China Accelerates Mars Program 365
securitas writes "You read it correctly - Mars. China has announced it intends to accelerate its Mars program, using experience and expertise from its fledgling lunar program. Following China's proposed Moon missions, the first phase would send a Mars orbiter to examine and survey the Red Planet; the second phase will involve wheeled robotic probes like China's Mars Explorer roving vehicle prototype, used to collect and analyze rock samples; and the third phase will involve returning spacecraft from the planet and establishing a permanent automated base on Mars. This puts the China-India space race and the China-USA space race in a very different light and clearly indicates that China plans to play with the big boys of Mars exploration."
About time... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Go China!
How long? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How long? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the caveat I would add is that as long as this increased spending did not come from social welfare budgets, health, education etc.
The best place for an increased NASA budget to come from is military spending. If the amount of effort and money that is spent on creating items of destruction was put into space exploration I'd say we'd be in for some exciting times.
Re:How long? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not as simple as that. For example, if diverting money from social programmes to industry boosts employment, then the welfare budget can shrink with no ill-effect because fewer people need it. If diverting money from education to space research means that grants for physics postdocs are approved by a different committee than before, then the net result is likely to be little different. If money is diverted from healthcare to orbital laboratories, which then come up with new drugs, then that's actually better for the nation's health.
The best place for an increased NASA budget to come from is military spending. If the amount of effort and money that is spent on creating items of destruction was put into space exploration I'd say we'd be in for some exciting times.
A lot of space activity is funded from military spending. The USAF are prolific satellite enthusiasts, for example. That brings down the cost of launching for everyone and funds development of sensors and signal processing technology that can be used by scientists.
What I would really like to see is some military spending diverted to fusion research. That would be win-win - a scalable power source, both for use on Earth and to power spacecraft on long missions, and it would also meet the military's goal of increasing national security by reducing reliance on the Middle East. Frankly I am surprised that alternative sources of power aren't receiving more interest at present.
Re:How long? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Oil is big money. Big money gets things done in this country.
Re:How long? (Score:3, Insightful)
But there is no such thing as Big Oil, really - there is only Big Energy. People don't want oil, it's nasty stuff, they want to be able to move people and goods from A to B, heat homes, power electrical devices and so on. Energy companies should be racing to see who gets to fusion first, because whoever does will make a fortune.
Re:How long? (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, you do know that the Internet was actually invented by the military, right? Go look up DARPA on your favourite search engine.
Fusion is not likely to be within easy reach in the near future.
The breakeven point was reached recently, the
Fusion Research (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How long? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How long? (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting, but check the source... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but check the source... (Score:5, Informative)
Even the headline says "Space Scientists Say China's Mars Probe 'Years Away'".
It definitely doesnt sound like propaganda.
Re:Interesting, but check the source... (Score:2)
still, academics can be candid, but then what they say can be censored and/or altered afterwards by state-run media...or corporate media for that matter. though in our corporate media what scientists say is usually hacked up by non-experts trying to pre-digest it for the general populace.
Re:Interesting, but check the source... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, but check the source... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cynical, yes, but I'm only holding China to the same standards of cynicism as I do to the rest of the world
Give the russians a little credit (Score:4, Interesting)
The russians had a good excuse, the first car was made by a guy called Benz, a German, the first jet powered military planes were made my the Luftwaffa in WWII, and the first effective submarines were the U boats used by Germans Navy in WWI, and we all know that Russians and Germans didn't get along, so it was an act of patriotism to screw up in everything German.
But seriously, the MIG 29s had the USAF pissing in their pants until they developed the F22, the Typhoon class submarines, although having one unfortunate accedent were generally good ships that could match any Ammerican offering, and anyway, at least they don't come up under civilian boats to show off. The Lada may suck, but they can be made very cheap, and the potato screwup was not as bad as the one the Irish had a while back.
Seriously, the Russians were very good at what they did, they just had a few mistakes experimenting to try and make the world better, something the American government has never had the balls to do.
Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a bunch of folks in Tibet been wondering the same thing...
Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:2)
Pretty simple. Basic human nature, life in the real world, etc etc etc.
Re:Seriously, as there is only one human race... (Score:2)
This is a dumb and/or ignorant comment. Cooperation is the hallmark of the human species. The degree to which we cooperate with one and another (even outside of the family) distinguishes us from all other species.
This is great (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't wish them harm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Could China possibly be trying to hype up its space program to scare other countries? I mean, it just seems kind of odd that all of the sudden, all of these stories about China and space are surfacing..
I'd like to see a mission before I believe any of it.. seems like China is just preparing for a cold war
But who knows
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH 1.5 gigapeople is a lot (Score:2)
Re:OTOH 1.5 gigapeople is a lot (Score:5, Informative)
GDP Per Capita in China: purchasing power parity - $4,600 (2002 est.)
Source is CIA World Factbook [cia.gov]
Do the math.
Re:OTOH 1.5 gigapeople is a lot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:2)
don't you mean - " The US isn't exactly in a boom economy right now."
I am not a macro economist, but from my count, it is apparent that the only ones falling on hard times are the Iraqis, and the Americans....(okay, I may have left a few others off the list, purely for focus)
Up here in Canada, we have had steady growth and progress, even as a slight decline is 'predicted'in the near future. This goes without saying that many other nations are also in t
Re:Finally (Score:2)
I think you are confusing the USA with the world.
I believe that the Chinese economy is currently growing at a rate of a couple of hundred percent a year. I think that counts as a boom economy, no?
Re:Finally (Score:2)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
I ask you, what could the US possibly do to make the Chinese (and the rest of the world) even more interested in accelerating their space programs than attempting to pull crap like this ?
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
If the US did successfully take control of space in such a way, it could be really damaging to the human race in general... if we want to survive, we will (someday) have to get off this rock, and if the human race as a WHOLE doesn't work together on this goal, we are all doomed.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
US to Develop High-speed Drone with Global Reach [peopledaily.com.cn]
What with the European Space Agency now in collaboration with the Russian's and China's newfound interest, it looks like the next space (weapons) race may be on.
Re:Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously the US military needs this to stop terrorists - I mean I can see Al Queda buildng some evil doomsday device on the moon. Who do they think Bin Laden is? Dr Evil?
USA too big for its boots? (Score:4, Insightful)
The current administration seems to be of the opinion that the USA is supremely powerful. Now, only a fool would deny that the USA is in a powerful position at the moment, but it is not supremely powerful.
It is a dangerous state of affairs when the administration thinks that it no longer needs allies. They need to wake up to the fact that the USA is in the position it is in at the moment partly because its allies allowed it to get there, even helped it.
If the USA really does try to pull stunts like denying other countries access to space, then it might just find out what a difference friends can make. Believe me - Europe, China, India, Russia, Japan - they will react if the USA starts to act stupidly like this. We are already seeming some of the effect of this with collaboration between India and China, for instance.
I think the administration thinks that the rest of the world can't survive without it. They need to travel a bit more. They will that that, for instance, Europe isn't as different as the USA in terms of size and economy as they seem to think. They will also find that India and China aren't as backwards as they might imagine (for christsakes, many Slashdotters have lots jobs to people from these countries, and not just manual jobs but sophisticated white collar jobs).
The more the USA talks like this, the more its former allies are going to group together and start collaborating. The USA seems to like to impose sanctions and economic "punishments" on countries that don't collaborate with it at the moment. I wonder how the USA economy would take it if the national governments of places like Europe, Russia, Japan and China start selling their dollar reserves, or imposing import tarrifs on American goods. The USA may find that actually, it does need friends.
Re:USA too big for its boots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not? Seriously? Europe does not currently have a strong military because it has chosen not to have one, not because it couldn't have one. Europeans prefer their taxes to go towards social programmes rather than military ones.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Conspiracy theory put aside, I think this is a little bit exagerated.
