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China Preparing To Send Crewed Shenzhou 11 To Tiangong 2 Space Station In 2016
MarkWhittington writes: China has not sent people into space since the mission of the Shenzhou 10 to the prototype space station Tiangong 1 in June 2013. Since then the Chinese have accomplished the landing of the Chang'e 3 on the lunar surface. According to a story in Space Daily, the hiatus in Chinese crewed spaceflight is about to end with the launch of the Tiangong-2 prototype space station in 2016 with the subsequent visit by a crew of Chinese astronauts on board the Shenzhou 11. The mission will be a prelude to the construction of a larger Chinese space station, slated to be completed by 2022.
Best yet, the Chinese are keeping their end up. So, you know...Firefly...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
>> a larger Chinese space station, slated to be completed by 2022
At least you know what kind of food they'll serve when you get there.
Not quite. In Firefly, both the Chinese faction and the American faction were strong in space exploration, so the two languages spoken in the new society after the migration were English and Chinese.
In real life, what's going to happen is the Chinese will be the only ones strong in space exploration, while the Americans and their buddies sit around and bitch about how it's a waste of money and how the Moon landings never happened, and when it becomes clear the Earth-of-old is about to die (whether it's climate change or asteroid impact or whatever), the Chinese alone will create generation ships and seek out a new star system, while the rest of us perish as the planet becomes uninhabitable. So the society you saw in Firefly won't ever happen; it'll just be a Chinese-descended society in the new star system. It'll probably strongly resemble the Alliance, but without an actual "alliance" (it's just one power, no alliance necessary), and without any rebels.
Very shortsighted, and it will get expensive. When they return to Earth they'll want to go back in an hour
Trolling is a art,
>> I bet you'd be real fun at parties if you were ever actually invited to any.
That's kind of his point, actually. E.g,. "short-sighted Americans worry about parties while the Chinese send their children to the stars."
The rest of us just want to say, "GTF off our 'news for nerds' board if this stuff bores you."
It's may be a prototype on the ground. When it's in space and working, it's just a space station.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
crowded is Shenzhou 11 going to be?
Fell for this twice while browsing the stories today.
Either that or get to work on asteroid mining and get started on the O'niell Cylinders. That would be one way to fix the overpopulation problem in China.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better myself.
Mod parent up
This is great news and I hope the Chinese are successful. I hope their space station is an improvement on the ISS so then the ISS can improve on that and vice-versa. We have touched space a few times (LOE is not really space, but the doorstep) but there are problems to be solved there before moving to space space.
Given the glacial pace and lack of ambition the Chinese have displayed so far... whatever you're smoking in order to believe this has to be illegal.
Not quite. In Firefly, both the Chinese faction and the American faction were strong in space exploration, so the two languages spoken in the new society after the migration were English and Chinese.
In real life, what's going to happen is the Chinese will be the only ones strong in space exploration, while the Americans and their buddies sit around and bitch about how it's a waste of money and how the Moon landings never happened, and when it becomes clear the Earth-of-old is about to die (whether it's climate change or asteroid impact or whatever), the Chinese alone will create generation ships and seek out a new star system, while the rest of us perish as the planet becomes uninhabitable. So the society you saw in Firefly won't ever happen; it'll just be a Chinese-descended society in the new star system. It'll probably strongly resemble the Alliance, but without an actual "alliance" (it's just one power, no alliance necessary), and without any rebels.
Ya sure, except that is stupid. Unless the Chinese become even more racist and xenophobic than they are now then there will be a gradual melding of cultures and genetics over time. By the time we have to worry about Earth being uninhabitable by any foreseeable demise, neither China nor America will be anything more than a distant memory like the Roman Empire or some remnant of what they are today. Sure if you froze societies in time in the near future it would be China and the US, with EU countries, Russia and India all having roles. But any time hundreds of years from now and things will be totally different on Earth.
In real life, what's going to happen is the Chinese and the Russians will be the only ones strong in space exploration
Well, the ISS is actually doing science, which is normally quite boring. Hundreds of science projects are being done all the time. Effects of microgravity on humans, plants, insects, small mammals, bacteria. How do make mundane gizmos work in microgravity and vacuum. How to build and maintain things in orbit. Growing crystals in microgravity. Nothing earth shaking, but this is the foundation work on which we will build the future "headline worthy results." We got to the moon using technology now nearly 50 years old, but we couldn't stay. The same technology launched the first space station, but again we couldn't stay. Some day, despite the nay-sayers and budget-obliterators, we'll get to space, if not via government funding, then through private funding -- with over 1,500 billionaires and the number growing every yesr, sooner or later one of them will fund a headline worthy result. But they can't until the basics of how to survive and prosper in space are known, so now we're in the boring part where we figure it all out.
Not here in Washington State (we call it "New Amsterdam").
what's going to happen is the Chinese will be the only ones strong in space exploration, while the Americans and their buddies sit
Kickass acid, eh?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
In real life, what's going to happen is the Chinese and the Russians will be the only ones strong in space exploration
In real life, we're going to go extinct soon.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I live in WA, out on the peninsula, and I don't think any local store carries anything that strong. :)
If space launches weren't planned months and even years in advance, I actually suspect this is a grand ploy by the Party to divert the masses from the impending collapse of their economy. In a representative democracy they have things called elections.
"Less inhospitable than other nearby planets" doesn't make this planet automatically "hospitable". If it gets to the point where people have to live in domed cities or underground or something, I could see why some people would want to build generation ships and go somewhere else. It's a long shot of course; what would be the feasibility in fixing this planet to make it decent again, vs. what's the feasibility of finding another planet that's more hospitable out-of-the-box?
You're wrong about the asteroid, though. A small asteroid, sure, we could survive that. But there are "planet-killer" ones out there. But they're extremely unlikely to hit the Earth anytime soon.
Not a problem, they can partner with the Russians for all that stuff. America can't even launch anything any more without buying engines from the Russians, and the Russians have a much more successful military. America spends trillions and gets nothing for it, Russia sends in some Spetznaz and a few armored divisions and gets Crimea and other territory. Meanwhile, ISIS is destroying 2000-year-old Roman-era UN-protected temples and the US military, for all its "operational experience and force projection", is completely powerless to stop a handful of guys with some dynamite in their backpacks. What a joke.
even a fairly large asteroid(global catastrophy scale) would leave earth more hospitable than mars or venus.
that's the point. turning earth into mars would be an apocalypse times 10.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The problem is that there is nowhere to go in space. Too much radiation on the solar system's planets, no breathable atmosphere, and the stars are so faraway for our time scale that it's as if they are nonexistent for us at all.
It is not like it was with Christopher Columbus journey.
It all may change one day if human lifespan is prolonged, if the radiation issue is solved somehow, but so far humanity's best bet is to stick to Earth, try to find solutions on this planet.