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Shenzhou 9 Sparks Renewed Debate On Space Race With China
MarkWhittington writes "With the flight of the Shenzhou 9, which includes the first docking between a Chinese spacecraft and a prototype space station module, a renewed debate has arisen over the implications of Chinese space feats. China is planning a large space station by the end of this decade. It has expressed the desire to land people on the moon sometime in the next decade. Scientists, foreign policy experts and journalists debate whether China has supplanted the U.S. as a space power and whether that matters. 'In reality, the implications of China's move could be a much cooler third option: a new space race between the Chinese government and U.S. startups. While China is 50 years behind the U.S. government, they are much more comparable to U.S. companies. It was only a couple of weeks ago that SpaceX made history by becoming the first private company to successfully dock a space module to a station in orbit. This means they are roughly 10-15 years behind the Chinese government, but they could gain fast.'"
The United States of America objected, and barred the Chinese from ever stepping into the ISS
I was about to put a "[citation needed]".
Then, changed my mind and went after the info myself (is posting it "karma whoring"?)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
We can't get people to Mars economically or technologically even. Anyone you send will just die from a number of factors including exposure to solar radiation, micrometeorites, lack of gravity, and we can't physically take enough oxygen, food, and water there and back. Plus, if anything else were to happen, they'd be dead too because nobody could reach them in time to help them. It's a fool's journey.
What gets me is, the article claims the Chinese are going to build a 'big space station'. Actually, the current plans are to have a 60 ton station in orbit by 2020. The ISS, on the other tentacle, weighs approximately 450 tons.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Seriously?
Futurama.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Communism: * No capital (private, or state) -> Russia has state, has private capital. -> Russia isn't communist.
* No market (state planned or unregulated) -> Russia has a partially regulated market as most of modern capitalist countries, including the USA. -> Russia isn't communist.
* Private property (under private or institutional control) -> Russia has all the protection for private property, the right to buy, the right to sell, with the obvious exception (as in market regulation). Russia isn't communist.
* Wage work -> Vast majority of people in Russia are working for wage, for a minority that owns all the means of production (capitalist). -> Russia is definitely capitalist.
* Government and the state exist: No capital and private property could exist without a central (national) enforcement. -> Russia has a strong, nationalistic, government which upholds a law for the rich, bash the poor. In Russia there's also a widespread, highly organized criminal secondary rule, for the same reason.
* Capitalists are making profit, while the working class is exploited. -> While this is true all over the world, in Russia, due to the corruption of the state, many health and safety regulation is circumvented, and unions are threatened by criminal organizations, resulting one of the most unregulated capitalism in the world. -> Russia isn't just capitalist, but the social consequences of barely regulated exploitation are devastating.
Any question to elaborate further?
Elon Musk started SpaceX because he wants mankind to be a multi-planet species. He's not an idiot and wants to be profitable, but he is willing to sink a lot of that profit into doing something historic and necessary for our survival. It goes against every grain of my being to think someone is really willing to put his money where his mouth is, but it seem Elon Musk might be the exception that proves mankind's greed.
An important change for education.