China Eager To Send Its Own Mission To Mars In the Wake of Mangalyaan 84
MarkWhittington writes The recent arrival into Mars orbit of both NASA's MAVEN and India's Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission has not escaped the notice of China. The achievement of its Asian rival has especially proven galling to the Chinese. China has yet to successfully send a space probe beyond the moon. The development has elicited calls in Beijing to accelerate China's Mars program. China currently plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020 and, perhaps, do a Mars sample return mission in 2030. However, it feels that India, which China regards as its rival in an Asian space race, has stolen the spotlight and has left the Chinese behind. China is now keen to try to play catchup with its own Mars mission. One of the hold ups for a Chinese interplanetary exploration program is the delays surrounding the development of the Long March 5 rocket, which will be roughly the equivalent of the America Delta IV in its capabilities. The Chinese launch vehicle unveiling has slipped to at least 2015 because of the technological challenges it faces. The Long March 5 is also needed to launch the 20 ton modules of the Chinese space station, currently planned for later this decade.
Step one (Score:5, Insightful)
Steal the design, source code and production plans.
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When the arrive, they'll plant a flag and claim the entire planet for the Worker's Party.
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China is a signatory to the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies", Article II of which states:
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
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Also via an old treaty the western hemisphere is divided between Spain and Portugal.
Re: Step one (Score:1)
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Conversion issues (Score:5, Funny)
One of the hold ups for a Chinese interplanetary exploration program is the delays surrounding the development of the Long March 5 rocket, which will be roughly the equivalent of the America Delta IV in its capabilities
They're not used to working from blueprints that use feet, inches, and pounds.
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Everything's national security over here.
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You mean, the entire continent?
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The Chinese have already been to Africa.
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Re: What about Africa? (Score:2)
In fact, had NASA not helped osc, blue origin, and esp spacex, they would all be still working with small rockets that blow up occasionally.
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How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey Chinese leaders, want to make your manhood look bigger? Give Tibet its freedom back. Renounce your insane claims to all of the S. China Sea, and stop threatening Taiwan. Until that happens, no amount of space funnies is going to make men out of you.
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How about giving the USA back to the native Americans?
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Or at least give the Native Americans back their religion.
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How about the sapiens sapiens giving Europe back to the neanderthalensis?
Or is it too late for that too.
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How about the sapiens sapiens giving Europe back to the neanderthalensis?
Or is it too late for that too.
I think its in the works [gstatic.com]
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Tibet is strategically important to China, and I don't foresee them just giving it up because some hippies are holding protests. Tibet holds a huge supply of freshwater that flows into China.
Natural resources and freshwater, y'say? Thank you, I didn't know about that.
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Re: How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans? (Score:2)
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Re: How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans? (Score:2)
Re:How about giving Tibet back to the Tibetans? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tibet is strategically important to China, and I don't foresee them just giving it up because some hippies are holding protests. Tibet holds a huge supply of freshwater that flows into China. It has nothing to do with religion or politics, just natural resources...
Because unless they subjugate Tibetans, imprison and torture them, and try to eliminate their culture the water won't flow into China anymore?
Imperialists (and their apologists) always have these "reasons", even when they are tissue thin fig leaves.
China could pull of Tibet entirely, and they would still get their water. If the Tibetans tried to cut it off in some way, for some god-knows-why reason, China could shut the project down with one short military operation, and make the Tibetans regret ever trying it.
No need for maintaining a brutal occupation.
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South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan are all right in China's way.
Those cute little people who are so rudely "in China's way" have been there for thousands of years, and they are critical trading partners.
If rather than recognizing these many people co-inhabit the same area and need to get along, if China prefers to think of them as "in the way", China has a world of hurt coming its way. And when the disaster happens, it will be 99.999999% China's fault.
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The US and countries friendly to the US control most of the shipping lanes and ports near China. South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan are all right in China's way. They desperately need North Korea and as much control of other shipping lanes as they can muster.
Why do the the Chinese need to control the shipping lanes? It's not like they have any problem exporting their products.
They're not being assholes about Tibet and Taiwan; they're trying to defend themselves and stay alive.
