China Sending Two People Into Space 391
henrypijames writes "As reported widely in Chinese media, China has began production of and launch preparations for it's new Shenzhou ("divine ship") 6 spaceship. While being roughly equal in design to Shenzhou 5 which sent the first Chinese into space last year (although having capacity for three persons), Shenzhou 6 is supposed to carry two "Taikonaut" next year."
Yay for variety.. (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the people on the space station were getting tired of american and russian food. I never had taikonaut but its probably good...
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:3, Funny)
The problem with dehydrated Chinese space food packets is that .021 Earth revolutions later, you're hungry again.
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:5, Informative)
Funny you should mention this. I believe the EU tried to do this with bananas imported from poor countries in the caribbean. The USA, prompted by large american banana companies, took them to the WTO to prevent it.
Link here. [foei.org]
That said, the EU is still too much like a rich man's club.
27 million children is not possible! (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple Math: about 300 million people in the US total. (280 or 297 or something as of the last census) 27 is about 30. Now divide that out: 1 in 10 people in the US is a child living in poverty. For the sake of ease in math lets assume that the current life expectancy is 80 (it is about 76 last I checked) and define child as anyone 20 or less (close enough to 18). Which means 1 in 4 people in the US is a child. Combine that with 1 in 10, and that means half the children in the US are living in poverty! (Yes I rounded, but there is a spike in the US population of the baby boomer years, so rounding down to 1/2 makes more sense than up 1/3 in this case)
In short: I don't believe your numbers. They just don't fit in with the US I know.
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately nothing has changed, but you currently enjoy the benefits of the space program, such as that computer you're currently typing on. How about a more efficient care (computer controlled fuel injection). How about better communications?
As for the Russians, tell me there isn't instances of corruption in any democracy? Hm? The Russians are only a short time
Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Space Race!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Space Race!! (Score:2, Funny)
Jeff
Re:Space Race!! (Score:2, Offtopic)
With or without Nader (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I don't see a good Democratic candidate this season.
Re:Space Race!! (Score:3, Funny)
Damn It!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Show more respect!
Re:Space Race!! (Score:2)
Heck it could be cheaper if he stops on the moon first and somehow misses his connecting flight.
China Sending Two People Into Space (Score:4, Funny)
Re:China Sending Two People Into Space (Score:4, Informative)
Except that it *does* mention bringing them back.
He said astronauts would stay aboard the orbiting lab for short periods, with spacecraft ferrying them back and forth.
Return Missions Considered Capitalist (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:China Sending Two People Into Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Lighten up. This is nothing compared to the Bush jokes you'll see here. And for all Bush's defects, his government is still a shade less totalitarian than the Chinese one, most people would agree.
From the Chinese constitution. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Constitution is the fundamental law of the state.
The existing Constitution was adopted for implementation by the 5th Session of the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982. Amendments were made to the Constitution respectively at the 1st Session of the 7th National People's Congress on April 12, 1988, the 1st Session of the 8th National People's Congress on March 29, 1993 and the 2nd Session of the 9th National People's Congress on March 15, 1999.
I. Major stipul
Fast lane (Score:3, Funny)
They are sending two people so that they can drive the carpool lane. (HOV lane) !!
Good for manned spaceflights (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully this will revive the manned spaceflight programs all over the world, preferably in the form of true collaboration and not just let's-all-keep-reinventing-the-wheel kind of silly competition.
We need to get off this planet sooner or later and unmanned probes won't do that.
Re:Good for manned spaceflights (Score:4, Interesting)
Nothing "sad" about it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for manned spaceflights (Score:3, Funny)
"Once upon a time, there were two Chinamen...
Now look how many!"
Re:Good for manned spaceflights (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see... collaboration came up with the ISS, an over budget, behind schedule, understaffed white elephant. Competition put men on the moon in less than 10 years from (almost) scratch.
Re:Good for manned spaceflights (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody can go to the moon now and we really have to 'reinvent the wheel' to go back there.
Re:Good for manned spaceflights (Score:2, Insightful)
Wikipedia, as usual, rocks (Score:5, Informative)
Design
Like the Soyuz, the Shenzhou consists of three modules; a forward "orbital" module, a reentry capsule in the middle, and an aft service module. This division is based on the principle of minimizing the amount of material to be returned to Earth. Anything placed in the orbital or service modules does not require heat shielding, and this greatly increases the space available to the spacecraft without increasing weight as much as it would if those modules were also able to withstand reentry.
The orbital module contains space for experiments, crew-serviced or operated equipment, and in-orbit habitation. The reentry capsule contains seating for the crew, and is the only portion of the Shenzhou which returns to Earth's surface. The aft service module contains life support and other equipment required for the functioning of the Shenzhou. Two pairs of solar panels, one pair on the service module and the other pair on the orbital module, have a total area of over 40 square metres, indicating average electrical power over 1.5 kW (three times that of Soyuz and greater than that of the original Mir base module).
