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China Completes Its First Manned Space Docking
This AP story, as carried by the Houston Chronicle, says that the Chinese Shenzhou 9 spacecraft (carrying a crew that includes the country's first female astronaut) has successfully docked with an orbiting module, a first for China's manned space program. However, manned mission or not, the actual docking was actually executed from below: as with previous docking maneuvers, "Monday's docking also was completed by remote control from a ground base in China. A manual docking, to carried out by one of the crew members, is scheduled for later in the mission. Two crew members plan to conduct medical tests and experiments inside the module, while the third will remain in the spacecraft."
Now everyone will want to do it
Slow but steady progress since initiating this program in 1992.
With a first Chinese moonwalk estimated for 2024 that is 32 years total (with already 50 years of rocket research in the world to leverage off) ... makes you understand just much the US threw at its lunar programme to manage going from the start of the Mercury program to moonwalk in less than 11 years
Look... I apologize already for the insult, okay? But it isn't entirely undeserved.
Making extensive use of, well, let's say "borrowed" technology -- not to mention the outright theft of some of it -- is hardly equivalent to doing this stuff on your own.
If it's a success, I will be somewhat surprised, and not very inclined to credit them for it.
I know. American scientists were able to get to the Moon without using any technology from any other cultures. Every other country should have to do the same. The Chinese shouldn't even be able to use those rockets we invented thousands of years ago.
(For the sarcastically disabled, I know who invented the rocket)
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...carrying a crew that includes the country's first female astronaut... A manual docking, to carried out by one of the crew members, is scheduled... Two crew members plan to conduct medical tests and experiments...
...giggity.
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Exactly what I was going to post.
In all fairness, it probably has already been done by the Americans and Russians, whether as a secret experiment or a "side experiment" done by the scientists themselves.
I mean, how many people would go all the way to space and not do it given the chance, it would be like doubling what is already the most amazing experience of your life.
I hope an adult entertainment company buys a couple of tickets on a private space flight, for the enjoyment of the rest of us who will never get the chance but are curious to see.
Hmm... Well...
You mean "borrowed" in the sense like the USA did when using the techniques developed in Nazi Germany?
And why should you develop something yourself when the knowledge is available? Most techniques used by the NASA are not especially top-secret as far as I know. So - why spend an big budget on something that's freely available?
I think there is a good chance the first man on Mars will be Chinese. Not because they are that good, but because they slowly bit steadily keep pushing forward, while the USA is stepping down. Anyway by the time of those first manned mars landing, I estimate the biggest budget in the USA will be spend on thousands of lawyers fighting the (around that time completely out-of-control) software patent wars (inside the USA, because outside the USA people are not that stupid).
"They're starving back in China, so finish what you got." is a line from a John Lennon song, when I was a kid that's what mother's told their children when trying to persuade them to eat thier veggies. There were several famines due to Mao's "great leap" the worst of which was without doubt the worst in the 20th century (and perhaps of all time). I was too young to recall that one but I do recall the one in 1969 (the same year Armstrong set foot on the moon).
It's said (by who I don't recall) that China has dragged more people out of poverty in the last 4 decades than the rest of the world combined by simply raising the standard of living for their own people. Having wittnessed (from afar) the scale of the change since the gang of four were booted out in the 70's, I'm inclined to believe that claim.
Que paranoid rants about governments from 20-somethings with cheeto filled stomachs, in...3...2....1
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
She isn't hot by any standard of the word. Well, at least by classical Chinese measures of beauty she's quite ugly. And if the pictures are photoshopped, whoever did it should be sacked. I think it's you who's insecure, and you seem to have a bit of a case of yellow fever, too if you think she's hot.
Making extensive use of, well, let's say "borrowed" technology
Yes, China borrowed from the US space program, which borrowed from the German V2 program, which borrowed from fireworks, which were invented by guess who? That's how civilizations progress, a failure to comprehend that basic fact of life is a failure to comprehend all of human history.
[I'm] not very inclined to credit them for it
That's just sour grapes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Making extensive use of, well, let's say "borrowed" technology -- not to mention the outright theft of some of it -- is hardly equivalent to doing this stuff on your own.
How dare you criticize the US Space Program like this. Admittedly the spoils of war go to the victor and the Nazi Germans can't really complain now about the "theft" of their technology by Americans and Russians now since they were overthrown, but still this is hardly the equivalent of doing stuff on your own. Oh wait - what?
On a more serious note - most progress is nothing but a series of incremental improvements on existing technology. Unless you happen to be an expert on both the US and Chinese space programs and can show me exactly where China copied the US verbatim, the point you are trying to make is completely irrelevant. I'm sure the Chinese rockets are built the Chinese way - with engineering short cuts and differences that make them entirely different and worthy of credit.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No need for inventing new words: crewed.