The Chinese government (most high level officials who can make major governmental decisions, at least) are mostly practical. You can't really find anyone who is ultra-conservative and xenophobic right now, not those who are in the position to make decisions.
The major concerns right now to push the economic development as fast as we can (I say we, as I'm Chinese and living in Shanghai), unless there's concern about uncontrollable inflation.
Most officials now just try to play nice, especially with the US (remember the plan crash incident? Bush was amazingly arrogant at the time, but China kinda backed down not to get the sino-us relation into bad water). A lot of people think the government is spineless. But I think the government made a lot of decisions that are right, given the current situations here (economic, political, scientific,
And this is a good thing.
Sure, China tries to develop other areas of expertise too, so what? What does that have to do with Cold War? Why do we have to think that all scientific research must have anything to do with military conspiracy, especially when it is done in China, India, or Russia?
Do you think only people in the US love peace? We all do too. Just give us a chance and I believe we can contribute a lot to the progress of humanity too, just we have done in the past.
Re:Finally (Score:2)
If this is accurate... (Score:5, Interesting)
We went to the Moon so that the USSR couldn't get there first, ne?
Re:If this is accurate... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If this is accurate... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If this is accurate... (Score:2)
The more I read of China (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The more I read of China (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The more I read of China (Score:2)
A nice, US-style interstate highway system or something like that would be a more appropriate way of opening the financial floodgates...
China going to Mars? Whats the point? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The more I read of China (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't there an Arthur C. Clarke short story about just that? It was only a few pages long, but essentially it ends with the Chinese having economically exhausted both the Russians and the Americans, and getting ready to send ships out of the solar system... Or maybe it was a James P. Hogan story?
Space race (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a race in any meaningful sense right now - China has only said it intends to do something that the US has already done, after all. It will become considerably more interesting if a non-NASA space agency - the Chinese, the Indians, the Europeans - announces that it fully intends to land and recover a manned Mars mission before NASA can. My money's on the Chinese - they're the ones with the most to prove, Europe is too apathetic and India cannot devote the resources to it that China's command economy can. As to whether they beat NASA... well that really boils down to the man in the White House. The US/Soviet Empire space race was all about trying to convince the nonaligned nations which political system was the best... it wasn't about scientists competing purely for prestige, it was a battle of national Will. If the US decides that it is going to be impressive enough to take the lead in getting to Mars, then the Chinese would face some stiff competition. Maybe if Russia had more money it could partner with ESA, make it a 3-way race, maybe Japan could join that consortium.
Re:Space race (Score:2)
Re:Space race (Score:3, Interesting)
Race To Your History Books Before Posting (Score:2)
Ummm, NASA has already done everything China says it wants to do, at least 30 years ago. The Apollo missions were preceded by several unmanned missions (Surveyor, et al) throughout the 60's; the Viking landings on Mars in the 70's were preceded by Mariner missions. (The Soviets didn't pull off a manned lunar landing, but did land several unmanned mobile explorers on the lunar surface in the 70's.)
If this is a race, it finished a
Re:Space race - OMFG the preaching begins tsarkon (Score:2)
Re:Space race - OMFG the preaching begins tsarkon (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Zealots (Score:2)
Re:Zealots (Score:2)
Maybe they'll build Bang-Bang?
Re:Zealots (Score:4, Insightful)
Very simple...
They dont have to engineer squat. 99.997% of all the engineering and testing is done for them and freely available.. or available for a price. I am sure the country formerly known as the USSR would gladly sell information on how to get your ass in space, to the moon, to mars, to uranus.. (Ok ok.. bad joke...) all they have to do is build. they have more computing power today than the United states had in 1989.. hell if they use linux and a correct implimentation they can have more computing power than the USA has right now.
The speed of advancement is very fast as the Chineese only have to traverse a very small part of the learning curve.
I think they can do it... but I do doubt that they will... China is known for 2 things.. Lots of population and propaganda... their government is really good at the propaganda part.
