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China To Launch 2 Into Space In September

Posted by timothy on Sun Jan 23, 2005 09:56 AM
from the more-room-up-there dept.
Space Science
Doug Dante writes "China Daily reports that China's space agency plans to launch two Chinese astronauts into space for a 6-day mission in September. The spacecraft includes both a re-entry and an orbital module. The article, an official publication of the Chinese government in English, also extends a plain invitation for the U.S. to partner with China on space."
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  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Uber Banker (655221) on Sunday January 23 2005, @09:58AM (#11447573)
    Co-operation between countries in space exploration is only a good thing. Build up trust, knock down militarisation.

    • Re:Good (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Co-operation between countries in space exploration is only a good thing.

      What? Did you not follow the US-Russia space race at all? "Co-operation" between an anti-communist democratic republic and a pro-communist People's republic is nothing more than politicized espionage. It can't possibly be anything else.

      Build up trust, knock down militarisation.

      Oh, is that what happened between the US and Russia? Because the way I saw it was that Russia lost, and now only the US gets to militarize space. I haven't

      • Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)

        by the gnat (153162)
        I haven't yet seen any indication that the end of the Cold War did anything but speed up the US militarization of space.

        Unless there's some key detail I'm missing, I'd say the exact opposite is true. Any motivation to militarize space was driven by the knowledge that the USSR most certainly had this intention, and while you may be right about the PRC's plans, the US hasn't been responding yet.

        If you think any government space program has ever had any other goal, you are naive and deluded.

        I agree that
      • What? Did you not follow the US-Russia space race at all?

        Indeed. Why were advances made? Becuase resources were pumped at the problem. Do you prefer resources to be pumped at putting 100s of lasers and nuclear weapons in orbit? And FYI the space race reached its zenith in the late 60s/early 70s. 'Competition between countries' moved on to new things - see how space exploration deteorated in the late 70s and early 80s when, a true barometer of 'competition', the amount of ICBMs and targetted militar
          • Although substantial US force is sitting nearby (including, like, two carrier groups and 50K Marines in Japan), I'm afraid, US may chicken out at the end.

            I can just imagine the "No Blood for Chips" marches on Washington and "Give Peace a Chance" sit-ins, while Taiwanese defenses are dismembered.

            Japan will need to amend its Constitution (again) to do anything.

            I too hope, the Taiwanese will prevail, but it is not certain -- and we (rightly) promised to help them.

      • It's already been pointed out that your numbers aren't totally correct, but as someone who lives in China and works with Chinese, I too have noticed that, in this case at least, the Chinese aren't particularly eager to give. My company did a fundraising drive (among our employees) for donations and pretty much no one gave, which we considered to be in pretty poor form. Asking around, I was surprised to find that many of the locals here are actually not very fond of Indonesia. Apparently they have a histo

  • Re-Entry (Score:4, Funny)

    by RobertTaylor (444958) <roberttaylor1234&gmail,com> on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:00AM (#11447582) Homepage Journal
    "The spacecraft includes both a re-entry and an orbital module."

    You would hope it had some form of re-entry module if you were the astronauts!

  • Maybe some day (Score:5, Insightful)

    by turgid (580780) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:03AM (#11447595) Journal
    I look forward to the day when space exploration is done by private companies with staff all over the world. Then, the competition will be between companies and not some sort of xenophobic constest between mutually distrustful national governments. The pace of progress will probably increase by an order of magnitude too.
    • > Then, the competition will be between companies
      > and not some sort of xenophobic constest between
      > mutually distrustful national governments.

      You mean, like Microsoft and... uh...

    • Re:Maybe some day (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yartrebo (690383) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:20AM (#11447673)
      There aren't any laws or treaties preventing private companies from sending things into space.

      The only reason they don't do it is that companies have never been the type to research or do any long term investment without a guaranteed gargantuan payout (the magnitude of which much rise exponentially, and by about 15% a year).

      A company can put $1B in excess capital in the stock market (or pay dividends, allowing the shareholders to do so) and in 35 years that $1B will become $32B on average. 70 years from now it can be expected to be worth over $1T. Since investing in space stuff is very risky, a substantial premium above the stock market return will be required to get companies to invest.

