I have. Twice. So I'll repeat it a third time in the hopes that you'll be sober enough to understand it: Americans do not give a flying fuck about space. Period. It's not going to become a national security priority because, as much as you and idiots like you would like it to be so, it's not 1960 anymore. If you'd been paying the faintest attention over the last twenty years, you'd have figured out that despite repeated announcement of Brave Bold Plans by Russia and China - there's been no panic, no claims to spend megabucks, etc... etc... American's don't care about space spectaculars. It's not 1960 anymore. Grow the fuck up and deal with reality.
No, stating outright what is as plain as the sun in the sky is not an attack. (I.E. as yet more proof of your utter fucking cluelessness you can't even tell the difference between insinuation and something stated as clearly as a boot to the face.)
ROTFLMAO. How many times do I have to respond directly to your argument before it sinks through your skull? The first reply wasn't an attack, but the second and subsequent ones are because you're so fucking ignorant that writing insults is the only thing of interest you provide because your too dense to provide interesting conversation. It's now abundantly clear however that your abysmal ignorance is not a consequence of ill education, but a state you've willingly entered into and remain in. Since you're amusement value is now, nil, I'm done with this conversation.
Was there ever a Chinese character in Star Trek series? I only remember a Korean (Ensign Kim) and Japanese (Sulu).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Kind of sad that a dictatorship where people can be jailed for criticizing the government is doing more in space than the US and that we are dependent on the Russians with a 40 year old design to bring astronauts to the ISS.