Slashdot Mirror
China Developing Manned Space Mission To the Moon
China is building a manned spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the moon as well as near-Earth orbit flight, according to Chinese state media. From a report on CNBC: The official newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China cited system chief architect Zhang Bainan who claimed the craft is being designed to carry as many as six astronauts. The newspaper, Science and Technology Daily, quoted Zhang Bainan as saying China wished to catch up with international standards of space exploration. The fresh announcement follows a separate Chinese ambition to bring back samples from the moon before the end of this year.
Good for them. At least someone is interested in getting out into space.
...China has made impressive advancements in technology (I'll let you argue how that happened).
On the other, they have persistently shown that state propaganda goals are a higher priority than safety.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
On the other, they have persistently shown that state propaganda goals are a higher priority than safety.
That would be no different than the current US president.
I think it'd be funny if they decided that they would rip out the American Flag and put theirs in it's place. What you going to do about it, bitch?
Don't give up the day job buddy
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Already happened a bunch of times. (six?) SpaceX will be sending a pair of rich twats around the moon in 2018, be sure to come back then and post about how they couldn't get through the Van Allen belt.
Oh, and stop getting your science from shitty Fox documentaries. The moon landings happened and only tinfoil hat dickheads think otherwise.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Forty eight years after the United States did it. That seems to always be the case with China. For example nuclear weaponry - we had it in 1945 - they got it thirty years later.
I welcome this and hope they do it because as the film "Gravity" explicitly said and the recent National Geographic series "Mars" implied if you read between the lines (the first crew to go to Mars had a Russian on it but the only Asian was Korean American... hmmm....) it's going to take this before the US ever gets serious again about manned exploration of space.
Seems more like Turmp is interested in 'safety' to the detriment of literally everything else.
Trump has no interest in actual safety. He has a strong interest in "security" theater. Big difference between the two. One keeps us safe and the other keeps him elected. He cares about the later. Putting a wall on the US/Mexico border will do almost nothing for safety but it will do a lot to make paranoid conservatives happy.
Time for Trump to beat them and beat them to mars!!
Time for Trump to beat them and beat them to mars!!
Agreed. I for one would love to see him go. :-)
Why the hell a wall?
Because it makes a bunch of racist, idiot conservatives think they are solving an actual problem. People coming here to work - the horror... Ironically they could keep all the brown skinned people out much more effectively by helping Mexico boost their economy. They come here because there aren't jobs back home. What we should worry about is if the immigrants stop wanting to come here.
Done right, it is the same protection, with a lot less of an environmental impact.
Conservatives don't generally give much a shit about environmental impact. They think clean air is nothing more than a liberal plot to cost them their jobs.
Mexico's economy is booming,
Mexico's economy is something of a mixed bag and is significantly dependent on oil prices. It's a good sized economy but has rather drastic inequality between rich and poor. Those poor are the ones coming to the US because of limited opportunities back home.
Might even be wise to set up a Schengen Agreement allowing for US/Canada/Mexico free travel.
WAY too much racism and paranoia in the USA for that to be realistic though I agree it isn't a bad idea. There really isn't much point in having a guarded border between the US and Canada either.
Anyone want to take a bet the Chinese will try to claim they 'own' part of the moon (if not the whole thing), just because they landed on it and planted a flag, regardless of any international agreements to the contrary? South China Sea, the Moon, what's the difference, right? Just 'build' something on it, and stand there with a rifle claiming it's yours now, right?
Old and busted: The Middle East, Ukraine, ISIS
New hotness: Moonwars
And after they do land in the Moon you will no doubt invent new conspiracy theories to deny it.
entropy happens
...with Trump's ego driven presidency, this news might be *just* what we needed to see substantial actual presidential pressure to advance the US space program.
Sometimes the cards just fall right.
-Styopa
Filming will begin this summer, giving enough time for "moon landing" conspiracy theorists to sow the seeds of doubt and uncertainty coupled with a healthy dose of conviction.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
There will be fire. What happens if China puts a city the size of NYC on the moon, and is the only nation to do so? Could they dominate all of terrestrial access to space including to Mars? If nuclear weapons go optical/beam (think star wars), then the moon returns to being a strategic high-ground. Don't go killing civilians.
The moon would be almost like a star of death if that happened. We would have to team up with Ewoks to take down the shielding protecting it and destroy the moon.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
60s-era NASA astronauts couldn't be any taller than 5'11". Gus Grissom was only 5'5"; quite tiny if you ask me. Americans in general back then weren't that tall, and looking around me (I'm over 6') they still all look short to me, especially on the east coast.
The 60's were an unusual time where people believed in Jesus, did what he told them to do, worked as if they were motivated, and cared about each other.
So the way they kept black people from voting, and beat them mercilessly when they tried to peacefully walk across a bridge, that was people doing what Jesus told them to do and caring about each other?
Please clean up your space debris mess while you're up there? You know... from the time you blew up your own satellite like ridiculous assholes? Thank you.
First step when they get there:
Kick over the American flag.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
When the Chinese return they'll will finally show us footage of all the studios we built there to film the moon landings. For real.
OK. I hear you. You are saying that there are some nonsense videos on the Internet, therefore no video can be trusted, not even ones made by NASA engineers. Thanks for clearing that up.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Well, that was in the South, which was run by the democrats back then.
You know, the same democrats who seceded from the country because they wanted to keep their slavery.
The only democrat I know from that era who wan't a racist was JFK who, you know, believed in limited government, limited taxes and (to come full circle) started the Apollo program.
What do Democrats have to do with anything? You're the one trying to claim the 60s were some kind of wonderful time when "people cared about each other". I simply proved you wrong.
Picky, picky, picky.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
only if you are dumb enough to let your food float freely so that it destroys your computers and other electronics.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Proof" is a word that has no basis in anything outside math.
I'm saying your claims are only true for a slim exception of cases, which will always exist with any generalization as with this case and the racist Democrats.