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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.
>> 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."
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.
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.
"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.