Everest (Score:3, Informative)
The US was behind and ended up first (Score:3, Insightful)
The USSR was the first with their satelite in space. Again, you could have said "The US is so far behind", yet the US was the first to put someone on the moon. We could list a myriad of examples, from computing, steel-work, gun-powder use, and so forth...
in the spirit of science (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:in the spirit of science (Score:2)
Also, I've no real idea what China is spending on space, but it is a common myth that "insane sums of money" are needed. No nation has ever allocated more than a small fraction of its budget to space. Even if China were to end its space efforts and give all the money to "the people" it wouldn't raise living standards. The last thing a government shoul
Re:in the spirit of science (Score:2)
It's a historic fact: humans get more done faster when competing against someone or something.
It's just the way we are. Our minds are hardwired by evolution to be motivated by competitive challenges.
shameful waste of Earth's, humans' and economic resources to duplicate what NASA has done
Is it a shameful waste of resources to teach this year's class the same as what last year's class were taught? No,
this just in (Score:4, Funny)
Where's China..? (Score:5, Funny)
China is light years away from launching Mars exploration programmes
I didn't know China was in a different solar system(!).
Would that be Alpha Centauri or Ursa Minor Beta..?
Re:Where's China..? (Score:4, Funny)
Put the RED back in Red Planet [EOM] (Score:3, Funny)
Ehh (Score:3, Insightful)
USA: Uhh, we've already done that
China: Hey, USA, we're going to send stuff to mars!! neeneer
USA: Right-o, Mr. Red
China seems to be all talk and no substance. Personally, it seems as if they are just trying to tell the rest of the world "Look, we can do it too!" but never actually doing it.
And I don't like how so many people consider a 'space-race' a good thing... the USSR/USA 'space-race' did speed up technological developement in that department, sure.. but the goal was for the totally wrong reason, and it happened wayyy too fast.
We're going to the moon! ( 10 years later ) We're on the moon, hurray! ( 5 years later ) Uhh, we're on the moon.. I want to go home
It seems like soon as we beat the USSR and reached our goal, being that there was nothing worthwhile for the government to invest in (winning a space race = instant world respect and nationality rises considerably, i guess) so it just went stagnant.
The government should have a program that helps and directs corporations getting into space directly, and showing them how a profit could be made... that's where the real ticket is
10. PROFIT!
Re:Ehh (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you might like Robert Zubrin's books. He's an engineer by profession who advocates colonization of Mars, and as an engineer he has some pretty realistic ideas about how to do it. But one of his other proposals is mining He3 on the moon. We know it's there. A fusion reactor running on He3 would be far more efficient than
Success? (Score:2)
My biggest fear: (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you Arthur.
But China can save money of safety. (Score:3, Funny)
Chinese Official: You! Citizen #32185 have been lucky enough to be chosen to fly to Mars!
Citizen: Wh.. what?
CO: Put him in the cannon!
C: What's Mars?
CO: FIRE!
BOOM
Technician: Looks like this one didn't make it to orbit either.
CO: More gun powder! You! Citizen #32186 have been lucky...
No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
China is using 30-40 year old Soviet technology in their attempt to accomplish things other nations accomplished 30-40 years ago. I'm happy they are trying, but this isn't much of a race.
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:2)
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:2)
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:2)
In point of fact, the Shuttle is better than Soviet technology, but you obviously don't know or care, so why bother trying to tell you.
However, the point is that there can't be a race if China is simply offering conjecture (not commitments) to do things others did 30-40 years ago.
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:2)
Hoo ha. That's funny.
What are you talking about? Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, Atlas, Titan, Saturn, SkyLab, Mariner, Voyager, Viking, etc., etc., were copies of Soviet hardware??
Please.
