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China Just Launched Two Astronauts Into Orbit (bbc.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the BBC: China has launched two men into orbit in a project designed to develop its ability to explore space. The astronauts took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China at 23:30 GMT on Sunday [7:30 p.m. EST].
The plan is for them to dock with and then spend 30 days on board the Tiangong 2 space station testing its ability to support life. This and previous launches are seen as pointers to possible crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.
NBC calls this evidence of "the intensifying U.S.-China space rivalry... With the current U.S.-led International Space Station expected to retire in 2024, China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space."
The plan is for them to dock with and then spend 30 days on board the Tiangong 2 space station testing its ability to support life. This and previous launches are seen as pointers to possible crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.
NBC calls this evidence of "the intensifying U.S.-China space rivalry... With the current U.S.-led International Space Station expected to retire in 2024, China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space."
In the mid 1990s, China was not allowed to join the ISS over human rights concerns. Of course,that didn't stop us from welcoming Russia which also had a terrible history, and it isn't like he threat of not being in the ISS changed China's behavior at all. So the end result is that China instead has a very strong and fast growing space program of their own when instead we could be cooperating with them.
China is no rival of the USA in space exploration.
Right, there is no rivalry: China can send people into space and the USA cannot. Also, China has its own space station, and the USA can only pay Russia for a lift to the ISS, which is international.
So, the capabilities are not the same.
I, for one, think we should stay in the trees. We have enough problems to solve here before we go roaming the grasslands in search of denser food sources.
Chinese space travelers are Taikonauts, much as Russian space travelers are Cosmonauts.
So what do you call a Chinese-born American resident who travels on a Soyuz spacecraft to work in the Italian-built ESA module of the International space station?
Putting men into orbit and on the moon had no immediately applicable results. No, we didn't get rich off the moon rocks we got home. But what happened during this time caused the US to lead the economy for decades after. It forced us to come up with new solution to new problems, the US made progress that's been seen before only in times of war when innovation was crucial for survival. And all that without the bloodshed.
There were huge leaps ahead in metallurgy, propulsion, computers, electronics, medicine and a lot of other fields, but this also marked the beginning of key elements that we today consider cornerstones of efficiency, from process management to risk management and disaster recovery procedures.
So believe it or not, launching people into orbit has its merits. It forces you to solve problems that do have very real applications down here on our planet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
from a paltry German invasion.
Paltry? I don't think I have ever seen that adjective applied to the Eastern Front. I'm more used to seeing it described along the lines of "The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history."