Unlike the Soyuz, the orbital module was equipped with its own propulsion, solar power, and control systems, allowing autonomous flight. In the future the orbital modules could also be left behind on a Chinese space station as additional station modules. In the unmanned test flights launched so far, the orbital module of each Shenzhou was left functioning in orbit for several days after the reentry capsule's return.
Re:Wikipedia, as usual, rocks (Score:4, Interesting)
This part is really interesting. It means that a Chinese space station could grow up very fast and for very cheaply.
Do you have any more information on this?
FYI space programs = nuke programs (Score:2, Insightful)
Now the same is true of China. They wanted space weapons cababili
I hope china builds a nuclear rocket (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like a submarine, its crazy not to use nuclear.
Re:I hope china builds a nuclear rocket (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hope china builds a nuclear rocket (Score:2, Informative)
Two Chinese, an American, and Ruskie... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two Chinese, an American, and Ruskie... (Score:2)
Re:Two Chinese, an American, and Ruskie... (Score:2)
anecdote cont'd (Score:5, Funny)
(someone has to come up with an ending now)
Re:anecdote cont'd (Score:4, Funny)
The Ruskie says: "While we of the CCCP do not fear firey death in re-entry, there is only one of me and seven of you Americans, how will we choose which two of you will acompany me to earth?"
Whereapon the American Commander says: "Hey, I thought that in SOVIET RUSSIA the Earth Re-enters YOU?"
So they threw the american crew out of the airlock and the three communists took the capsule home.
Why Taikonaut ? (Score:5, Informative)
"Taikong" is a Chinese word that means space or cosmos. The resulted prefix "taiko-" is similar to "astro-" and "cosmo-" that makes three words perfectly symmetric, both in meaning and in form. Removing "g" from "taikong" is to make the word short and easy to pronounce. On the other side, its pronounciation is also close to "taikong ren", the Chinese words "space men".
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:2)
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:2)
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:2)
About the logic part, cosmo is Russian so cosmonauts are from Russia, Taiko is Chinese so taikonauts are from China, and astro is Greek, so astronauts are from... whoops
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's because nationalism is the primary motivation for manned space missions?
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why Taikonaut ? (Score:2)
paranoia creeps... coming up slowly (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, what? (Score:2, Interesting)
- Five to seven day mission doing what?
- Their coming space station will be carrying out what experiments?
- Why aren't they using the already functional International Space Station?
Re:Uh, what? (Score:2)
Why aren't they using the already functional International Space Station?
Probably for the same reason they'd rather not use closed source from Microsoft? There's the issues of trustworthiness, national pride, etc. Not to mention that if I were the Chinese government, I sure wouldn't want my fledgling space program to in any way get tied up in the present troubles of NASA.
Re:Uh, what? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh, what? (Score:2)
However, it was basically this I was wondering about:
[...] may have to skip the orbiting for the sake of orbiting's sake and get right to work on whatever-they'll-do.
What that last part actually is. I have really no good idea about what the chinese space programme will involve. I think it's exciting to get more countries to space, but it would be sure nice to
They've got to hurry... (Score:5, Informative)
This is just the beginning of next arms race, even India is building nuclear attack platform in space [dailytimes.com.pk].
Arms control is dead, welcome new instability.
Re:They've got to hurry... (Score:4, Interesting)
Arms control works only when the most powerful parties are rational: back when the US and USSR were the only major nuclear powers, this was a true statement, as much as it pains me to say the USSR was "rational."
This is not true anymore: there are too many nuclear powers now, not all of whom want to sacrifice the benefits of being a major nuclear power on the altar of "arms control." Please tell me what you think is in it for them?
Reuter/CNN report (Score:2, Informative)
Thank you, america! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not only from europe, no, I'm also deeply impressed by your "funny" (+5, Troll) and your "Insightful" (+5, Flamebait) posts.
Truly a great moment for the american karma and how the rest of the world shall interpret it.
Soon... (Score:3, Funny)
Let me get this straight... (Score:2, Troll)
62 percent of all shoes and sneakers imported to the United States are made in China. So are 83 percent of all toys and sporting goods, 54 percent of all leather products, 76 percent of all umbrellas, 30 percent of all furniture, and one in four caps and hats.
The US China trade deficit is about $82 billion dollars (last time I checked) and the Apollo program only cost about $25 Billion.
I'm not sure what my point is
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
25 billion in 1963 dollars is 143 billion in 2002 dollars.
"Divine ship" eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Divine ship" eh? (Score:3, Informative)
I think a better translation is "magic ship".
http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/shenzhou/ [sworld.com.au]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1892598.stm [bbc.co.uk]
And others... IANACT (I am not a Chinese translator). Maybe some one who speaks Chinese could comment?