      The bottom line: Governments are probably best left to handle research, and publicly release the results so that all companies have access to the latest tech, which will allow companies to do what they do best - manufacture, not research.
    • But consider this: These competition between distrustful countries brought us into space and to the moon.
    • Wow, because mega-corporations make much better decisions than countries about treating employees/citizens! The pace of progress will increase on the backs of whatever population can be yoked to pull the Titan/Shenzhou/Soyuz to the launch pad. Will WalLockMart or VirginAmazon care about salaries or rights once they have militarized space? It is inevitable that once someone has a resource somewhere (space hardware in this case) that they will set up infrastructure to protect it from others. You are so bl

  • Astronauts (Score:4, Funny)

    by RobertTaylor (444958) <roberttaylor1234&gmail,com> on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:03AM (#11447596) Homepage Journal
    "But he said the duo will be chosen from the same 14 fighter-jet pilots who were part of the first selection process...

    No chinese billionaires or boy-band members going up?

  • A matter of pride (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Odo (109839) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:08AM (#11447616)
    The US would never partner with the Chinese. Not while the US shuttle is grounded. And once it is flying, they won't need to partner with them. The Chinese know this. Having to rely on the Russians to get to the space station is embarrasing enough, but dropping to third place thanks to the Chinese would be too much.

    On the other hand, the Chinese have (so far) been very good a keeping the operation of their space program separate from issues of national pride. They launch misions when they are ready, not in time for some politico's birthday or scheduled speech. Linking the two was one of the reasons the Russians never made it to the Moon and one of the reasons the Americans lost Challenger.

    • Re:A matter of pride (Score:5, Funny)

      by WormholeFiend (674934) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:11AM (#11447629)
      They launch misions when they are ready, not in time for some politico's birthday or scheduled speech

      But what about Feng Shui?
    • This is insightful and interesting to me. On the surface, it does appear as if China is going about things the right way. I hope that they have learned from everyone else's mistakes and that they never gratuitously lose a life in the pursuit of space exploration as a result.
      • At Challenger's launch time, the ambient temp at the Cape was 36F. While that is moderately cold for Florida, I doubt 99% of the people on this board would call it "bitterly cold." While the temp did play with the O-rings sealing ability, the O-ring had previously failed to seal at 56F. I would say that the problem would more correctly be termed "complete and total cheap crap" than a design flaw or oversight. I can imagine the engineers at Thiokol...Engineer 1 "you mean it isn't always 90F in Florida? W

      • Re:A matter of pride (Score:5, Interesting)

        by demachina (71715) on Sunday January 23 2005, @11:00AM (#11447897)
        "Besides being inaccurate, your observation is just so much 20-20 hindsight."

        Actually you are the one who is probably innaccurate though we will never know for sure. NASA was probably under substantial political pressure from the Reagan administration to launch on schedule. Reagan was going to trumpet the "Teacher in Space" in his imminent State of the Union address and they probably wanted he to actually be in space when he made the speech.

        If you weren't under some kind of pressure why would you press ahead with a launch on "a bitterly cold day" The launch pad was completely iced up, they had NEVER had a day that cold for a launch. The freezing and the ice created all kind of potential dangers, the brittle O rings was just the one that led to disaster, falling ice damaging the shuttle was the one they were very worried about. If they weren't under pressure why wouldn't you way until a warmer day. If they had the O rings most probably wouldn't have failed. NASA postpones launches for a lot less than the launch pad bering covered in ice and all the components being below typical temperature.
          • yes, i hate to admit it because i am most certainly not a bush fan...but that quote was taken very much out of context. I watched "Fahrenhype 911" last week just to hear what ind of rebuttals they had. One thing they showed was that footage came from a charity dinner where the tradition is for the two political candidates to give a humorous self-depecreatory speech. Al gore was there, and gave a similar speech as well. It looks very damning in Moore's film. Much less so if you know the context.
          • "Both Apollo 1 (using unsafe pure oxygen during a ground test)"

            That wasn't exactly "go fever", that was a fundamental flaw in their design, though perhaps they were rushing when they made it long before, just like the O rings were. Its not the same thing as using some discretion and postponing a launch until the launch pad isn't covered in ice and everything thaws out.

