China Eager To Send Its Own Mission To Mars In the Wake of Mangalyaan

MarkWhittington writes The recent arrival into Mars orbit of both NASA's MAVEN and India's Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission has not escaped the notice of China. The achievement of its Asian rival has especially proven galling to the Chinese. China has yet to successfully send a space probe beyond the moon. The development has elicited calls in Beijing to accelerate China's Mars program. China currently plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020 and, perhaps, do a Mars sample return mission in 2030. However, it feels that India, which China regards as its rival in an Asian space race, has stolen the spotlight and has left the Chinese behind. China is now keen to try to play catchup with its own Mars mission. One of the hold ups for a Chinese interplanetary exploration program is the delays surrounding the development of the Long March 5 rocket, which will be roughly the equivalent of the America Delta IV in its capabilities. The Chinese launch vehicle unveiling has slipped to at least 2015 because of the technological challenges it faces. The Long March 5 is also needed to launch the 20 ton modules of the Chinese space station, currently planned for later this decade.

Comments

Step one

[Anonymous Coward]

Steal the design, source code and production plans.

Conversion issues

[tomhath]

One of the hold ups for a Chinese interplanetary exploration program is the delays surrounding the development of the Long March 5 rocket, which will be roughly the equivalent of the America Delta IV in its capabilities

They're not used to working from blueprints that use feet, inches, and pounds.

Re:What about Africa?

[Seumas]

You mean, the entire continent?

How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans?

[gtall]

Hey Chinese leaders, want to make your manhood look bigger? Give Tibet its freedom back. Renounce your insane claims to all of the S. China Sea, and stop threatening Taiwan. Until that happens, no amount of space funnies is going to make men out of you.

Re:How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans?

[oodaloop]

Tibet is strategically important to China, and I don't foresee them just giving it up because some hippies are holding protests. Tibet holds a huge supply of freshwater that flows into China. It has nothing to do with religion or politics, just natural resources. Similar situation for South China Sea. The US and countries friendly to the US control most of the shipping lanes and ports near China. South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan are all right in China's way. They desperately need North Korea and as much control of other shipping lanes as they can muster. They're not being assholes about Tibet and Taiwan; they're trying to defend themselves and stay alive.

Re:How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans?

[Squidlips]

Oh yes they are most definitely assholes about Tibet and they are so paranoid about the free press that they have dopes like oodaloop do their bidding on social media. This is like saying that the Soviet Union had to take over Poland and Baltic states for their own protection... Read Seven Years in Tibet to find about the genocide of the Tibetian people....

Re:How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans?

[oodaloop]

Right. Because I disagree with you, I must be a paid dupe or a stupid no-nothing schmuck. I'm actually an intelligence analyst and do this for a living, but good for you for having a read a book about it. I'll make sure I defer to your expertise in the future.

Re:How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans?

[crunchygranola]

Tibet is strategically important to China, and I don't foresee them just giving it up because some hippies are holding protests. Tibet holds a huge supply of freshwater that flows into China. It has nothing to do with religion or politics, just natural resources...

Because unless they subjugate Tibetans, imprison and torture them, and try to eliminate their culture the water won't flow into China anymore?

Imperialists (and their apologists) always have these "reasons", even when they are tissue thin fig leaves.

China could pull of Tibet entirely, and they would still get their water. If the Tibetans tried to cut it off in some way, for some god-knows-why reason, China could shut the project down with one short military operation, and make the Tibetans regret ever trying it.

No need for maintaining a brutal occupation.

Re:What about Africa?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese have already been to Africa.

For all her Majesty

[kilodelta]

China is always behind the curve. They didn't get nukes until the 1970's. And they won't do a Mars mission for another six years?

They may have invented gunpowder and pasta way back when - but they lost it after that.

Whip 'em out

[GameboyRMH]

It's time to measure SPACE DICKS again!

Good

[aaaaaaargh!]

Isn't it phantastic when science and engineering can profit from stupidity and narrow-minded nationalism? If only that were always the case!

Re: Collaboration

[WindBourne]

U really have no clue. China invaded India just last year. They are building diversionary dams that will take Indian water when they want. China has more than 1 million troops on the Indian border. And u think that they will work together?

Re:they can do it for lesd

[cavreader]

China is quintessential corporatism in action. The total merger of state and corporate power controlled by a board of directors commonly called the "Party". The country has not been communist for a long time and there are strong arguments supporting idea that they truly were never communist in the first place. The Chinese citizens have absolutely no way of influencing any government policies and decisions. Even simple non-violent protesting is frowned upon and suppressed by the government if it threatens the status quo . The government programs aimed at benefiting it's citizens do just enough to keep a lid on dissent and mass protests, and China definitely contains a lot of mass. China built it's economy on cheap labor and a fair amount of currency manipulation instead of adding their currency to the international basket of currencies and allowed to float in relation to other economies. Theses two pillars of economic policy are not sustainable. There are other countries capable of providing low cost labor. The Chinese citizens uplifted by the economic gains are starting to demand higher pay and benefits which is a well established principle in nationalistic economy model. The country may have risen up to be a world economic power but their Per capita statistics are still far behind countries such as Japan and the US. It is possible for a state to have a high GDP but if that success doesn't translate down to the average citizens it is a pretty meaningless metric.

Re:they can do it for lesd

[DNS-and-BIND]

LOL. State ownership of huge companies is indeed a hallmark of communism. I love how so many people are desperately trying to say China was never communist in the first place, because it didn't work out well. It's funny how many capital-C Communist regimes there were in the world - and yet not a single one was communist. It's the No True Scotsman fallacy in action.

They are, in fact, communist. However, they are taking the capitalist road to achieve socialism. This is a heresy of communism, one Mao warned against repeatedly. Critical thinking led the Chinese Communist Party to take the capitalist road, and this lifted the Chinese people out of grinding poverty. Today, things are better than they've ever been before, and tomorrow will be better.