Re:"Divine ship" eh? (Score:4, Informative)
We as westerners, are all caught up with the image of the Chinese as mystical people selling us Mogwai/Gremlins and rubbing ground rhino horn into their heads each morning. This is just not true. I'd say most Chinese would prefer to translate "Shen-Zhou" as "Magic Boat/Ship". I mean, the Chinese for Aladdin's Magic Carpet could also be translated as his "Divine Floorcovering"; it doesn't really work, does it?
- Oisin
In China (Score:2, Funny)
A couple of Russian jokes about Chinese space prog (Score:3, Funny)
1. TASS news - there was a collision in the orbit between Soviet and Chinese spaceships. Two cosmonauts have died on the Soviet ship; three cosmonauts and twenty two stokers/firemen died on the Chinese one
2. China has launched a new satellite.
Two thousand people strained themselves during that launch
While this message sounds like a flaimbait, it really isn't. I personally admire Chinese civilization, and hope that the West will adopt a bit more than just Chinese food. For example, qigong and Daoist sexual techniques.
Re:chinee (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny is an opinion (Score:2, Troll)
Racial based humor is not, logically, indictive of racism.
In other words, the answer to the question where do the moderators get off moderating this racist drivel as being funny? is; Bec
Re:Funny is an opinion (Score:2)
Re:chinee (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah. All "Chineese" are bad drivers. Though I'd bet my last dollar that they could write in their native language better than you write in yours.
Now, you can moderate this as much as you wa
Re:chinee (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, well that explains it then. You see, my empirical evidence seems to indicate that those with a Ukrainian background have terrible difficulty spelling "Chinese" and "empirical", and sometimes just darn well fuck up sentences all together!
Honestly dude, you're making sweeping generalizations as to a person's driving ability with respect to their race. People are people. Some people c
Re:chinee (Score:2)
Bad Chinese Drivers? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:chinee (Score:3, Insightful)
You know... the #1 way to propagate discrimination is by claiming that you know some guys who fit into the particular group in question and who say the same thing. That neither advances your argument nor does it make it right! What people--even those that belong to the group--say is totally irrelevant. This is true because some people are self-haters or feel subordinate to others (A good exampl
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a bunch of circus clown, and putting priorities like that above their nation's welfare shows how much Chinese leaders are disconnected with the reality of their country.
Here goes my karma, but its worth pointing out that exactly the same allegations can be levelled at the current administration of the USA. How precisely has the expenditiure of over $100 billion for the war in Iraq helped the nation's welfare?
Certainly, the war it may have advanced the geopolitical goals of the administration -- much like China's space race will advance the geopolitical goals of their administration. However, the war has done nothing to advance the USA's welfare.
I'm very much in favour of China's forays into space; I think the USA can only benefit from having a competitor in space. Its not coincidence that the US manned space program has declined heavily since the height of the cold war.
Iraq (Score:2)
And it is a long term investment that will allow USA to survive in 20 to 40 years prospective.
Re:Iraq (Score:2)
And it is a long term investment that will allow USA to survive in 20 to 40 years prospective.
But it doesn't affect the immediate welfare of US citizens -- in much the same way that the Chinese space program doesn't. That was my point.
Re:Iraq (Score:3, Insightful)
It looks like fscked lawyers affected not just the corporate policies (where blowing a couple of thousand employees after a bad quarter is pretty much necessary in order to avoid getting sued by vultures like this: http://www.wfu.edu/users/palmitar/Courses/SecReg-
IHBT IHL HAND? (Score:2)
Re:Me-too technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there's that whole Saddam thing and the disbanding of a major terrorist ring, but that's got nothing to do with a nation's welfare.
A putative link between Saddam and al-Qaida has yet to be proven. You obviously have obediently swallowed all the crap that the administration has been pumping out. You fool.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Insightful)
We went to war during the great depression. A war that wasn't directly against us (until Pearl Harbor). Should we have? We had millions of starving Americans.
When we went into space we still had people without jobs and without food. Today we have people without jobs and without food. Why are we doing anything but feeding them?
Because that's not how economies work. If China can develop a computer industry jobs will come. If china can develop a science industry jobs will come.
If China just spent its time trying to feed its people then no one would get fed and the government would collapse. You have to make the economy boom and then move on from there. For instance, people are doing a hell of a lot better today then they were in 1979 or even ten years ago. Why? Because China invested in its markets and in its economy and in its peoples sense of national pride.
BTW, China is nothing like the USSR. The USSR never had the world's fastest growing major economy. It certainly never had it for years running as China has.
China can afford going to space. They shouldn't get consumed by it; but I doubt that is what is happening. There is still a lot more money outside the space race than inside the space race.
