China Sends First Taikonaut To Space 915
tuxlove writes "Space.com reports that China has just
successfully launched its first manned space mission. "Blasting off from a remote space base in the Gobi Desert atop a Long March 2F rocket,
a single Chinese astronaut named Yang Liwei is on his way
to circle the planet every 90 minutes aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. As a result, China has become only the third nation on Earth capable of
independently launching its citizens into orbit. " Perhaps this will kick the US space program back into gear?"
aerojad points to this
Reuters report, about which he says "The article is short on details, aside from 'Xinhua said the craft carried
astronaut Yang Liwei, 38. The launch on Wednesday, 42 years after the Soviet Union put the first man into space, marked a milestone for China's
secretive space programme, which analysts say has its sights set on a manned mission to the moon.' The mission is due to end in 21 hours."
zxm adds a link to China
Daily's coverage, and puiwah to a story on MSNBC.
alt news source (Score:2, Informative)
Hopefully this will cause NASA and the US gov't to focus more on the need for ongoing space exploration.
NASA's Offical Reply (Score:3, Informative)
NASA's offical response:
What their real response (measure in actions, not press-relases) remains to be seen, of course.
Not "Taikonaut", the term is "Yuhangyuan" (Score:5, Informative)
Taikonaut was formed by taking the Chinese Chinese word for 'Space' and adding the '-onaut' ending.
Re:Questions (Score:2, Informative)
"The Shenzhou spacecraft appears similar to the Russian Soyuz, but is different in dimensions (slightly larger and heavier) and does not seem to use any detailed parts copied from the Soyuz or built under license. Therefore although it follows the classic layout of the Soyuz, adopts many of the same technical solutions, and the re-entry vehicle has the same shape, it cannot be considered strictly a 'copy'. And if one considers Shenzhou to be a copy of the Soyuz, then was the Soyuz design stolen - from the American General Electric Apollo spacecraft proposal?"
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/wastolen.ht
More linked stuff
"Whoever flies aboard Shenzhou-5, they will not be the first person born in China to fly in space. William Anders, born in Hong Kong, orbited the moon in December 1968. Shannon Lucid, born in Shanghai, holds the world record for a woman for time in space (over 223 days in space on 5 spaceflights). And physicist Taylor Wang, also born in Shanghai, spent seven days in space aboard shuttle mission STS-51-B in 1985."
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/couzhou5.ht
I'm all for the Chinese entering space, but like the Soviets before and after the Second World War and the reconstruction of Germany in the 30s these technological and engineering feats have been accomplished through social and political changes which lead to the deaths of millions and the destruction of cultural identities for millions more.
Good luck to the crew and the staff who accomplished this, and I hope that we will see less and less oppression in China of thier minorities.
Re:The tricky part (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Questions (Score:3, Informative)
See this link [astronautix.com]. This link [astronautix.com] is also relevant; it has various facts and figures on the Shenzhou.
Re:How will the world react in the long-term? (Score:1, Informative)
Today, the physicists who participate in watching the most formidable and dangerous weapon of all time... cannot desist from warning and warning again: we cannot and should not slacken in our efforts to make the nations of the world and especially their governments aware of the unspeakable disaster they are certain to provoke unless they change their attitude towards each other and towards the task of shaping the future. We helped in creating this new weapon in order to prevent the enemies of mankind from achieving it ahead of us. Which, given the mentality of the Nazis, would have meant inconceivable destruction, and the enslavement of the rest of the world....
- Albert Einstein
Re:NASA's Offical Reply (Score:3, Informative)
Me too, until I read Landes' _The Wealth and Poverty Of Nations_, which is a fascinating economic view of history of the past thousand years. The Chinese pretty much had the Europeans beaten in shipbuilding:
After this, they pulled inward, but I never learned about the previous achievements until adulthood.
Re:The tricky part (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How will the world react in the long-term? (Score:3, Informative)
Velcro was patented in 1955.
The Invention of VELCRO (R) - George de Mestral [about.com]
"two taikonauts wondering whether to take down the American flag still found at the Sea of Tranquility"
The SoT flag was placed too close to the lunar module and according to Buzz Aldrin was blasted over on their departure. The other 5 flags were placed farther away from the LM and are almost certainly still upright though.
Group Wants to Protect Apollo Site [space.com]
Re:NASA's Offical Reply (Score:2, Informative)
When a new civilisation was encountered, the chinese would often demand tribute, the chinese weren't really interested in trade with other nations at all. So really it was more a situation not dissimilar to the US space program, more like been there, done that, lets move on.
Re:the answer -- secrecy (Score:3, Informative)
Some background (Score:2, Informative)
In 1994 Jiang Zemin and Boris Eltsin preliminarily agreed on Russian-Chinese cooperation in space exploration. In March 1995 they signed a secret agreement on tranfer of russian technologies, as well as sale of rocket components, space suits and key systems of Soyuz to China. The agreement included training of several chinese cosmonauts. In 1996-1997 two Chinese aviators underwent a 14-month course in Russian Training Center, reportedly, for $1mln. Chinese experts thoroughly studied the process of the training. In March 2000 China striked a new accord with Russia, which included production of parts of future "Chinese" space station, more training of the Chinese cosmonauts as well as the earth-bound personnel.
According to experts, China spent some $120mln in Russia on space technologies, parts and services (remark: I wonder how much was spent in US). Total cost of the program was estimated at $2.3bln, which included designing, production, and launch of 3 unmanned and 1 manned spaceships.
Re:space base in the gobi desert.... (Score:3, Informative)
The US launches from the Cape not to gain the equitorial boost (which is nice, but not terribly important), but because of geography. There are numerous launch angles from there that are far enough out to sea as not to endanger inhabited islands, but close enough to those islands for telemetry and radar stations to be put there. This was *very* important in the early days.
Russia's manned launch center is placed where the capsules final descent is over Russian territory from shortly before retrofire. This is/was an important consideration because their communications depend on ground stations, and the Russians were/are paranoid about putting those outside it's borders.
The siting of a launch center depends on numerous complex issues.
Re:Outside Verification? (Score:4, Informative)
well ask yourself why you're breathing out WATER VAPOR, but its not making huge clouds every time you breathe? because it ain't condensing, bucko.
it'll condense in winter, but the air is very cold then.
tah dah. basic gradeschool physics.
your tinfoil hat needs adjusting, as well as your basic education.
Response to Russian technology claims (Score:5, Informative)
The whole entire complete US space programme was based on German technology and ideas from WWII taken from Germany and transplanted into the US along with the German rocket team people under Werner von Braun. Even the idea of a space plane was based on a German WWII idea called the "Saenger Amerikabomber" which was an idea to develop a manned spcae plane that would be able to reach the continental United States and drop a bomb before completing one sub orbit by skippping off the atmosphere and then returning to Germany.
Re:the answer -- secrecy (Score:2, Informative)
The first result: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-02zi.html
Date: Apr 9, 2002 !
I quote:
In a report that the Chinese media widely published on Apr. 3 and 4, a space official hinted strongly that China would attempt the first manned launch with the Shenzhou-5 (SZ-5) mission next year
Hot damn, that was a surprise. They published it only 18 months earlier. Manned space missions from China? Who knew??
Visible in a few minutes (Score:4, Informative)
At 11:28 GMT, it'll be visible over Chicago.
Last chance at 5:59 PDT to see it over the West Coast.
Orbit details at space weather. [spaceweather.com]