Slashdot Mirror
China Plans Manned Space Mission This Month
jamstar7 writes "From an Associated Press report: 'China will launch three astronauts this month to dock with an orbiting experimental module, and the crew might include its first female space traveler, a government news agency said Saturday. A rocket carrying the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft was moved to a launch pad in China's desert northwest on Saturday for the mid-June flight, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing an space program spokesman. The three-member crew will dock with and live in the Tiangong 1 orbital module launched last year, Xinhua said. The government has not said how long the mission will last.' China, who is not an ISS partner, plans to see if its Shenzhou 9/Long March 2F system can get the job done like the Dragon/Falcon9 system can. They plan on two missions this year to dock with their Tiangong 1 module, which was launched in September 2011. Their eventual plans include building a complete space station by 2020, though one of only about 60 tons, compared to the ISS's 450-ish tons."
USA legal teams develop relationship with patent troll Lodsys. Strategy? Wait for China to succeed in space and then sue their butts off for patent infringement.
They don't want to. They wanted to join the ISS but a certain North American country said "get lost".
If you try to do it with the US, it would never happen. Just ask the Europeans. It's not like they're on great relations with the Russians, the only other country that can put humans into space.
So you're left with the Iranians, North Koreans and a couple of crazy amateur in Denmark.
Sounds like solo is the best approach.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Those damned Canadians and their selfish ways!
You do realise this exact same shit was said about Japan years ago. All they do is copy... not innovate...
China is copying to catch up. Once they catch up they will go shooting past - and all the MBAs, financial instruments and lawyers that the US has wanked away its educational estasblishments and brainpower on producing won't be worth a piss in a wind storm.
China wanted to participate the ISS in 1990s, but China had no money and no technology at that time, and China could learn too much knowledge from participating the ISS at that time, so China was denied participating the ISS project.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
The well-known journalistic suffix of "-ish" is used when quoting figures from Wikipedia, where you cannot be sure of veracity, or using woefully vague units like "ton". Wikipedia gives the mass as "approximately 450,000 kg (990,000 lb)", which is 450 tonnes (a non-SI unit acceptable in SI) or 495 short tons, the unit most commonly called "ton" in the US, 446 long tons, the unit used for the displacement of ships and in the UK. NASA, on the other hand, give the much less massive figure of "861,804 lb (390,908 kilograms)" or 391 tonnes, 431 short tons, or 395 long tons. Both sources approximate conversion from kg to lb, so there are four different figures to choose from even if you ignore the vagueness of "ton." Pick your poison.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I consider this a symptom of a serious, but by no means unique problem with the Chinese space program. Namely, that the leaders responsible for the program are extremely risk adverse. Various governments manifest this problem in various ways. The US government, for example, does a great deal of soul-searching and blame-finding when things go wrong.
Here, China, much as the Soviets did, attempts to hide failure. They don't mind killing people, but they do mind greatly any negative publicity.
Japan is an economic joke!
Japan's GDP per capita is only $4K less a year than the USA and higher than Germany's. Some joke!
An expedition to Mars would need a collaborative effort, going by what it'd take to get there.
Based on what? Fantasy estimates from NASA? My take is that with a cheap, heavy lift launcher (such as Falcon Heavy which is claimed to be able to put 50 metric tons into LEO), we could do an indefinite series of manned missions to Mars (say one to two manned missions to Mars every two years) on what the US pays for the ISS, roughly $2 billion a year. That's a bit too ambitious for private groups (who could do a scaled-down version of this), but easily affordable by a number of government.
I think it's a little sad to think that a figurative dick-waving is what you have to do in order to get anything done, the idea that "haha, we're better than you!" urging us on instead of, "OMG, if we'd all stfu and combine resources, we could be on Mars by such-n-such a year!"
I don't really care, if "peen" is what it takes to go to Mars. Seems good enough a reason for me.
Are you kidding me? The mission was announced in 2002. With the date being narrowed down as time passed. The use of a female astronaut was announced in 2004. Nothing secret about it.
Sigh, here we go again.
You should read the Myth of Japan's Failure --- a great piece on perception vs. reality of Japan's economy. Hopefully, this will clear your misconceptions and not have you spewing forth silly rubbish.
Slashdot, where geeks who do not know or understand economics talk about it, and sound like idiots doing so.