China Reveals Its Space Plans Up To 2016

PolygamousRanchKid writes "China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum. China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in space technology and experience. The country will continue exploring the moon using probes, start gathering samples of the moon's surface, and 'push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun.' Some elements of China's program, notably the firing of a ground-based missile into one of its dead satellites four years ago, have alarmed American officials and others who say such moves could set off a race to militarize space. That the program is run by the military has made the U.S. reluctant to cooperate with China in space, even though the latter insists its program is purely for peaceful ends."

Uh, yeah

[0123456]

From TFA:

China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time

NASA went from the first manned spaceflight to walking on the moon in around seven years. China first flew a manned spaceflight eight years ago; what major breakthroughs have they made in comparison?

Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to correct, but it was the research team led by Carle Pieters of Brown University which discovered water on the Moon, using the M3 instrument on the Indian-launched Chandrayaan-1 space probe.

NASA just followed up with a bunch of announcements after the fact, to drown out that landmark announcement with their own also-ran announcements.

Re:Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA

[youn]

My apologies, it was Chandrayaan indeed... Though, it is interesting to note Nasa did contribute the M3 mineral maper module that made the discovery... I may be wrong but without it, I do not think that without this instrument, it would have been possible to make the discovery (not to diminish in any way Chandrayaan's accomplishment... awesome to see a new country doing something interesting, Kudos to the Indians). To be fair, I was more referring to the Nasa LCROSS mission which actually settled for sure there water was present in big quantities... before that, there was a lot of speculation

Re:Uh, yeah

[WindBourne]

put together a space shuttle. Put up multiple space stations. Have numerous probes all over the solar system. Landed on 3 different surfaces with multiple probes on 2 of them. Flown a probe OUT of the solar system. Massive telescope in orbit. Have found numerous planets around our galaxy. etc. etc. Have funded multiple private launch systems which will carry cargo and shortly ppl. Got the ISS going with multiple other space organizations. Helped most of these other space organizations to make them a success with the ISS. Likewise, developed the VASIMR, Transhab which were taken private. Did the original nuke engines that are capable of sending us all over the solar system.

But otherwise, nothing much.

Re:Uh, yeah

[cavreader]

Russia and the various allied countries after WW2 all used captured German rocket technology and China has basically purchased all their space related systems from Russia. The best US space based technology today is the X-37 orbital vehicle that can destroy or deploy satellites if necessary. Most of the newest US tech is targeted towards unmanned vehicles because we have reached the level that a human pilots cannot handle. For example the F-22 does not use it's full capabilities because a human pilot can not withstand the experience. Exploring the solar system is a perfect job for unmanned vehicles. If they discovery any thing really interesting a manned mission could be justified. Also the satellite China took out was in very low earth orbit. The really critical satellites are deployed in high orbits.

Re:What is "space technology"?

[msobkow]

Here's a "mil-spec" tidbit for you. Back with my first job at SED Systems in Saskatoon, SK fresh out of university two weeks before I started with them, I was assigned to work on a project delivering to the Canadian military.

We failed a mil-spec inspection because some valves we were shipped were the commercial versions. The difference between the mil-spec and commercial versions? mil-spec meant they were spray painted Canadian military olive green; the commercial version was spray painted black.

We took out the valves, spray painted them green, and put them back. We passed the next inspection.

You wouldn't believe how much extra the company charged to spray paint the valves green instead of black.