            "Apollo 12 (launching in a thunderstorm with lightning)"

            Thunderstorms are a daily occurrence in Florida. They are a constant risk and yo
  • If china puts 2 in space, will 1 + 1 start to equal 3 on earth? That'll take some getting used to.

  • Re-entry. (Score:3, Funny)

    by the_mind_ (157933) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:11AM (#11447625)
    "The spacecraft includes both a re-entry and an orbital module."

    How... how kind of them...
    • It's a shame you probably won't have watched the "First Man In Space" documentary a few weeks ago done by the BBC about Yura Gagarin - it appears that although they did intend to seperate the re-entry and orbital modules, it went completely tits up and span out of control. Gargarin would have certainly died if the heat from re-entry hadn't burnt through the wires holding it together... I know we say a lot of crap about the Chinese... But thank god they're not the Soviets...
      • They soviets have:

        - Better ejection technologies (can the shuttle crew eject on the takeoff platform if they think things are going south?)

        - More reliable, simpler designs. (What the US achieves with multiple backup systems and tons of high-tech engineering, the russians achieved with much more testing to find a design that was inherently reliable. eg: soyuz, mir)

        - As you said, Gagarin was the first man in space. It's not like the US space program, even decades after this, doesn't still have it's share

  • Astronauts? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Fulkkari (603331) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:16AM (#11447643)

    Astronauts? Shouldn't the corrent term be Taikonaut [wikipedia.org]? Anyway, it is nice to see China making progress in this field.

    • No. The correct term would be yuhangyuan, or in English: astronaut. "Taikonaut" is a play with words by people outside China, which is not any more correct than calling american space travellers "spaceonauts". If you had actually read the link you included you would know this.

      • Usually the word that is most frequently used will be the one that is correct. There are numerous of examples of this. I understand that the Chinese officially use the word astronaut, but if we decide use the word taikonaut instead (which our media at least in my experience has), it will be the word we should use, because it is the word we are familiar with.

        • If "your media" say taikonaut, you should really get around more. In my experience tabloids use the term taikonaut while real newspapers call them astronauts.

          Complaining about the completely unambiguous term "Chinese astrunaut" is simply trolling. And from an aesthetic viewpoint, taikonaut is an abomination of a word, and it's abundantly clear that it did not originate in China. The terms astronaut and cosmonaut both have in common that they are used by the respective space travellers' own nations, and tha

      • True. But I think the majority of the people here on Slashdot live in the Western world. Taikonaut is a good word because it tells the nationality to the reader. "The term taikonaut is sometimes used" is a bit confusing IMHO because at least in my experience the word taikonaut has been always used instead of astronaut when it comes to the Chinese. Who has the right to decide?

  • Tech transfer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rijrunner (263757) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:20AM (#11447674)
    Not sure how much I buy into that invitation. There is no real chance of anything substantial happening. China is trying to cooperate with a lot of countries now, but only the European Space Agency has really moved forward with chinese cooperation on Galileo. China did buy a couple Soyuz to help with their design work.

    The biggest red-herring is all that stuff about tech transfer. China gets more tech transfer every day from US tech companies moving to China than anything they can get from building equipment to spec for joint space ventures. Most space work is pretty basic and is only a subset of regular industrial processes. There isn't really anything that special about it.
    • I think outsourcing space exploration would yield all the same benefits its yielding in every other sector of our economy. I'm pretty sure aerospace engineers, especially through pork laden contracts to Boeing and Lockheed are really expensive. Imagine the benefits of tapping dollar an hour Chinese aerospace engineers.

      There is irony that NASA more closely resembles a corrupt Soviet or Maoist era socialist bureaucracy than anything you should be seeing in the home of the free and the land of the capitalis
  • Once China begins to show up the USA then we have another space race, go china! The US public needs to be motivated by such competition to get interest back into space. If the US is the only nation really striving in space then the willingness to dump cash into NASA by public representives is not justified unless it means those representives wont be re-elected.

