China Plans Deep Impact Mission 286
Comatose51 writes "China is planning its own Deep Impact mission. The goal of the mission, unlike the exploratory NASA project, is to push potential life-ending comets or asteroids away from a collision course with the earth." From the article: " The third nation to launch a man into space has lofty space ambitions that include putting two astronauts into orbit this September and eventually sending up a space station and even a manned mission to the moon."
Deep impact data should help the Chinese effort (Score:5, Insightful)
It would seem that the data gathered would be critical to any future mission to comets that intended to push a comet off course.
The next step of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:5, Insightful)
"Actually, our country has its own Deep Impact plans, it's just we've never revealed them to the public before," the Beijing News quoted Chinese astronomer Zhao Haibin as saying.
In other words, oh yes, we were planning to do that the whole time...but of course -
China still had to overcome technical obstacles before it could send a comet collider into space, Xinhua news agency quoted Huang Chunping, the lead engineer behind sending China's first man into space in '03, as saying
This is the Xinhua News Agency [wikipedia.org] which according to wikipedia "reports directly to the Communist Party's Propoganda Department".
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:5, Insightful)
and they've also announced plans to militarize their space program.
What, like the USA did years ago?
Which method? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will they follow through and actually do what they claim.
Or will they take the US route (which we'll call "Fred") where we talk grand plans and visions...then we cut funding for other projects that are already successfully producing major scientific discovery, and finally we then cut funding even more and adapt 40 year old technology that never lived up to its original expectations in the first place. And then when it fails we propose gigantic new visions we don't intend to follow through on, so that everyone forgets about the failure of the earlier project.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem, iddn't it? They can't afford to be hit by a comet, either. Well roundedness/diversity can be a good thing. Consider the USA's space program. Suppose it never happened, would the USA be the same for it? Maybe they want to cover their butts and spark a little technological innovation to boot.
"This project is a cover for military operations in space. Maybe they're researching how to divert a planetoid into the Earth, potentially more powerful than any nuclear weapon."
Err maybe. The way I see it, though, this sort of weapon has the same drawbacks as a nuclear weapon. It's not like they're going to use it against their enemies without it being traced back to them. If they managed to drop a comet on somebody, from a consequences point of view they'd be in just as much shit as they would be if they had fired a nuclear weapon. Worse, it'd take a hell of a lot longer to get the ball rolling, not to mention the dangerous consequences of a small mistake. What would stop the USA or any other government from responding with nuclear weapons if China pulled a stunt like that? Truth be told, I have trouble imagining that the impact of a comet wouldn't rock their boat, anyway. If it hit the water, for example, well just think about that. If a big enough comet hit to kick a lot of dust into the air, well they wouldn't be fond of that, either. Maybe I'm just incredibly naieve about how useful of weapon a comet diversion would be, but IMHO this theory just seems too far-fetched.
An alternative explanation is that China's vasteness makes the concept of a comet or asteroidal impact a bit scary. (At least on a statistical level.) Perhaps they're worried about their own territory. They might even be trying to improve their global image. "We're trying to save the planet here!"
Anyway, I can speculate all day about it. I'm not trying to say you're wrong. I'm just not sure I suspect you're right.
Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're completely wrong in thinking that we could say or do anything to stop China from doing anything they really want to do. Had we shown "leadership" and pushed for a ban on military uses of space, they wouldn't have listened anyway.
We will have weapons in space because we have weapons wherever we go. We are a violent, overconsumptive, power-hungry race.
Get past it. You'll sleep better.
Re:China, the new SUPERPOWER(tm)! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who pays attention to international economics knows the Chinese government knows what they are doing.
The Chinese leadership is made of engineers and economists while the American leaders are businessmen and lawyers. Who's the greedy thugs?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:4, Insightful)
You illustrate the point of the program precisely, to educate people with reactionary views like your own. China does not want to be seen as a technically and military inferior country that can be pushed around by the worlds last superpower. The population of China is generally estimated to be 1.3B, not 2B.
