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."

Comments

The final frontier

[SJHillman]

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.

Re:The final frontier

[EdIII]

Welll..... if it is going to be captained by Sulu I think the love scenes are going to turn out a bit differently.....

Re:The final frontier

[SteveFoerster]

Well, except that Sulu is Japanese.

Re:The final frontier

[Brett Buck]

Oh Myyyyy....

Re:The final frontier

[murdocj]

Right. 50 years ago we were landing rovers on Mars. 50 years ago we had orbiters around Saturn and Mercury. 50 years ago we were sending a probe to Pluto. 50 years ago we had two spacecraft entering interstellar space. 50 years ago we had landed on an asteroid.

The December Scientific American outlines a step by step program that makes small, incremental increases in our capability that eventually get us to Mars. Unlike the "invest tons of money and build a huge rocket" approach, this gradually increases our capability within our means to pay for it, so at no point are we going to lose ground, unlike the Apollo program where once the massive funding dried up, we were done.

Uh, yeah

[0123456]

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?

Re:Uh, yeah

[YrWrstNtmr]

However, what all has NASA done since then? :)

More than what China has done before or since? Not denigrating the Chinese efforts, but NASA hasn't exactly been sitting on their hands. How many Mars probes, Lunar orbits, or comet flybys has the Chinese space agency done?

Re:Uh, yeah

[youn]

Not denigrating Nasa efforts... discovery of water on the moon is awesome... can't wait for curiosity to land... but china is definitely moving forward for MANNED exploration... while the world is in a recession. When they announced they wanted 10 space stations in orbit (not a typo), i thought they were mad... now, I am thinking... hey it might not have been such a crazy announcement after all... all that because they were not allowed to participate in the ISS.

It actually may be a good thing for Nasa too... because soon china space program will increasingly be doing more interesting stuff, there may be a new space race and therefore an incentive to increase the budget.

The problem with Nasa is so many awesome projects get canceled every new election as its direction changes... and they keep reinventing the wheel... stalling the space program, wasting resources.

Re:Uh, yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

They're making breakthroughs in THEIR space program, not in ours. Yes, for us it just looks like catch-up, and it is. But they have to start somewhere, and the point is that they are catching up very quickly while we seem to be going nowhere.

Case in point: NASA's 2010 budget was $19 billion. The Chinese Space Agency's annual budget is estimated by analysts at $1.3 billion. NASA has 14.6 times the funding and yet the technology gap is rapidly closing. China may not be doing things better just yet, but they're certainly doing it faster and cheaper.

Let's also not forget that the cost of the Apollo program was $136 billion, adjusted to 2007 dollars. That's enough to keep the CNSA at current funding for the next 100 years. China is nowhere near committing itself to the level of funding that we needed to put a man on the moon; why would you even make the comparison to Apollo unless you are simply ignorant of context? If they manage to do it on their own terms within the next century, then they would have done it more smartly than we did. Personally, I think they have plenty of breathing room to make it happen, which is not very good news for 'patriotic' types clinging to something that happened over 40 years ago. I remember as a child of the 80s that WWII seemed like ancient history, but at the time it was also only about 40 years past. Does that put things in context? Children of today and tomorrow can't relate at all to the Apollo program. You might as well be talking about the thirteen colonies for all it means to them. Sure they'll see Neil Armstrong on hilariously old tapes, but they'll be seeing the Chinese space program in the here and now, streaming live on the interwebs (okay, with censor delay), something happening within their own lifetimes. No amount of "we got there first" is going to save NASA's reputation. Ford did it first too, and nobody cares now because Honda eventually did it better.

Politically, China has the advantage that it's not involved in a dick-waving contest with some Soviet boogeyman, and instead of racing toward a symbolic goal that serves no tangible purpose, they're slowly and steadily building up a knowledge base to make the space program a sustainable benefit for their society. Instead of figuring how to get to the moon first, they're trying to figure out if the moon can be exploited somehow, and the best way to do so. Their goals are strategic and practical, compared to NASA's which seem to be made up mostly of unspecific ambitions fueled by the academic curiosity to study things far beyond our grasp, and being content to leave them there.

Re:Uh, yeah

[WindBourne]

put together a space shuttle. Put up multiple space stations. Have numerous probes all over the solar system. Landed on 3 different surfaces with multiple probes on 2 of them. Flown a probe OUT of the solar system. Massive telescope in orbit. Have found numerous planets around our galaxy. etc. etc. Have funded multiple private launch systems which will carry cargo and shortly ppl. Got the ISS going with multiple other space organizations. Helped most of these other space organizations to make them a success with the ISS. Likewise, developed the VASIMR, Transhab which were taken private. Did the original nuke engines that are capable of sending us all over the solar system.

But otherwise, nothing much.

Re:Uh, yeah

[cavreader]

Russia and the various allied countries after WW2 all used captured German rocket technology and China has basically purchased all their space related systems from Russia. The best US space based technology today is the X-37 orbital vehicle that can destroy or deploy satellites if necessary. Most of the newest US tech is targeted towards unmanned vehicles because we have reached the level that a human pilots cannot handle. For example the F-22 does not use it's full capabilities because a human pilot can not withstand the experience. Exploring the solar system is a perfect job for unmanned vehicles. If they discovery any thing really interesting a manned mission could be justified. Also the satellite China took out was in very low earth orbit. The really critical satellites are deployed in high orbits.

Re:We should have nuked them 30 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

we should start nuking nascar events. biggest concentration of retard mutants I can think of.

Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA

[WindBourne]

Actually, no. What it did was CONFIRM that it was water. Clementine and Lunar Prospector actually found the water. It was Chandrayaan-1 that confirmed.

American funded space programs ...

[drnb]

Well at least one of the American funded (Walmart shoppers, etc) space programs has a plan. Too bad its not the US based one.

What the hell is wrong with you?

[sabernet]

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.

Re:What the hell is wrong with you?

[sabernet]

a) Repeat after me: China will NOT shoot at the US any time soon. The two nations are connected at the hip economically. They'll continue to play games with each other, for sure. there will be some sabotage, some espionage, some tensions, but China and the USA have the dollar bill version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
b) Both the Russians AND the USA have weapons in space regardless of treaties. How's that World War with Russia going?
c) How much did the USA expand their military budget last year? Or the year before that? Or before that? Heck, when's the last time it DIDN'T? How did that affect the ability of the last space race to allow a man to walk around on the moon?
d) Doesn't the tinfoil hat itch?
e) Given current sentiments(as demonstrated by your post) and the fact that the USA owes all the money, it's technically more likely the USA would act first. but again, see point a) for why this won't happen any time soon.

Re:What is "space technology"?

[msobkow]

Here's a "mil-spec" tidbit for you. Back with my first job at SED Systems in Saskatoon, SK fresh out of university two weeks before I started with them, I was assigned to work on a project delivering to the Canadian military.

We failed a mil-spec inspection because some valves we were shipped were the commercial versions. The difference between the mil-spec and commercial versions? mil-spec meant they were spray painted Canadian military olive green; the commercial version was spray painted black.

We took out the valves, spray painted them green, and put them back. We passed the next inspection.

You wouldn't believe how much extra the company charged to spray paint the valves green instead of black.