    Will launching 2 men into space do this? No..But its a start to eventual competition as long as China's economy continues to grow, and doesn't bus

  • Probably not as history goes.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Devar (312672) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:21AM (#11447682) Homepage Journal
    Judging by their reaction in the past, I wonder if the US will cooperate this time around. [slashdot.org]

  • asians tend to be good at refinement... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by capsteve (4595) * on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:37AM (#11447763) Homepage Journal
    it's my opinion that while western countries are good at cuturally breeding innovators, the eastern countries (while they also breed innovators) are better at breeding refinment. breeding sounds very commoditized, but it is meant in its broadest sense of cutural/societal influence... yes, the chinese contribution to global innovation include paper, printing press, gun powder, military strategy, martial arts, holistic medicine, feng shui and pasta, to name a few. what other innovations have asia brought us in the 19th or 20th century? the western world, on the other hand, are responsible for a fucking butt load of innovation for quite a few centuries (3?): internal combustion, pnumatice tires, radio/tv/sattelite communications, electronic computing, internet, medical and pharmacueticals... the list could keep going. this whole innovations/refinement discussion could be it's own topic of discussion... the asian countries, on the oher hand, have been really good at taking western innovations(cars, electronics, entertainment), digesting it, and regurgitating well thought out refinements. honda element, sony ps2, ringu, these are things that are now feed back to the innovators, but in the end they are really only refinements to the original.

    the chinese will be the country to watch in the next few decades. they are still one of the few communist countries in existance, they have the biggest population on the globe, and they are entering the growth and refinement stage that japan, korea, and other southeastern dragons went thru in the 19th and 20th century. they also have some of the biggest problems in the world; they have the biggest population on the globe(organization will be difficult), they are still communist(not good for innovation), and they are entering a stage i their cutural development which might require more capitalistic injection from the west.

    the fact that the chinese will fly more taikonauts this year has IMHO a few big implications:
    1) we have the economy to support a state run space program
    2) we have the cultural drive and support of the people
    3) we have the resouces to make this happen
    4) the biggest one is this-we're flexing our muscles-don't fuck with us!

    it's also interesting that according to the article, they are extending a welcome hand in talking about working together with nasa. this is a simple publicity move to bolster their rising technical position within the world and it basically says, "we're growing up as a country and we're not to far behind you. team up with us now, and you won't be eating our dust. don't and you might get fucked". afterall the united states government has really taken a beating in the last few years regarding space, space travel safety, and global joint projects(ISS). right now the chinese are on the upswing, they are just entering the golden area of space travel that the uinited states and ussr were going thru in the 1950-1990's(golden area in terms of economic and workforce resources as well as national support). there's really a lot of multi-facet/multi-layered pros and cons teaming up with the chinese... some are good, others could be not so good. hope this venture doesn't turn america into an obedient dog on a chinese leash...
    • First, "asians tend to be good at refinement" is a ridiculous generalization. You're looking at a few technological advances in the last 100-200 years and, based on that, you can extrapolate the fact that a huge group of multinational populations are naturally inclined to refine things...? I don't think so. It's as stupid as concluding that all European peoples are "culturally good at breeding warmongers" based on a few hundred years of medieval battles.

      Even if you just look at such a small time frame in isolation, you could just as easily presume that while the Western world got a huge head start when the modern era began, the gap is slowly but surely decreasing and other nations are catching up technologically.

      Anyway. About space: Go China, I say! Another Space Race is certainly preferable to, say, another nuclear arms race. At worst, one day they'll surpass us and do all the neat exploring we're too lazy to do. And at best, it might bring about a new era of international cooperation for space, even where the ISS failed.

  • My hope is that they get the hubble (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dalutong (260603) <<djtansey> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday January 23 2005, @11:00AM (#11447893)
    I think the Chinese should say "hey, U.S. If you don't want the hubble anymore we'll take it. It is 20 year old technology so you can't be that worried about secret tech getting into our hands. We'll even give you 1 billion jiaozi for it."

    Would make me happy. China would be able to get a benefit and the hubble would be able to survive. not to mention that a high publicity scientific partnership with china would help our international record.

  • China crisis! (Score:3, Funny)

    by payndz (589033) on Sunday January 23 2005, @11:41AM (#11448129)
    I can't get to TFA. Did we just slashdot China?

