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Space

China Sending Two People Into Space 391

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it's-on-now dept.
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."
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China Sending Two People Into Space More

China Sending Two People Into Space

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  • Yay for variety.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:14AM (#8355714)
    "Shenzhou 6 is supposed to carry two "Taikonaut" next year."

    I bet the people on the space station were getting tired of american and russian food. I never had taikonaut but its probably good...
    • This just means that the space station will now have a choice of either Mandarin or Szechuan style when they order chinese take-out.

      • This just means that the space station will now have a choice of either Mandarin or Szechuan style when they order chinese take-out.

        The problem with dehydrated Chinese space food packets is that .021 Earth revolutions later, you're hungry again.

    • Re:Yay for variety.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jabberjaw ( 683624 )
      Interesting, is China allowed to dock at the ISS? If they were allowed to can they given the orbit etc..? A quick google did not turn much up. I for one think it would be a great step in the right direction for the Chinese to be allowed to join the Americans and Russians aboard the ISS in future missions.

  • Space Race!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:17AM (#8355735) Homepage
    Hopefully this will get the US to start a space race with China! Just to make sure, everyone tell Bush that if China gets a man on Mars first, that proves that the president of China has a bigger penis than the president of the US.

  • China Sending Two People Into Space (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:18AM (#8355739) Homepage Journal
    I notice that nothing is said about bringing them back.

    • Re:China Sending Two People Into Space (Score:4, Informative)

      by mafeesh ( 630487 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:15PM (#8356045)

      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.

    • I know you're kidding but Eastern and especially Communist collectivism is precisely why China could easily beat the West to a manned Mars mission: get the taikonauts to Mars without worrying how to bring them back. If you figure it out later: great, then you get to tell the West "I told you so". If not, give them the Order of Labour Glory or whatever.

  • Fast lane (Score:3, Funny)

    by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:19AM (#8355747)
    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."

    They are sending two people so that they can drive the carpool lane. (HOV lane) !!

  • Good for manned spaceflights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:19AM (#8355750) Homepage Journal
    Excellent.

    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.

  • Wikipedia, as usual, rocks (Score:5, Informative)

    by another misanthrope ( 688068 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:21AM (#8355767)
    snippet from Wikipedia's [wikipedia.org] listing for the Shenzhou - lots more in the link!

    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)

      by zeux ( 129034 ) * on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:06PM (#8356003)
      In the future the orbital modules could also be left behind on a Chinese space station as additional station modules.

      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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OK I know I'm gonna get labeled as a troll, but I still think the fact is that Kennedy's race to the moon had nothing to do with the desire for space exploration and everything to do with advancing and keeping one up on ICMB technology. The space program was just a nice side effect. The same could even be said of the hubble telescope, where I hear they have 6 of them up there, but rather than pointing up are pointing down as spy telescopes.
    Now the same is true of China. They wanted space weapons cababili

  • I hope china builds a nuclear rocket (Score:3, Interesting)

    by j_dot_bomb ( 560211 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:26AM (#8355793)
    I hope china builds a nuclear powered rocket like some of the designs discussed at http://www.nuclearspace.com/ . Then the defence industry in the US would overide the environmentalists.

    Just like a submarine, its crazy not to use nuclear.

  • Two Chinese, an American, and Ruskie... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 9Nails ( 634052 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:27AM (#8355802)
    So two Chinese, seven Americans, and a Russian were flying in space...

  • Why Taikonaut ? (Score:5, Informative)

    by rholliday ( 754515 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:28AM (#8355808) Homepage Journal
    In case you were wondering like me ... [geocities.com]

    "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".
    • I understand if chinese speaking persons prefer to call them for taikonauts, but why can't they be referred to as astronauts in english?
      • Call it tradition. Prefixed "nauts" have been used to identify the space pilots of their respective countries for little over 50 years now, to stop in this day and age would be to end a rather novel and respectable nomenclature.
        • IMO it is neither respectful nor even logical. First, why should their job title need to mention their nationality? I'm not naive enough to suggest that we should be beyond such matters, but it would be nice. After all, a programmer or a teacher or a lawyer doesn't get a prefix on his title to indicate what country he's from, nor should he.

          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:5, Informative)

      by Uber Banker ( 655221 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:51AM (#8355934)
      Taikonaut was a word that was coined for Western audiences as it would fit in with the terms Cosmonaut and Astronaut. The term Taikonaut is not used in China, instead the word 'yuhangyuan' (literally 'astro-navigator') is used - which refers to Astronauts, Cosmonauts and 'Taikonauts' without distinction of nationality.

  • paranoia creeps... coming up slowly (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nadsat ( 652200 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:30AM (#8355816) Homepage
    Bomb them all from the moon! We must not allow a mine shaft gap!

  • Uh, what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 )
    Read the mini article, but it sure didn't say much...

    - 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?

    • 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)

      by genmanath ( 577922 )
      I would suppose that the 5-7 day mission is meant to "test the waters", as it were, and perhaps to set a milestone, have the taikonauts talk to school-children, etc. The first few times that the USA and USSR put manned capsules into orbit, they did nothing more than orbit and re-enter. However, that's been done a lot (technology is proven, etc), so the Chinese may have to skip the orbiting for the sake of orbiting's sake and get right to work on whatever-they'll-do.
      • Yeah, this crossed my mind too... They might not do anything particularly interesting while they're still a bit inexperienced space travellers :-)

        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)

    by ahh ( 755373 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @11:56AM (#8355963)
    ... as space is the ultimate high ground on military thinking and United States is publicly touting to build space-based weaponry [aiaa.org] to maintain supremecy.

    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)

      by squarooticus ( 5092 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:24PM (#8356095) Homepage
      Arms control is dead, welcome new instability.

      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)

    by henrypijames ( 669281 )
    There is a Reuter report [cnn.com] on CNN online, with practically the same information as the Xinhua report.

  • Thank you, america! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:19PM (#8356069)
    Post about china and watch how american act like americans on slashdot.

    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)

    by Mr. Cancelled ( 572486 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:43PM (#8356192)
    "All your planets are belong to us!"
  • The US can't afford to send people to Mars but we can afford to send 2 chinese into space?

    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

  • "Divine ship" eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:22PM (#8356434)
    For a supposedly atheist country?

    • Re:"Divine ship" eh? (Score:3, Informative)

      by rangek ( 16645 )

      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)

      by x0n ( 120596 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @03:28PM (#8357058) Homepage Journal
      Well, "divine ship" (or "devine vessel" as some have called it) is only a western interpretation of the word "Shen-Zhou", and a stereotypical one at that. "Shen" can also mean magic as well as divine, and "zhou" can mean boat, vessel or ship.

      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)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 )
    Back in soviet china anyone can fly to space.

  • A couple of Russian jokes about Chinese space prog (Score:3, Funny)

    by Poligraf ( 146965 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @03:57PM (#8357188)
    These are really old.

    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.

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