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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.
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.
Well, not caring much about safety will be a cost savings, not that they need it. China's current GDP is 9x larger than the US GDP was in 1969. That and given that technology has made many things cheaper, and the general outlines of how to do it have been proven, and it should be very feasible for them to mount an impressive mission.
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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?
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!!
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.
Presumably this explains why you posted this comment on an iPhone made in China? Get real, the tech playing-field is tilting away from the West if anything. This is cultural will power, whilst you are busy building a wall against the Mexicans the Chinese will be on the moon advertising for business and guess where everybody will be going shopping?
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Looks more like twenty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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
I don't think the Chinese will cut corners on this one. It's one thing to make a piece of military equipment cheaper and accept higher casualties. It's a different ball game in space. You can just throw more soldiers into a battle. You can't just throw more astronauts at the Moon. They're worth too much. It's not *just* a human life on the line. It's the cost to their international prestige and the value of contracting services to other nations. We don't use Soyuz rockets just to save money. They're also one of the most (the most?) reliable man-rated boosters. I'm sure the Chinese would love to have a business like that.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Stopped reading at 'president', you mook; the word is PRECEDENT.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention: We (the U.S.) has already been there, repeatedly, and we left our flag planted there. We could lay claim to the Moon if we really wanted to, but we wanted to play nice with everyone else.
Now, get your crap out of the South China Sea already; NOT YOURS, EITHER.