  • Be careful of invitations (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScentCone (795499) on Sunday January 23 2005, @11:58AM (#11448235)
    I'm guessing that most Chinese invitations (on matters this complex) come with something along the lines of, "...and please also pass along any and all technology or intellectual property that NASA and its privately owned contractors may have or use, so that we can better help you. Don't worry, it won't ever be used to compete against you or threaten Taiwan."
    • It definitely fails in being a good headline.
      Luanch 2? Does that mean the second Launch? Or do they plan to launch two rockets?

      Yes, the article then tells me the missing information. And that part it the essential one: That China plans to send two people up (actually, they'll not send Astronauts, but Taikonauts :-))
    • If you asked most people in Europe to rank governments in decreasing order of hostility, the US would be above China.

      Phil

    • Free elections, non-hostile government (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tim Ward (514198) on Sunday January 23 2005, @10:30AM (#11447712) Homepage
      I would never consider cooperating with the Chinese until China becomes a normal country (free elections, non-hostile government, etc.)

      Let me guess - you're not American!

      (Rigged elections; government hostile to more countries than any other government on earth.)

        • Wish I had mod points to mod you +1 Informative. Americans are clueless as to the attitudes you express because they arrogantly just disregard anyone other them as too irrelevant to even think about. Yes, the US is worried (rightly, but futilely) about losing their 'technology secrets' to China, as if they can somehow stop the inevitable by preventing 'tech transfer'. "Don't let China get our secrets, and we'll keep them out of space". Puh-lease .. China is going there ANYWAY, they don't need US technology

    • I'd rather we (meaning the westernised countries) partner with the Chinese - we know they are honourable in keeping their contracts etc, even though we may disagree on policies. China isn't such a bad place to be - it's far better than Iran and North Korea for example :) I'm not saying we support them, I'm saying we help each other with space programmes etc - we can discuss their agenda when we become friends =)

      Signed,

      The Eternal Optimist, and Eternal Fool for trusting the Commies.
      • In fact, the Soviets when sending up Gagarin were shit scared about the Cosmoanuts defecting to the West, so they used an autopilot, and were only going to give the pilot the code to disable it if there was any trouble - otherwise he was just a passenger! Thank god the Soviet Union no longer exists!

      • Re:such a gulf of misunderstanding (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 808140 (808140) on Monday January 24 2005, @01:43AM (#11453325)
        Unfortunately, an informed post or two on Slashdot can do little to reverse what amounts to essentially, in the case of most Slashdotters, more than a decade of cold war propaganda.

        While most of us wear our tin foil hats most of the time, for some reason we are extremely reticent when it comes to admitting to ourselves that our government has been (and in fact continues) to deliberately deceive us when it comes to world politics and affairs. This is an extremely uncomfortable realization for Americans in particular, who are taught from birth that theirs is the best nation in all respects, followed by Europe (although we're quick to point out that they were a continent of fascists before we liberated them in WWII). All other nations are either wallowing in poverty or being actively repressed by dictatorial communist sympathisers.

        Consider, for example, that most Americans believe that the Chinese carry around Mao's little red book, and that the Chinese people live in a world that has no concept of freedom or individualism.

        This view was most true more than three decades ago, and even then was -- as any reasonable person would expect, in a country with a population like China's -- prone to rather large regional variation, and the direct result of a power struggle between Mao Zi Dong and reform-oriented members of the CCP (the Red Army and the Cultural Revolution were, by in large, a direct result of Mao attempting to solidify power by building a cult of personality.)

        The moment he died, Deng Xiao Ping pretty much went ahead and set China on the path that would transform it from a Maoist (not communist -- it was never that) dictatorship into a capitalist power likely to become the economic superpower of the 21st century.

        When it comes down to it, Americans would prefer not to see the China of today. It's not surprising -- it's scary. America is begining to lose its edge. We at one point benefited from the sort of manufacturing boom that the Chinese are experiencing now -- Europe moved most of its manufacturing base to the US at one time, because it was cheaper -- and look what happened to the then thought to be unending empires that sat on the old continent: they took second seat to us.

        We fear the same will happen with China. It is growing at a rate that we cannot hope to match. It is not hard to imagine, when you're in China, that they will be the next United States. This is very, very frightening.

        So instead, we remain ignorant, as best we can.

        Only actually going there can remove that willful ignorance. Which is why most Slashdotters will never bother.

        I am American; I have lived and worked in the PRC for the better part of three years now.

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