China Launches Third Unmanned Space Capsule

Guppy06 writes: "As you read this China's third unmanned (except for a dummy) Shenzhou capsule is whizzing over your head. It was launched around 1400 UTC on one of China's newer Long March II F boosters. There's an article at CNN. As per usual, our good friends at NORAD have all the details of its orbit available here, but after last September you need to register to get it..."

Congratulations to China!

[RollingThunder]

Seriously!

The more competition in space, the better the chances of it being commoditized, in my opinion. Time for a fire to get lit under some respective butts!

Re:China's had spaceflight since the 1970s

[Anonymous Coward]

of course they have their sights set on being no. 1. They think that Han chinese are the culmination of evolution and that everything outside the middle kingdom is the wasteland of barbarians. I've spoken with Chinese (in China) who sheepishly told me that Chinese were superior human beings. They already think they're number 1, but i'm sure they want to assume their proper place as soon as possible.

It means we better get going on SDI.

[glrotate]

Because Bill Clinton gave Loral (large campaign donner) Washington Post Story [washingtonpost.com] permission to sell this technology to our good friends the Chinese, they'll soon be able to deliver highly enriched Uranium right to your doorstep! The Democrats and Europeans think that playing defense is unsportsmanlike and that a shield is unnecessary. Thankfully Bush,Rumsfeld et al think differently and were are moving ahead on the project.

Re:OIG Registration

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there was some suspicious traffic on the goddard elset site just before 9/11. Possibly the bad guys checking coverage on some com or recce birds.

I don't know the details, but they are tightening down somewhat. And IIRC, you could get small sets of elements without registering before, but had to register to do anything non-trivial.

You might try this site: http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/

Shenzhou = Holy Vessel

[grainofsand]

For what it is worth, Shenzhou translates as Holy Vessel or Holy Ship.

rumor from the old days

[alizard]

I'm not entirely certain that the passenger is a dummy. There was a rumor floating around some years back that the first Russian missions allegedly "manned" by dummies actually were flying corpses, i.e. the life support systems didn't work as advertised.

Perhaps the Chinese had the same problem and decided to spin the PR the same way.

However, I hope this is not true and look forward to welcoming China to the "Man in Space" club.

Of course, it would be nice to know that NASA is responding with the nanotube-based space elevator project or an orbital-speed railgun to allow undercutting China's prices by a factor of a few hundred and their own current pricing by a factor of a few thousand.

Believe it when I see it.....

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Note: all facts taken from CIA factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index .html

Haven't we heard this before time and time again. The Japanese, the Germans, the EU, the Russians, etc, etc, etc. I remember back in the 80s when Japan was "taking over the world" and Americans were just lazy stupid people who would all soon be working for Japanese bosses. Hasn't turned out that way, eh?

First of all, remember that past economic growth is no indication of future growth. See dot com boom. Don't make the same mistake with other country's economies (or this one's). Secondly, every country has its own difficulties. China has serious internal stability problems to deal with (see Tienanmen Square). It still has a very large percentage of agriculture based workers, around 50%. The per capita GDP is only $3,600 (compared to $36,200 for US). Remember that with x4 the population of the US you have to spend x4 the resources feeding and clothing them. Finally, while they have over a billion people now it will be interesting to see what long term effects the "one-child" policy will have---especially if the vast majority of Chinese choose to have males.

Of course, they still may come up and kick our butts. But don't think it will be simple.

Brian Ellenberger

Re:Shenzhou = Holy Vessel

[Commienst]

You xenophobic American. The Chinese have recently allowed Tibetan monks to practice their faith. They even offered the Dalai Llama to be the spritiual, but not politicial, leader of Tibet. Since His Holiness is in the pay of the CIA he will not accept this, he wants the theocracy back and to invite the US to rape Tibet.

Did you know that before the Chinese occuppied Tibet that only 2 percent(monks and other members of the theocratic class) of the population could read and that, that same 2 percent owned all the land? Did you know that Beijing puts more money into the province of Tibet, than it gets out?

Did you know that Tibet was only "free" from 1912 until 1959? It was part of China before that, the Chinese revolution of 1911 allowed the theocrats to break away from China.

Re:Shenzhou = Holy Vessel

[Commienst]

Religion is/was never about freedom. Religion is about limiting freedom in the mind, trying to trace the radicality of the world into untenable things such as God and spirituality, where preists and monks are above us all.

Re:I have lived and suffered in China

[Commienst]

First of all you obviously do not understand neoliberalism. The lifestyle Western Europe, Japan, and the United States lives is all possible by exploiting the whole world -- even China.

Alot of exploitation takes place here as well. In colleges and universities there is an overproduction of skilled people, so you can pit worker against worker and lower wages in the overproduced field. Another feature of neoliberalism is a large dispossesed class of unemployed people. When there is always an abundance of unemployed workers, when people strike there will always be people desperate enough to replace the striking workers.

A big myth of our times is that technology can help improve our lives. The American family in the 1950s only had only the father working. Today the mother, father and teens work! Where is the improvement? Technology improves and factories produce more and more with less labor, but the preponderance of the profits are going to the factory owners so the workers are actually getting poorer. If a new manufacturing process can increase production, all that happens is that the workers salaries will stay the same and the boss will make even more profit.