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Space Science

Chinese Taikonauts Arrive at Launch Facility 64

Posted by michael from the guinea-pig dept.
CylonSlave writes "It seems the recent rumors about China's first manned flight occuring in the next couple of weeks may be for real. Spacedaily.com reports (courtesy of AFP) 14 Chinese trained taikonauts have arrived at the launch facility in Gansu province in Northwest China. Earlier space.com and one of the Chinese state's news organs, the People's Daily, reported on the possibility of a manned flight next month. Note that this Wednesday, October 1, is China's National Day. This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule. Personally, I hope the competition will jolt the US space program back into more visionary ideas such as the manned Mars mission. Two sites about China's space program can be seen here & here."
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Chinese Taikonauts Arrive at Launch Facility More

Chinese Taikonauts Arrive at Launch Facility

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  • On board the spacecraft... (Score:4, Funny)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <.adavis. .at. .ubasics.com.> on Tuesday September 30, 2003 @03:01PM (#7097102) Homepage Journal
    This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule.

    Among other instruments onboard, they will be deploying the world's first open relay SMTP satellite, usable with a directv or primestar dish and a common 802.11a/b/g bridge.

    Later 2005:
    In other news, a Chinese satellite exploded over asia yeasterday. Authorites are investigating, but an unnamed internal source indicated that the "... server couldn't handle the 3 billion emails per second ..." that apparently up until yesterday were flowing through the relay.

    Next day:
    Microsoft is claiming victory as hundreds of US Spammers declare bankruptcy.

    -Adam

  • Taikonauts? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    I'm picturing them playing drums [taiko.com] in space.

    Really, isn't inventing a new nationalistic terminology for space travelers about 50 years past its time? There's no race anymore.

  • "...hey, I can see the Great Wall from here!"

  • Time is getting short (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cuchullain ( 25146 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2003 @03:13PM (#7097213) Homepage
    The US's time as primary space-capable superpower is growing short. We need to kick it into high gear and get cracking if we want to keep the honor.

    Time to get moving, and fund Nasa appropriately. Heaven knows that the payoffs from the R & D alone will be worth the money spent. The materials tech from the first space race is still filtering down to civilian life.

    Regardless, It is 1957, and shenzou 5 is China's sputnik.

    Cuchullain

  • Hopefully, they won't set up a mass base on the moon and threaten us with big rocks dropped from the top of the gravity well.

    ;-)

    • Why oh why oh why does this keep coming up? Sure, you're joking, but seriously: this rock crap was just a way for Heinlein to justify a moon-base. We call it "poetic license." He knew it was BS, too. The fact is that if China did set up a moon base, then the US, the EU, Russia and India would have telescopes in lunar orbit before China even got their Porta-Potties set up. Not to mention the other 500 tracking systems that would be deployed. So, no surprise attack, no secret construction, no military reason
  • ...where did they get the cloning machines to clone the astronauts??

    NarratorDan
  • Everything depends on you now. We need you to succeed so that others, such as the US, will be stirred to follow.

  • Who cares if China beat us? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bluGill ( 862 ) on Tuesday September 30, 2003 @04:58PM (#7098321)

    I'm not against it, but what is the point of Space exploration today? We can do it, we have proven that. It is very expensive though. Satalites yes, but they are self funded, and profitable for private industry. Very little scientific research needs to be done in space.

    Sure it is neat to say you went into space, for the small group of people who have done it, but otherwise what value is there in it? Sit in a small space for a few days with nothing to do but look at the earth. I hope you can get some good books/movies, because once the novilty of seeing the earth from above is over with you need something to do.

    Scientific research sounds good, but most of it can be done on earth. Few scientific research projects going on in space now even have value to science. If you can come up with a good space research project, good. Except it is so expensive to get into space, you better be sure that you can't get results any other way. Even then, a unmaded probe would be better.

    ISS has value, but only because it gets a few russian scientists a job so they don't have develop mistles for evil dictators just to survive. A worthy cause to be sure, but otherwise of no important use.

    I say let the chinese get to Mars first. We have enough probes there to be pretty sure that there is no value in sending people there. If a probe discovers something of value that we need people to check out, fine, but until then why have a highly trained person waste months on the trip?

    That isn't to say we should stand still. Lets develope something of use here. We can catch up to the Chinese anytime. (if only because the spys mean they can't keep the technology secert for very long...)

    I have other things to spend my money on. I hear many retired folks complaining about socal security, I always respond that my parents were not old enough to vote when they sent their socal security money to the moon, so don't blame me for the mess we are in. (Yes that situation is complex than that) I'd like to keep my tax money. Selfish perhaps, but if you won't let me keep it, at least spend it on something that is of use, not waste it on space.

    • I have other things to spend my money on. I hear many retired folks complaining about socal security, I always respond that my parents were not old enough to vote when they sent their socal security money to the moon, so don't blame me for the mess we are in. (Yes that situation is complex than that) I'd like to keep my tax money. Selfish perhaps, but if you won't let me keep it, at least spend it on something that is of use, not waste it on space.

      Here's the hint: humans are all selfish - it's in our n

      • Who said anything about standing still, or not doing pure research? I said that Space based reserach is for the most part not worth it. When the US only has the shuttle (for all practical purposes) which isn't even able to get far out of the atmosphere for 20 years, you know that research in space isn't being done anyway. If real science has a need for science I don't object. Most of the science we are doing in space now is not science, but rather science fair. That is neat, but not advanceing scien

    • China decided several hundred years ago to not explore the rest of the world. they decided that there was more important things to spend their money on in the local area. Europe decided to move forward. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it again.
    • I'm not against it, but what is the point of Space exploration today?

      I read an article a while ago in wired about someone who had done a feasability study into retrieving minerals from asteroids, and concluded that using current technology it would often be cheaper than prospecting for new mineral seams on Earth (think about the Japanese mission to retrieve a rock sample from an asteroid). The first nation to develop this capability, by setting up a mining capability on the moon, for example, will have a

  • Did anyone else misread the "i" as an "l"? The Chinese are about to be launched onto Oprah!

  • I, for one, welcome our... oh, wait. Go NASA!

  • My 0.02$ (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MikShapi ( 681808 )
    1. China is laying down lots of money on its carbon nanotube research - they were mentioned as the 2nd most serious research after CNI.

    2. They're beefing up their space program. Collecting the knowhow. Launching their own vehicles. Tackling the being-in-space problems on their own.

    3. A little prophecy from the Space Elevator's Phase I NIAC paper [www.isr.us]:

    "Let's consider two roughly equal entities (governments, private enterprise etc.). At year zero, entity one begins building a space elevator behind closed doors.
  • Chinese Portion
    -----------------
    Tai - extreme, very
    Kong - space, area, emptiness

    Greek Portion
    -----------------
    naut - sailor

    Have fun!
  • ...shortly after achieving orbit, the Chinese capsule was disintegrated by what U.S. officials are describing as a "freak solar flare".

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