China Plans Deep Impact Mission 286
Comatose51 writes "China is planning its own Deep Impact mission. The goal of the mission, unlike the exploratory NASA project, is to push potential life-ending comets or asteroids away from a collision course with the earth." From the article: " The third nation to launch a man into space has lofty space ambitions that include putting two astronauts into orbit this September and eventually sending up a space station and even a manned mission to the moon."
Oh, they saw that movie too... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh, they saw that movie too... (Score:4, Funny)
China is being very ambitious (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder, when they finally land someone on the moon, will they say "We came in peace for all mankind"?
New Star Trek Film Planned by Fans [whattofix.com]
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:5, Insightful)
"Actually, our country has its own Deep Impact plans, it's just we've never revealed them to the public before," the Beijing News quoted Chinese astronomer Zhao Haibin as saying.
In other words, oh yes, we were planning to do that the whole time...but of course -
China still had to overcome technical obstacles before it could send a comet collider into space, Xinhua news agency quoted Huang Chunping, the lead engineer behind sending China's first man into space in '03, as saying
This is the Xinhua News Agency [wikipedia.org] which according to wikipedia "reports directly to the Communist Party's Propoganda Department".
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2)
I for one trust state-controlled media. Nothing false ever came out of Pravda, right?
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2)
Did Pravda ever have pictorials of Britney Spears pregnant?
Xinhua is a supermarket tabloid.
Now would The Examiner be more or less accurate if run by the State?
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2)
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:4, Funny)
People are always asking themselves "what if." The US military has plans for full scale thermo-nuclear war with canada. I have plans to teleport into strange women's bedrooms. Scientists especially tend to plan things out, even if they aren't likely.
We're all waiting on impetus and technology.
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:3, Funny)
Actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:5, Insightful)
and they've also announced plans to militarize their space program.
What, like the USA did years ago?
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2)
Other countries are still assisting Nasa for some reason...
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:3, Informative)
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2, Informative)
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:4, Informative)
Contractors in charge is a ridiculous thing to say. From the inside NASA's biggest problem is that during the space race technical people who knew how to accomplish technical tasks were picked to lead and manage the agency at all levels; now most NASA divisions have "professional managers" who couldn't personally build and fly a model rocket - let alone make critical decisions about the real thing. It is these non technical "professional managers" who are the "NASA cultural problem" you have heard so much about. Such people have been directly responsible for most of NASA's technical disasters.
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2)
Surely, you have heard of the Star Wars Program, right?
Re:China is being very ambitious (Score:2, Funny)
Nope. They will say, "All your moonbase are belong to us." :)
What about sound? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What about sound? (Score:5, Funny)
In a vaccum, both should be equally useful.
Re:What about sound? (Score:2)
Re:What about sound? (Score:2)
Re:What about sound? (Score:2)
Re:What about sound? (Score:2)
Re:What about sound? (Score:2)
Erm. Nearly every single movie or tv show that had a sequence in space has sound. Why's Lucas the scapegoat? I realize the prequels sucked, but geez. The worst part is, it's a really stupid thing to nitpick. Those sequences don't say there's sound in space any more than they say an orchestra follows the characters around and plays appr
World killer? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:World killer? (Score:2)
They know that it's a realistic possibility. They also know that there ain't a whole lot we can do when something finally does show up.
Re:World killer? (Score:2)
Re:World killer? (Score:3, Interesting)
See, it'd be trolling if I suggested that Bush's war with Iraq was merely a distraction to keep the public from knowing about the comet.
Re:World killer? (Score:2)
Re:World killer? (Score:3, Funny)
Whereas, it has been scientifically proven that *something* is out there neare Uranus and Neptune causing a gravitati
Deep impact data should help the Chinese effort (Score:5, Insightful)
It would seem that the data gathered would be critical to any future mission to comets that intended to push a comet off course.
Re:Deep impact data should help the Chinese effort (Score:2)
The next step of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Chinese technology (Score:2)
litigation (Score:5, Funny)
If it was Europe trying to pull this shit, we'd have a second defendant!