They are spending the money on this project for exactly the same reason that JFK launched the moon shot - political prestige translates directly into power. The idea of going to the moon was to spend the USSR into the ground. JFK started the program in 1962, a quarter century later the USSR was kaput.
For example at the moment there is a sizable faction of the Republican party that spends its time talking about the need to start a trade war with China. Some of them even want to go further and instigate a new cold war. In that type of political environment it makes good sense to invest a few billion dollars pointing out that the economy of China is not stagnant and declining and that it has more than enough capacity to support a military sector that is more than sufficient for national defense.
According to the CIA world fact book China's economy is worth 7.2 trillion and is growing at 9.1%, the Us economy is worth 11.8 trillion and is growing at 4.4%. At that rate China overtakes the US in 10 years time. That is not even taking acount of the fact that the US economy is mature and the typical growth rates of mature economies are much less than 4%. Plus the US has a massive balance of payments deficit that is only being financed by China buying US bonds.
So even if the US was to try a cold war strategy at this stage as the neanderthal wing of the GOP would like it is simply too damned late. China has more economic leverage over the US than the US could hope to gain over China.
The US is currently facing the same problem that hit the British Empire. In the 1920s a bunch of politicians got into power who were really into the whole imperialism thing, they swaggered about holding 'empire days' and such. All the time completely oblivious to the fact that the empire was slipping away and their behaviour was one of the main reasons that it was happening.
China and India are becoming world powers. The US is not going to be the worlds only super power in the future. That is a good thing if people would only realize it. The US is not going to be able to pursue a unilateral foreign policy, but why on earth does the Bush administration want to?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2, Insightful)
This has been a popular theme for politicians to rally behind for the last 3 decades.
The fact is, nobody will sustain the growth that they are at for the long term. Eventually, China will even out and start facing the same issues that the US has been working out since the '70's.
The same applies to India, both nations are starting to get their piece of the global market and when they start to catch up, their economies will change drastically (just like the US's economy has with the upturns and downturns through the 70's 80's and 90's with recessions, gas shortages etc.) This is what is on the horizon for up and coming national players.
Take a look at China's natural resources and what do they have that the rest of the world needs? (besies rice) They have a heavily 'services' oriented economy. This is prone to severe highs and lows based on the rest of the worlds ability to pay them for their services.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're left with a missile defense system that's incapable of defending against a Chinese attack, and also completely useless against terrorists who would deliver a nuke through shipping. Why did you spend those billions again?
So everybody becomes even more trigger happy as they realize they have less reaction time available than before. Bet that doomsday clock advances a few minutes as a result.
Stop - Boom, boom, boom - or I'll shoot!
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
You are discounting the very real danger of accidental release of nuclear weapons. Both USA and USSR have on several occasions mistaken various events for missile launches. Fortunately there was enough time to figure out that the launches were imaginary or peaceful. Once both SDI and nuclear weapons in space are in place, the likelyhood of mistaking something else for an attack will go up, and the time window before retaliation missiles must be launched is cut short.
Re:A Chinese Moon Landing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:International Space Station? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ISS-monopoly on the other hand is cementing the status-quo. Just look at the ISS: A giant monstrosity which seems to be more concerned with luxury for astronauts than anything else.
We need a new space race, otherwise we will never be able to get off this planet.
And the pioneers won't be using giant ships with enormous free space like in Star-Trek (or on the ISS). They will be travelling in tiny and efficient capsules and the trip won't be comfortable at all, it will be dangerous and dirty. (Like Apollo was) And there will be casualties.
Actually the Chinese are currently in a much better position to actually make things happen than the Americans and Europeans combined. Maybe after the Chinese have landed on Moon, the others will get off their chairs. Let's hope so.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
If that happened the US would do everything in it's power to get rid of all th enukes in the world. Until then the US feels like it has the capacity to destroy other countries while minimizing the risk to it's own citizens. Therefore there is no reason to disarm.
I hope and prey that the chinese (or anybody) can achieve the ability to kill all americans within seconds. Until that happens the world will forever be in risk from nuclear weapons.