Well if he meant "hottest" as in most competent, then what did photoshopping have to do with it, and how is it any different from what the US did with Sally Ride? I fail to see how what China is doing is any more of a dickwaving exercise than the US/Soviet space race. In fact, it's probably less of a dickwaving exercise since no matter how fast or slow they go, they aren't aiming for any firsts anyway.
This explains it perfectly: http://www.xkcd.com/984/
It is interesting the Chinese have managed this, though I am not sure how useful this will be. It might have been better to work together with the other parties on the international space station. I was actually suprised that it has taken so long to get the first female into space as China has a rather 50/50 division of the sexes in the engineering field. As a matter of fact, I work in a institute that is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and I think that in my office there are more women than men as far as engineers are concerned.
The experiments that you are talking about were done in "simulated microgravity" using magnetic fields to try and neutralize gravitational influences and other techniques, and not actually flying to experiments in space. The sad fact is that in spite of the fact that there have been several mice sent into space including a couple long-term studies done on the ISS, procreation has not been one of the aspects studied nor has any multi-generational studies been done or even attempted in terms of what might happen in space among placental mammals.
There was a pregnant rat which gave birth successfully to very healthy babies on board the Space Shuttle, but she conceived on the ground and that was a relatively short term study with that flight lasting only two weeks.
I'm sure that a bunch of horny mice could likely figure out how to get their equipment to work in space. I'm just disappointed that nobody has bothered to let them try in the first place. Even worse, I think it will need to be human experiments that will be tried before somebody gets smart and thinks it should be something seriously investigated.
In the end, the only thing you can really conclude is that nobody knows what will happen if you attempt to conceive a baby in space, and that anything you have read on the topic is pure conjecture and speculation not based upon any actual science on the topic. That is the reason some long term space mission planning such as sending people to Mars includes ideas like sterilization of the spaceflight participants, because of sheer ignorance about the topic and the mission planners simply don't want to even think about the potential of astronauts creating additional passengers that will show up on the manifest for the return flight.
The US didn't just used techniques developed in Nazi Germany. They had Nazis from Nazi Germany built the rockets for them. Basically, americans just provided the money and sat back while the Nazis built their freedom rockets.
This is so patently false that I simply must say you are full of it.
Yes, there were many of the rocket engineers who worked on the V-2 rockets of Nazi Germany which were hired by the U.S. Army Ordinance Command at the conclusion of World War II (through something called Operational Paperclip). Their contribution and experience was vital for developing the early ICBMs and rockets that later were developed by NASA as well as the U.S. Air Force.
All this said, it is ignoring the contribution and hard work by thousands of engineers and aerospace workers who helped to contribute to the development of American spaceflight. There is no way that the "Nazis" could have built all of this stuff without the insight and extremely hard work by ordinary Americans. Yes, they learned a whole lot from the German scientists, but this is gross oversimplification of what actually happened and is frankly insulting too.
> And they stole all our rocket secrets in the 90's.
Says an American - from a country whose most used rocket is running on a Russian RD-180 engine.
Ho Lee Crap, how off Earth did you miss the nearly automatic Goodwin play on that hand?!!!!
Here, it's not hard :
Says an American - from a country whose moon program was built by all the best repatriated NAZI rocket scientists.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Admittedly the spoils of war go to the victor and the Nazi Germans can't really complain now about the "theft" of their technology"
Almost everybody who keeps mentioning "Nazi" technology here has missed a couple of very large points:
(A) The V2 rocket was a failure. Yes, some of them hit England and caused havoc. But more than half of them didn't. Many exploded en route, and less than half actually hit near their targets.
(B) We did not "steal" that Nazi technology, we bought it, after the war. Von Braun was in the U.S., and other German engineers were contracted. They were neither enslaved, or robbed.
(C) The Germans got most of that technology from us in the first place. They made some improvements, but this is precisely the kind of "incremental improvement" you refer to.
But having said that:
"... most progress is nothing but a series of incremental improvements on existing technology."
True. But manned space exploration was an exception. Most of the technology was invented wholesale, independently, in the U.S. and Soviet Union. (I'm not just talking rocket engines.) Other countries honestly didn't contribute much, until AFTER it was a done deal.
So the same argument can be used for China then. They sent their kids over her to be educated and what do you know, they paid attention in class and the asian kid always got the good grades in Engineering and Physics and now they have their own universities and departments and can build their own stuff. They "bought" the technology too. Or is it just so easy to sneak into NASA and start copying everything verbatim? But wait, how would a spy in NASA explain the advances in Chinese heavy industry? Did the NASA spies also steal plans to build high speed railroads, like the ones in use all over the US? How about the Chinese semiconductor industry? Did they get that from NASA too? Or are you trying to say there are Chinese spies everywhere?
Or maybe, just maybe, the Chinese aren't as dumb as you think they are by refusing to give them any credit. After all it's much easier to throw R&D dollars towards something you already know is possible especially when those R&D dollars go much further thanks to wage differences and (lack of) environmental laws. And when you have an economy the size of China's, growing at the rate which China's is, you have plenty of money to spend.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.