Re:No Race, Just Media Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
The Saturn V was built to carry the Apollo to the Moon. It did that quite well. The Shuttle (neither mine nor "super-duper-tech") was designed in the 70's to (A) be reusable, and (b) ferry people and cargo to and from a space station. That's all. It was never designed to do anything else. I'm not a fan of the shuttle, but don't disparage it for failing to
Looks like NASA may finally get a kick in the butt (Score:2)
Land, Land and more land (Score:5, Funny)
More Power To Them (Score:5, Insightful)
Pardon my French, but (Score:4, Insightful)
China ought to use all that money and invest it in their economy, schools, health system, and anything else _but_ useless look-how-big-my-d1ck-is crap.
There are hundreds of millions of Chinese living a miserable life and finally their economy is steadily starting to improve. Finally they have a partyleader who actually tries to improve their living conditions, Hu. They should use this money for their country, not try to rival with the US.
Re:Pardon my French, but (Score:2)
Now I'm not saying we'll be living on mars next year or something, but at the rate we 6B pple are already screwing up the earth, imagine the damage we can do at 12B people!
Go China!
Go India!
Go Banana!
Re:Pardon my French, but (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll resist the obvious cheap joke and move straight to the possibility that China could become the low cost payload-lift nation in a decade and get a big chunk of that polynomial-shaped satellite-buisness curve.
If that kind of wealth/economy/job creation is worthwhile, maybe this R&D effort isn't such a bad bet.
Accelerate? (Score:2, Funny)
How many km/second^2 are we talking about in acceleration anyways?
Oh wait, er... nevermind.
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
"The president imposed a moratorium on reporting four aspects of the project: alluvial sediment buildup, the more than 100 cracks that have already appeared in the dam, pollution/environmental damage and the return of those who were displaced from the area by the project. The first three issues are not allowed because with the passage of time, China's science and technology will improve, so they can be solved. The last taboo is forbidden because of the threat that it poses to social unity and stability."
Ah yes, the damn is starting to have problems. Solution? The media is not allowed to mention these problems, and is 'encouraged' to only mention the good stuff.
This attitude worked somewhat for the Soviets, I'm not sure if it will work for China.
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EF20Ad05.htm
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel so inadequate (Score:3, Funny)
Why does it have to be a race? (Score:2)
USA? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no China-USA space race. Middle America has made it very clear that they do not care about fluff like expensive space programs when the government can instead provide them miniscule tax breaks and 24/7 war coverage. The horrendous mismanagement of NASA funding has become an embarassment to long-time memebers of the Congress, who would rather just sweep the whole idea under the rug and avoid drawing attention to an aging shuttle fleet that they were promising to replace in the 1980s.
America is no longer in a space race with anything other than the financial mismanagement that threatens to eventually kill manned flight entirely.
China? Bring it on! (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, no Congressman/Congresswoman is going to push an untried ambitious technological experiment. Such an experiment could well cost the taxpayers a shit-ton of money. If the experiment fails, that money is seen as lost into the NASA sinkhole with absolutely no benefit derived (at least from the point of view of politics, not that of the scientific community). Add to that the potential for loss of human life on manned missions, and what you end up with is a politcal hot-potato that no elected official will want to touch. That's why promising technologies like the Solar Sail [slashdot.org] are only now becoming realities with the aid of the European Space Agency.
Of course every NASA technology, dicey as it is by nature, was untried at some point. It's my opinion that the political wherewithal (vis a vis space) only surfaces when there is an external (read:military) threat. That it's a powerful, and ideologically opposed nation like China should, ideally, be just the ticket to fuel the ambitions of our elected officials. It's really the classic Zero Sum Game [barnesandnoble.com] as originally described by John Von Neuman and later applied to social theory by Robert Wright.
Re:Finally (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:SARS in MARS!! (Score:2)
More from the BBC, also Mars Express problem... (Score:2)
Re:Planning versus dreaming (Score:2, Funny)
I can draw up elaborate plans to go to Saturn or Uranus, do I have the money?
Well, I don't know about Saturn...
Re:very possible (Score:3, Informative)
Whether the Chinese have the technological skills to build a spacecraft that can last several years on a Mars mission is still an iffy proposition, though.