China Launches Two Astronauts Into Space

DIY News writes to tell us that China has launched their second manned space mission just two years after becoming only the third nation to launch a human into orbit. Astronauts Fei Julong and Nie Haisheng took off Wednesday at 9:00 pm EST (0100 GMT) for a mission that could last up to five days.

Such a shame

[QuantumG]

that China is only interested in Space as a prestige project. Didn't they get the memo? Private citizens are launching themselves into space. Anyone with 20 million to spare can go hang out on the space station. It's hardly prestigous for a country that contains the majority of the world's population to acheive something that private citizens of other countries can beat. Of course, if China was to send a manned mission to the Moon that actually acheived something (like returning a sample of the polar i

Re:Such a shame

[ravenspear]

Private citizens are launching themselves into space. Anyone with 20 million to spare can go hang out on the space station. It's hardly prestigous for a country that contains the majority of the world's population to acheive something that private citizens of other countries can beat.

Correction, private citizens can pay a government (Russia) to launch them into space. They cannot do it by themselves. Only two governments currently have the capability. China being only the third to do it puts them in an elite group. It may not be a significant achievement by today's measure of technology, but it is certainly nontrivial.

Re:Such a shame

[QuantumG]

Yep, I suppose that's true. There currently isn't any private companies with the balls to launch an actual human into orbit. Elon Musk has mentioned that he is willing to do it once a few Falcon V's have gone up. But as no-one has a reusable space vehicle capable of docking with the ISS (except NASA) I think more money will be spent on making one than on launch costs.

Re:Such a shame

[Tom Rothamel]

Correction, private citizens can pay a government (Russia) to launch them into space. They cannot do it by themselves.

Actually, Burt Rutan proved last year that it was possible for private citizens to launch themselves into space. Now, space isn't orbit, but we're talking about space here, and the private sector can do that. (Or will be able to once the next-gen vehicle happens.)

Where is this next gen vehical?

[raptor_87]

All of the major companies (and some of the smaller ones) are going with expendable launchers. (Okay, so SpaceLaunch can reuse the L1011 that they drom the rockets from, but that's it.)

SpaceShip2 is just SpaceShip1 with more passengers, more safety(?), and a bit more downrange capability.

How far did any of the other X-Prize contestents get? I understand that no one else was anywhere near a manned attempt as of fall 2004.

Re:Where is this next gen vehical?

[QuantumG]

Bah. If the major companies had been free to make a five seater air-to-orbit single-stage orbital rocket plane and not forced to keep increasing the size of the cargo bay we'd already have a next gen vehicle. NASA fucks up everything because they are forced to bend to the whims of politicians. It's really not hard, you use dumb boosters (or a space elevator!) to lift up cargo. You use advanced winged orbital craft to lift up crew. You don't combine the two. Why? Because re-usable single-stage-to-orbi

Re:Such a shame

[PsiPsiStar]

Actually, Burt Rutan proved last year that it was possible for private citizens to launch themselves into space. Now, space isn't orbit, but we're talking about space here,

I'm in space. You're in space. We're all in space.

Look! I'm launching myself into space *jumps up and down*

Somebody FUND me!!!

Re:Such a shame

[Ced_Ex]

I'm in space. You're in space. We're all in space.

Look! I'm launching myself into space *jumps up and down*

Somebody FUND me!!!

"Los Lobos kick your ass.
Los Lobos kick your face.
Los Lobos kick your balls into OUTER SPACE!"

A-pathetic

[kcarlin]

And the event only merited one on-topic post in its first 20 minutes.

Holy Moon Men, Batman!

[mister_llah]

If that would happen, wouldn't that make the moon red all the time?

LEO is the battleground of the future

[fsh]

If you can launch men into orbit, you can launch weapons there. Everytime they demonstrate their ability to put a manned craft into orbit, they are also showing that they are gaining in technological ability by leaps and bounds. It's nice to be able to do real science in space, but it's far more important to be able to get there in the first place.

BTW - China *does* have plans to go to the moon and establish a base there. From the horse's mouth [china.org.cn], this is site referring to a Chinese white paper outlining

Re:LEO is the battleground of the future

[QuantumG]

And I have plans to do it with two chicks at the same time one day, doesn't mean it's gunna happen.

Re:Such a shame

[gl4ss]

*Didn't they get the memo? Private citizens are launching themselves into space.*

yeah, by buying the privilige from russians.

if you meant rutan.. well, there's a big difference with what he has done and going to the orbit for 5 days.

Re:Such a shame

[FleaPlus]

that China is only interested in Space as a prestige project.

I suspect it's a little more than that. Here's a little blurb from the wikipedia article on the Chinese Space Program [wikipedia.org]:

China's space program has several goals. The first is to increase China's national prestige. The second is to develop China as a low cost satellite launcher. Finally, there is the ambitious goal of mining space for resources, namely the moon.

Re:Such a shame - something useful.

[MrBawb]

Providing unequivocal proof of the feasibility of mining water ice does sound like a rather important step, not one that I would wish to have left to others. Hopefully this will add some fuel to the fire under NASA's butt.

Oblig. Simpsons Quote

[some guy I know]

Make rocket go now!

No Borders in Space

[ndansmith]

Nationalism be damned, go China! I am honestly very excited for space flight, no matter who is doing it.

Re:No Borders in Space

[erlenic]

I agree. I remember when they sent their first guy up there, I saw a poll on cnn.com. The question was: "Do you fear that China sending someone into space will start another space race?" I wanted to answer: "No, I'm not afraid it does, I hope it does."

9 PM Wednesday?

[dtmos]

I knew I was behind the times, but geez.