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I for one... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A Chinese Moon Landing (Score:2)
If they don't respect America's claim to the moon, I'll wager Taiwan becomes the 52nd U.S. state along with Puerto Rico.
Re:A Chinese Moon Landing (Score:2)
The thing is... (Score:2)
The math doesn't look good... (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinetic energy is not the way to go. Deep Impact delivered only about 4.5 kt of TNT. In contrast, a good sized thermonuclear weapon could deliver thousands of times that energy (even taking into account the relatively poor conversion of 100 megatons yield into delta-V).
Re:The math doesn't look good... (Score:2)
Re:The math doesn't look good... (Score:2)
For example, a solar sail could do it... or some kind of rocket that could use the comet as fuel.
These experiments give us enough knowledge to at least give us options that have a chance of working.
Re:The math doesn't look good... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to wax philosophical for a moment, I hear people talk about founding space stations so we "don't have all our eggs in one basket", but if the entire earth gets wiped out does it really matter if we have a couple dozen people in a space station or moon base? nah, who gives a crap at that point, certainly you or I won't....
Off by three orders of magnitude (Score:2)
I've lost count of how many times I've seen this mistake made.
Re:The math doesn't look good... (Score:2)
Astronauts? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm pretty sure you mean taikonaut (unless the Chinese are really sending Americans into space...)
Re:Astronauts? (Score:3, Informative)
Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikng (), Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yháng yuán (, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taiko
Re:Astronauts? (Score:2)
By that logic a French spacefarer would be called éspaceonaut, a Swedish rymdonaut and a German Weltraumonaut.
Why use this multilingual arrangement specifically for spacefarers? Why not use it also for airline pilots, bakers, mushrooms and shoes?
Terrorism may have turned the United States into a nation of fear and aggression, but it won't succeed in Europe.
You see... (Score:5, Funny)
I kid.
Which method? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will they follow through and actually do what they claim.
Or will they take the US route (which we'll call "Fred") where we talk grand plans and visions...then we cut funding for other projects that are already successfully producing major scientific discovery, and finally we then cut funding even more and adapt 40 year old technology that never lived up to its original expectations in the first place. And then when it fails we propose gigantic new visions we don't intend to follow through on, so that everyone forgets about the failure of the earlier project.
Re:Which method? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Which method? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apollo delivered its goals, but was scaled back. There were supposed to have been at least two more flights in the program, and it could have achieved far more than it did.
Skylab worked, but I don't think it was in the general plans for it to fall out of orbit after only three missions.
Apollo/Soyuz, yeah, I'd have to agree on that one too.
The shuttle works, but it has never fully lived up to expectations. Way over budget and late. Original plans
Of course... (Score:2, Interesting)
Very original idea (Score:2, Funny)
Only genius of China nation think so clearly for future requirments of Grate Space missions.
The Nasa needs to play catch up games now, I beleive. (If try the copying of ideas, then perhaps you will find...)
Instead of "Made in China" (Score:5, Funny)
One big label on earth:
"Saved By China"
That's impossible! (Score:4, Funny)
International Space Station? (Score:3)
Re:International Space Station? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ISS-monopoly on the other hand is cementing the status-quo. Just look at the ISS: A giant monstrosity which seems to be more concerned with luxury for astronauts than anything else.
We need a new space race, otherwise we will never be able to get off this planet.
And the pioneers won't be using giant ships with enormous free space like in Star-Trek (or on the ISS). They will be travelling in tiny
In the words of Benny Hill (Score:2)
Two interesting concepts that disturb together (Score:2)
Especially when the title is "Deep Impact" yet they don't plan to crash INTO the comet but to move it INTO... some other target? Perhaps a military target?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
This was the first thing I thought when I read the first post in this discussion joking about diversion into Mongolia.
Think of the advantage of being able to cause inflictions of "natural" disasters on your competitors/enemies.
I'd imagine it would be very much in the reach of any monied country with the will to do it.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
If the Chinese government is covertly doing military research in space now, as you say, what would have prevented them from doing the same even with a treaty?