How is control of Taiwan
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The Chinese can just steal the specs of the Delta (Score:2)
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For all her Majesty (Score:3)
They may have invented gunpowder and pasta way back when - but they lost it after that.
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China is always behind the curve. They didn't get nukes until the 1970's.
In the interest of accuracy -- the first Chinese nuclear test was in 1964 [wikipedia.org], and they exploded their first thermonuclear device in 1967 [wikipedia.org]. So no, not the '70s.
Whip 'em out (Score:5, Funny)
It's time to measure SPACE DICKS again!
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Monkey see, monkey do. China and India are definitely the JV of space.
Great! Are they going to start beheading Martians now?
China did go beyond the moon! (Score:2)
China has yet to successfully send a space probe beyond the moon
Wrong!
The Change'2 probe went to the Moon, circled it for a year, then went to a Lagrange point, then flew on to the asteroid Toutatis and since then is flying into deep space.
Collaboration (Score:1)
Re: Collaboration (Score:3)
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U really have no clue. ... And u think that they will work together?
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I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What have got against the "y" and the "o" in "you"?
Good (Score:3)
Isn't it phantastic when science and engineering can profit from stupidity and narrow-minded nationalism? If only that were always the case!
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Isn't it phantastic when science and engineering can profit from stupidity and narrow-minded nationalism? If only that were always the case!
Well, if it gets a little more cash spent on actual science (sad that it takes an international pissing contest to get that done, but thats the world we live in)
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Isn't it phantastic when science and engineering can profit from stupidity and narrow-minded nationalism? If only that were always the case!
Sadly, it's the case very often - just about anything that can be classified as a "dual-use" technology gets a great deal of funding when perceived to be strategically important. In addition to the obvious example of the space race, the development of radar and digital computers was heavily driven by WWII, and we've also made some major advances in medical care thanks
Little sissies (Score:1)
they can do it for lesd (Score:2)
Re:they can do it for lesd (Score:5, Interesting)
China is quintessential corporatism in action. The total merger of state and corporate power controlled by a board of directors commonly called the "Party". The country has not been communist for a long time and there are strong arguments supporting idea that they truly were never communist in the first place. The Chinese citizens have absolutely no way of influencing any government policies and decisions. Even simple non-violent protesting is frowned upon and suppressed by the government if it threatens the status quo . The government programs aimed at benefiting it's citizens do just enough to keep a lid on dissent and mass protests, and China definitely contains a lot of mass. China built it's economy on cheap labor and a fair amount of currency manipulation instead of adding their currency to the international basket of currencies and allowed to float in relation to other economies. Theses two pillars of economic policy are not sustainable. There are other countries capable of providing low cost labor. The Chinese citizens uplifted by the economic gains are starting to demand higher pay and benefits which is a well established principle in nationalistic economy model. The country may have risen up to be a world economic power but their Per capita statistics are still far behind countries such as Japan and the US. It is possible for a state to have a high GDP but if that success doesn't translate down to the average citizens it is a pretty meaningless metric.
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LOL. State ownership of huge companies is indeed a hallmark of communism. I love how so many people are desperately trying to say China was never communist in the first place, because it didn't work out well. It's funny how many capital-C Communist regimes there were in the world - and yet not a single one was communist. It's the No True Scotsman fallacy in action.
They are, in fact, communist. However, they are taking the capitalist road to achieve socialism. This is a heresy of communism, one Mao w
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The country has not been communist for a long time and there are strong arguments supporting idea that they truly were never communist in the first place
I don't know, I think the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are quintessential examples of communism in action, and had nearly nothing in common with capitalist systems.
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Communism is a failed and impracticable ideology. It sounds good on paper but in reality it doesn't scale. It dampens motivations, incentives, and brings progress to a stop. The only equality produced by communist policies is when everyone are equally poor. Communist slogans and rhetoric preach equality of the masses while demonizing anyone who dares to succeed and attain wealth. But the harsh reality is that people are not equal. Some contribute more to society than others and they expect more for their
Open up mission control? (Score:2)
This is stupid... (Score:2)
We should all pool our efforts together and build on each other's success, rather than treating space exploration in the same way as world cup soccer.