How about 0100 UTC on Wednesday, or 9 PM Eastern on Tuesday?

taikonauts

[AntiNeutrino]

You mean Taikonauts you insensitive clod!

Food Would Be Nice ? ?

[deathCon4]

I am all for Space Exploration, but a country like China needs to focus its money on feeding and clothing its population first. Millions are homeless and have no chance at a better life. People need to straighten out their priorities.

All For?

[dereference]

I am all for Space Exploration, but a country like China needs to focus its money on feeding and clothing its population first. Millions are homeless and have no chance at a better life. People need to straighten out their priorities.

Well, you're off topic, so I hope I don't get modded into oblivion for responding, but I think you should reconsider your logic. Let's reword your statement just a bit, for the sake of argument:

I am all for Space Exploration, but a country like U.S. needs to focus its money on feeding and clothing its population first. Hundreds of thousands are homeless and have no chance at a better life. People need to straighten out their priorities.

Given the relative populations, and uncertainty of the statistics, I'm not sure which country has a bigger homeless problem. But I sure wouldn't argue that the U.S. should adjust its priorities and send all NASA's funding to care for the homeless.

Re:All For?

[Princeofcups]

> But I sure wouldn't argue that the U.S. should adjust its priorities and send all NASA's funding to care for the homeless.

Which wouldn't even dent the homeless issue. Start with half a trillion that we are donating to defense contractors and oil companies under the pretense of fighting terrorism, and we can start to talk about fighting poverty.

jfs

Re:All For?

[deathCon4]

Good Comment, However I would say that the US Space example is not similar, only because the US puts so little of its Monies into its Space Program. Now if they took the money Bush has spent on War in the last 8 years, Thats a different matter. Remember, states population approx 350 mill? China's population is about 1.4 Bil? And Over half of them (larger then all the US combined) live in dire situations. Personally, I love space, but going there for prestige? Come on.

Re:All For?

[deathCon4]

The Science Of Course! Space exploration shouldn't be a 'noble' cause. It should be used to benefit mankind, and increase our knowledge of ourselves and our place in the universe. Going to space because 'we can' is not the reason we should be there.

Re:All For?

[RobertB-DC]

But I sure wouldn't argue that the U.S. should adjust its priorities and send all NASA's funding to care for the homeless.

I just got a mental image of a million citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi building New New Orleans on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility [wikipedia.org]. *shakes head at own insanity*

Re:Food Would Be Nice ? ?

[stienman]

China needs to focus its money on ...

When you go to a food buffet, do you put one item on your plate, sit down and finish it before going back for your second item, which you also sit down and finish before moving on to the third?

Each country has to make decisions on how to allocate their resources. Furthermore, if you focus completely on one task to the exclusion of all others not only do important things fall by the wayside, but your resources are not being used most efficiently.

A country like China needs to focus its money on a multitude of things. Cutting their space program doesn't neessarily improve other programs, especially since the resources needed for space aren't necessarily going to improve the economy when spent elsewhere.

Besides, until your own country has solved poverty you shouldn't be the one lecturing another country on how they should spend their resources.

-Adam

Re:Food Would Be Nice ? ?

[deathCon4]

Do you go to a Buffet (loved the buffet comment actually) and pile a plate so high you wouldn't be able to finish it all in one sitting? Or do you put enough on that you could finish nicely, and go back for seconds in the future? Its not a race to get to space, and they could definetly use those resources in other areas. Whether it be human/natural/financial. China only has 'Economic Zones' which are profitable, outside those zones its completely different. And those areas are all near the coast in acco

They feed their people

[bluGill]

China doesn't have a problem feeding its people. Well The food isn't what you and I would like to eat, but it is healthy. (And from what I can tell the Chinese prefer it to what we eat, so it is a matter of personal taste)

The US is buying a lot of 'junk' from China - China is running a trade surplus. If China has a problem with feeding it's people it could afford to buy food from the US where crops are burned in the field because it isn't worth the cost to harvest them.

The only countries that have st

Re:News before it happened?

[MyLongNickName]

Time zones?

Or was that humor? With the level of comments on Slashdot, I am never quite sure :)

Who cares?

[mschaffer]

China's hardware is obviously based upon the old Soviet Soyuz space hardware. (It may even be a licensed copy.) So, China has made theirs a little bit bigger---big deal. At least they probably got bargain pricing on the technology. (Besides, the Soyuz strongly resembles the hardware and methodology proposed by General Electric in thier failed bid for NASA's Apollo program.)

So, who cares? A country like China should be able to afford and implement these older technologies if they want to spend the money

Re:Who cares?

[brandido]

I believe the cooperation between the Chinese and the Russian space programs stopped in the 60s. And you are correct, their manned capsule is based on the Soyuz. Even if their launches were just lauches of China built Soyuz, this would still be a significant accomplishment, as it would demostrate their ability to maintain an self-sufficient branch of safe manned space exploration, especially given that the US is currently demostrating an inability to maintain a such a program (the Soyuz has a much better track record than the shuttle, and as such, with the CEV we are actually moving towards something that is more like the Soyuz than the shuttle).

However, it is more than that - the Chinese are doing more than just maintaining the designs that they Russians shared with them in the 60s - they are developing and refining and updating those designs, so that it represents a fully independent developing branch of space travel. It is essentially expanding the market of Manned space travel, so that the opportunity to get into space is not limited to two countries.

Hopefully the time comes soon when a private entity such as SpaceX can provide for access to space separate from government institutions, but until that time, I am happy to see more entries onto the space stage.

It's all clear now

[HaveNoMouth]

And here I was wondering why the crew of Serenity spoke so much Chinese [att.net]. Thanks for clearing that up.