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China Launches Second Space Lab (space.com)
Reader hackingbear writes: China's next space laboratory, Tiangong-2 launched from the country's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center today at 10:04 a.m. EDT (1404 GMT) on a Long March 2F carrier rocket. Like its predecessor Tiangong-1, Tiangong-2 is an orbiting space lab -- but this latest model has made several improvements in the series. Among the advances: astronauts can remain on the station up to 30 days; New systems allow in orbit refueling of propellant; and 14 new experiments in a wide range of sciences including composite material fabrication, advanced-plant cultivation, gamma ray burst polarization, fluid physics, space-to-earth quantum communications. The space lab is also equipped with a cold atom space clock, that has an estimated precision of 10 to the power of minus 16 seconds, or a one-second error every 30 million years, enhancing accuracy of time-keeping in space by one to two orders of magnitudes. This exactitude will help measure previously undetectable fluctuations for experiments conducted in zero-gravity.The Tiangong 2, while is an experimental space station, is still operational. The astronauts that would come on board next month are to spend a full month up there -- a longer period of time than possible on Tiangong 1.
I've often wondered what prevents (aside from stupendous cost) someone from launching up to one of these and taking it over while it's not occupied?
At what point will this actually become an issue?
-nb
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I just can't wait until we catch up with China and have the ability to launch astronauts into space!
Try "accuracy" next time. That's like listening to an asshat who uses "betterment" in conversation.
The space lab is also equipped with a cold atom space clock, that has an estimated precision of 10 to the power of minus 16 seconds, or a one-second error every 30 million years
Einstein proved that time is relative. So accuracy is also relative.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
China plans to complete space station in 2022 and will have a mass of 64,000 kg. This is about half of the mass of Mir launched 30 years ago by USSR. Still a lot to catch up. The ISS launched in 1998 has a mass of 440,000 kg.
China has enough of a space program to let them quickly bootstrap up to levels they feel are socially, scientifically and militarily appropriate. There is plenty of opportunity for China to go way beyond what the US / European Space Agency / Russia has done. A decade or so of 'just enough' could get them in deep space.
Yes, they're re-purposing Russian Soyuz craft. That sounds like a really intelligent way to .... jump ahead. You just don't make some 3D computer models and run out and build a space program. The infrastructure required is enormous.
Perhaps they won't push the envelope. China has it's own share of problems. But a real, live space race would do us a world (so to speak) of good. It would be about the only thing that would get the US Congress of of it's pork filled ass.
(The other being a credible Alien menace but even Justin Timberlake is looking more normal as time goes on.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Actually it puts them ahead of the US (for MANNED spaceflight) at the moment because the US has no means of putting people into space anymore. Non-manned spaceflight they have a long way to catch up.
Not many countries have put their own independent space labs in orbit though. China is moving forwards all the time. Given this progress a decade or two from now and they will surpass the US in just about everything "space".
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Pirates were, customarily, hung by the neck until dead. Can't do that in zero-gravity...
Throwing one out of an airlock is rather cruel — and unusual too. Wasting your own crew's sole means of evacuation on transferring the captured pirates to Earth is not only wasteful, but may well condemn the said crew to death.
Keeping the detained pirates up there — and feeding them food at $17,000-20,000 per kilogram? Talk about waste of taxpayers' money!
Letting them "go", as we now do in our vegetarian times with most maritime pirates, is not going to be an option either — where are they going to go and what'll keep them from coming right back to your space-station after you leave?
Quite a dilemma, actually... Unless you handle it the Russian way — "release" the bastards, but make sure, they die before reaching the shore.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You're butt-hurt. Get used to hearing about Chinese science and tech advancements and start learning to suck it up, because as an American you will have to do it over and over again during this century.
In many ways it's too bad USA banned them from the current station (ISS) due to possible military-related secrets.
ISS requires a lot of maintenance such that there's not much time left for science. If China participated, then there would be more time-slots for science instead of fixing toilets, etc.
By now the ISS's technology should be old enough to not be secret: it's decades old. Plus, Russia already has access to it and they trade secrets with China anyhow.
Why did US put sensitive tech in ISS to begin with? We F'd up.
Table-ized A.I.
Hmm, where does that leave us then. Because they can now do more than the US can do right now when it comes to manned flight and launching space stations. We have the ISS, true, but we couldn't build another one. And we certainly can't build small space laboratories like we used to in the 70s. Personally I'm a bit jealous that the Chinese are going to do this. I think having multiple, short-term space stations would be more economical and get more science done than the one big expensive one we have now, as cool as it is.
You can think disparagingly about China's endeavors, but really we have a lot to fear from them. American supremacy has been eroding for decades and sooner or later other powers will rise and we can bet they won't give the US special consideration or treatment. Maybe China's government's inability to reform and lust for power will hold them back and allow the US to remain dominant in the world. But I'm not counting on that.
forty years behind everyone else?
who is this everyone else you speak of?
How many countries have the capability to send humans into space? Russia and China. Anybody else I missed there?
That puts them ahead of the US, Europe, India, Africa, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, none of who can send people into space. All of those counties send people to hitch rides with one of the few countries who can do it.
Looks like China is ahead of everybody arguably except the Russians.
A lot of anti-spaceX posters here have to be pretty proud of China's accomplishment.
There are plenty of them that would rather see CHina succeed than to see Musk, Bigelow, or even bezo succeed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously, if we wanted to, we could put somebody up there within 3-6 months. The issue has been that CONgress has NOT properly funded things. However, in an emergency, SpaceX could easily launch a V1 with extra O2 on-board to get to the ISS, and within several months, a V2 could be ready.
Likewise, CST-100 could be ready in under 6 months or less. It would take money, but there is little issue about our ability to do so.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't think China can ramp up that quickly. The US and Russia both have decades of experience. China literally is nominally at where the US and Russia were in the 70s, in some regards, but other technologies, like landing on other bodies, they're still back in the 1960s. They do get some benefit because they can review what the Russians and Americans did, but that still means they have to build an entire generation of engineers capable of building their own variants.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I keep seeing you prattling on as a Musk fanboi. As much as I'd love to see space for myself I'd not ride a SpaceX rocket if it were free. Their failure rate is the same as the mortality rate of playing russian roulette.
What, he didn't have the courtesy to give you a reacharound?
I think you want to reply to Windborne, he's the one who seems to fancy MuskCock up his ass. Probably another one of these Trump fuckers who think that private industry is going to do it all. We see that Musk is a bitch sucking at the government teat and claiming to get a new god. Sounds a lot like Frump.
Maybe China's government's inability to reform and lust for power will hold them back and allow the US to remain dominant in the world. But I'm not counting on that.
Speaking as a non-American, I tell you that it is impossible to like China the way we like the US. There's no charm to their culture; no sex-appeal. No savoir-faire. Their are incredibly BORING. Will never happen.
Is their swimming pool big enough to hold two?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I for one welcome our new Han overlords.
just curious... who is the "we" you're considering to be part of, in your sentence "...the way we like..."?
I hope they purchased some kind of extended warranty because I doubt that it will keep running past 10 years---let alone 1 billion years.
No, I wanted to reply to you. It is obvious that you have had your head pounded too much by the kock bros and are now brain dead.