Oh wait... I get it. If we had a treaty, we could wag our collective fingers at them when they blast Taiwan off the map with an aimed meteorite.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem, iddn't it? They can't afford to be hit by a comet, either. Well roundedness/diversity can be a good thing. Consider the USA's space program. Suppose it never happened, would the USA be the same for it? Maybe they want to cover their butts and spark a little technological innovation to boot.
"This project is a cover for military operations in space. Maybe they're researching how to divert a planetoid into the Earth, potentially more powerful than any nuclear weapon."
Err maybe. The way I see it, though, this sort of weapon has the same drawbacks as a nuclear weapon. It's not like they're going to use it against their enemies without it being traced back to them. If they managed to drop a comet on somebody, from a consequences point of view they'd be in just as much shit as they would be if they had fired a nuclear weapon. Worse, it'd take a hell of a lot longer to get the ball rolling, not to mention the dangerous consequences of a small mistake. What would stop the USA or any other government from responding with nuclear weapons if China pulled a stunt like that? Truth be told, I have trouble imagining that the impact of a comet wouldn't rock their boat, anyway. If it hit the water, for example, well just think about that. If a big enough comet hit to kick a lot of dust into the air, well they wouldn't be fond of that, either. Maybe I'm just incredibly naieve about how useful of weapon a comet diversion would be, but IMHO this theory just seems too far-fetched.
An alternative explanation is that China's vasteness makes the concept of a comet or asteroidal impact a bit scary. (At least on a statistical level.) Perhaps they're worried about their own territory. They might even be trying to improve their global image. "We're trying to save the planet here!"
Anyway, I can speculate all day about it. I'm not trying to say you're wrong. I'm just not sure I suspect you're right.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're left with a missile defense
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
That's a good thing. It continues th
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
You are discounting the very real danger of accidental release of nuclear weapons. Both USA and USSR have on several occasions mistaken various events for missile launches. Fortunately there was enough time to figure out that the launches were imaginary or peaceful. Once both SDI and nuclear weapons in space are in place, the likelyho
Re:What Goes Around (Score:3, Insightful)
If that happened the US would do everything in it's power to get rid of all th enukes in the world. Until then the US feels like it has the capacity to destroy other countries while minimizing
Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're completely wrong in thinking that we could say or do anything to stop China from doing anything they really want to do. Had we shown "leadership" and pushed for a ban on military uses of space, they wouldn't have listened anyway.
We will have weapons in space because we have weapons wherever we go. We are a violent, overconsumptive, power-hungry race.
Get past it. You'll sleep better.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2)
Re:Wrong. (Score:2)
And, of course, it instead will result in their ownership of those other countries. (They underprice everyone else, get lots of country X's currency in exchange for the goods they sell them, then use that currency to buy up X's bonds, T-bills, etc, and various properties and businesses in X.)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
If it's unworkable, why should be worried?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
It's 11:00PM... do you know where your tax dollare are?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
"Feeding the people" is a matter of economic growth. With 9.1% economic growth last year [cia.gov], I'd say they're growing their economy about as fast anybody would dare try.
Now that China is a manufacturing superpower, the next logical steps up the value chain would be research, development, and marketing. Then they can fire all the foreign executives who now keep so much of the value of what they make through out
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
I'm not certain China can continue to feed its population at the rate the population continues to grow. They definitely can't power their economy or bank it at this rate.
This is why the US doesn't fret so much about China, IMO. There's a lot of talk, but Capitol Hill seems to be taking a wait and see attitude. With the prices of oil skyrocketing with no end in sight, China, a manufacturing powerhouse, is literally a giant with his balls caught
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Their population has almost stabilized. Their not growing much. The p
Re:What Goes Around (Score:4, Insightful)
You illustrate the point of the program precisely, to educate people with reactionary views like your own. China does not want to be seen as a technically and military inferior country that can be pushed around by the worlds last superpower. The population of China is generally estimated to be 1.3B, not 2B.
They are spending the money on this project for exactly the same reason that JFK launched the moon shot - political prestige translates directly into power. The idea of going to the moon was to spend the USSR into the ground. JFK started the program in 1962, a quarter century later the USSR was kaput.