So they are paying a little for some national pride, so what?
Re:Me-too technology (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what they teach in history classes these days. The US went to war only after Pearl Harbour. Until then, which means when France and most of Western Europe had been occupied and the Nazis had been at Britain's doorstep for several months, the US was neutral---precisely because the war "wasn't directly against us".
Bzzt! Wrong. (Score:2)
Good Point, But... (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point, although the reason the US enacted the embargos was because they were planning for the inevitability of war with Japan. It could also be argued that the embargos were effectively an act of war just as OPEC cutting off US oil supply would be today.
And Yamamoto's intention was that Pearl Harbor would destabilize and demoralize the US enough that when they entered the war they would not be able to quickly pose a threat. The reason he was authorized to do this was because of the embargo.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
We might not have "entered" until Pearl Harbor (and then shortly after Germany declaring war on us), but we were preparing for it. Would we have gone to war if they hadn't bombed us? No one knows.
But -- point taken. I'll watch my wording next time.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you realize that there's more people in the US today without medical insurance than there were in the USSR during the space race? That there's now more people in the US not receiving a reasonable education than in the USSE back then?
It's your "We're awesome, so we have the right to kick ass, everyone else doesn't really deserve it" attitude that made the US a lot of enemies...
Oh, and before you mod this as flamebait, maybe at least try to make an effort to prove me wrong!
Re:Me-too technology (Score:3, Interesting)
'Don't know if this is your sig or you meant to attach this to your post, but the onus should be on *you* as the one that asserts the point to prove yourself right. Just saying 'education was better in Russia than is in the US now' and 'more people were covered than they are in the US now' doesn't make it so.
So I'll turn it back to you -- I'd like to see figures that prove that the *quality of care* for all th
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
Don't forget when you pass that homeless guy on the street that it was US that were playing the "me too" game 40 years ago. Fact is putting something in space isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things and it's good for nationalism.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
We don't need another wave of morons feeling superior to everyone else just because some very great people live (and lived) on the same 3.5 million square mile land mass as they do.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Insightful)
The space program is not a lot of money in comparison of the government budget. It wouldn't improve life of the citizens much anyway.
And the USA is doing the same financing a very expensive war with a very bad budget and huge dept. Read my sig to understand the effect of the national debt.
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, tell that to the chap sleeping on the streets outside my doorstep, the people begging on the subway, the wretched homes in the Bronx and New Jersey, people living in shantytowns all over the midwest, south, etc.
Oh yes, "welfare" is only a dirty word if the US Government says about it, no?
Really -- assuming you're an american and have been brought up in the American way of thinking -- do you seriously think the government can "provide" a standard of living to a billion people? No government has that kind of money. You improve the standard of living by stimulating the economy and creating jobs. You do that, in part, by spurring science and technological research. The post-war defence and space programmes are a big reason for the US's economic superpower status today. (You also need a market economy, which the USSR didn't have, but China's developing one.)
Re:Me-too technology (Score:2)
It's a communist government. That's their job
You Do Realise Money's Just Paper, Right? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Me-too technology (Score:5, Informative)
The USA is less rich than it appears. A lot of the high lifestyle that even the lowest classes live is all financed on consumer debt. People are already reaching their credit limits. Once people can no longer finance new things, they can't purchase new things, and you know where that leads. Like any venture financed with debt, it must return enough to more than compensate for the cost of servicing the debt. As consumer tend to only buy things which don't make money, they're taken on huge amounts of debt that will reduce their buying power for many years to come.
The only difference between the USSR and the USA is that the debt is riding more on the individual consumers in the US. Either way, the people owe lots. The US hasn't provided a decent standard of living for its quater billion citizens.
Going to Space Improves Quality of Life (Score:4, Informative)
You don't try and feed a billion people by having them all sustinence farm -- you have a few of them farm and a few of them build fertilizer to help the farmers and a few of them build computers to help the chemists build the fertilizer to help the farmers and a few of them to build shiny things to trade for resources the engineers need to build the computers to help the chemists build the fertilizer to help the farmers. And how do you get better at building shiny things? Go to space.
Re:Yay... go china.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Russia has a 40-year-old soyouz, China has the most advanced manned space ship.. and America has NOTHING to put man into space!! only useless shuttles that are a dysmal failure.
Re:Yay... go china.... (Score:2)
43 years behind Russia? Sure.
43 years behind the USA? Sure.
But nobody else has put anybody into space. Aside from Russia and the USA, China is ahead of the rest of the world. Whee!
Re:Yay... go china.... (Score:2)
Re:Yay... go china.... (Score:4, Funny)
You failed geography, didn't you?
Re:Yay... go china.... (Score:2)
Israel has not put anybody into space.
The US has put an Israeli into space. Not the same thing.