For example at the moment there is a sizable faction of the Republican party that spends its time talking about the need to start a trade war with China. Some of them even want to go further and instigate a new cold war. In that type of political environment it makes good sense to invest a few billion dollars pointing out that the economy of China is not stagnant and declining and that it has more than enough capacity to support a military sector that is more than sufficient for national defense.
According to the CIA world fact book China's economy is worth 7.2 trillion and is growing at 9.1%, the Us economy is worth 11.8 trillion and is growing at 4.4%. At that rate China overtakes the US in 10 years time. That is not even taking acount of the fact that the US economy is mature and the typical growth rates of mature economies are much less than 4%. Plus the US has a massive balance of payments deficit that is only being financed by China buying US bonds.
So even if the US was to try a cold war strategy at this stage as the neanderthal wing of the GOP would like it is simply too damned late. China has more economic leverage over the US than the US could hope to gain over China.
The US is currently facing the same problem that hit the British Empire. In the 1920s a bunch of politicians got into power who were really into the whole imperialism thing, they swaggered about holding 'empire days' and such. All the time completely oblivious to the fact that the empire was slipping away and their behaviour was one of the main reasons that it was happening.
China and India are becoming world powers. The US is not going to be the worlds only super power in the future. That is a good thing if people would only realize it. The US is not going to be able to pursue a unilateral foreign policy, but why on earth does the Bush administration want to?
Re:What Goes Around (Score:5, Informative)
That is from the CIA world fact book, admitedly the poverty line definition is probably different. But China does not suffer from mass starvation as many in the US seem to think.
India is not nearly as well off. 25% below the poverty line and only 3 Trillion in GDP. That could change rapidly however since the economy has been very much damaged by the autarky policies of previous governments that are being unwound.
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2, Insightful)
This has been a popular theme for politicians to rally behind for the last 3 decades.
The fact is, nobody will sustain the growth that they are at for the long term. Eventually, China will even out and start facing the same issues that the US has been working out since the '70's.
The same a
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
And the two have a direct relationship. That is, but-for JFK's starting the program, the USSR would not have fallen. More probably, it was the sudden military build-up during the 1980s that forced the Soviets to compete. It wasn't the space-race that beat the Soviets, it was the military-sprint.
Well one thing to remember about China's economy (Score:2)
Poverty and education are other major factors. Despite the data cited by another reply, China is very polarized right now. Alone the eastern seaboard in the major cities, many people are seeing a grea
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
The Chinese government is oppressive and agressive, their not evil and insane. They won't do anythign that so dumb. Their a conservative authoratarian regime that does want prosperity for it's people and occasionally curshes any opposition. The Us does the same but in d
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:What Goes Around (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
The last Cold War was so profitable for so long that the people running the US have created another one. The last one sucked. This one will be worse.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Because we know that they do [csmonitor.com]. /Sarcasm
Really, when I think: what if all of the money that has been poured into war (cold|on drugs|on terrorism|on every other thing) had been put into improving the lives of people worldwide? While I don't think that we would have a Utopian society, I think that things would be a lot better all around. We would likely have better technological, scientific, and artistic achievement, less poverty, and AIDS would
Re:stupid reporters (Score:3, Funny)
The next thing you'll claim is that Armageddon isn't a made-up name at all, but based on some old book.
Re:China, the new SUPERPOWER(tm)! (Score:3, Informative)
What, you mean like every other government in every other country? A close friend of mine has spent almost 10 months of the past two years in China, from what he says the truth about how China handles its citizens lies somewhere between what China or the US would have you believe. Take what you hear from US-gov supplied press re
Re:China, the new SUPERPOWER(tm)! (Score:2)
Re:China, the new SUPERPOWER(tm)! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who pays attention to international economics knows the Chinese government knows what they are doing.
The Chinese leadership is made of engineers and economists while the American leaders are businessmen and lawyers. Who's the greedy thugs?
Space rocks would be a lousy weapon system.. (Score:3, Informative)
You could end up dropping the thing on yourself as easily as hitting your enemy.
Of *course* not. (Score:2)
No more comet stuff, period. (Score:2)
As 99% life forms died from radiation and nuclear winter, who cares the comet?
BTW, what makes you hate Chinese so much that you even want to commit suicide?
More like: (Score:2, Funny)