China Reveals Its Space Plans Up To 2016 218
PolygamousRanchKid writes "China plans to launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years, according to a plan released Thursday that shows the country's space program is gathering momentum. China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in space technology and experience. The country will continue exploring the moon using probes, start gathering samples of the moon's surface, and 'push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun.' Some elements of China's program, notably the firing of a ground-based missile into one of its dead satellites four years ago, have alarmed American officials and others who say such moves could set off a race to militarize space. That the program is run by the military has made the U.S. reluctant to cooperate with China in space, even though the latter insists its program is purely for peaceful ends."
The final frontier (Score:5, Funny)
At this rate, if we want Star Trek to remain at all within the thinnest stretches of credibility, the next reboot of the series will have the Enterprise captained by Sulu and Kirk will be pitching manure in Iowa.
Re:The final frontier (Score:5, Funny)
Welll..... if it is going to be captained by Sulu I think the love scenes are going to turn out a bit differently.....
Re:The final frontier (Score:5, Funny)
Oh Myyyyy....
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You mean something like the ones in ST: Hidden Frontier and all the other Rob Caves ST fanseries?
Apparently homosexuality isn't cured by crossing the magnetosphere, go figure!
Re:The final frontier (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, except that Sulu is Japanese.
Or Korean (Score:2)
Depends on which Star Trek you watch (John Cho, Sulu in the new Star Trek, is from Seoul).
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When Gene Roddenberry originally created the character, he was supposed to stand for all of Asia and is named after the Sulu sea because it touches "all shores"... he's not supposed to be from a specific nation.
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Studies show that Japanese speakers have great difficulty distinguishing between "r" and "l" sounds. Kind of like how English speakers can't even hear the difference between most Chinese words.
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There are entire syllable groups in the Japanese alphabet which begin with R. It is not an uncommon letter in Japanese.
Of notable interest: teRiyaki, Roppongi, kaRate...the list goes on.
It is the Chinese language that substitutes 'L' sounds for 'R' sounds, and the Japanese language that substitutes the 'R' sound for 'L' sounds.
You will not likely see a Chinese person named Karakura, and will not likely see a Japanese person named Lipang.
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The language is only made of two alphabets, hiragana and katakana, and kanji. Thus, again, the Rs and Ls and their other 24 friends are not part of the language.
When it comes to provide an approximative western/roman pronunciation/spelling, the "closest" roman characters were selected.
Regarding the "ra,ri,ru,re,ro" (and some other derivatives) the "r" was chosen against the "l" according to international conven
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Sorry but this is a pretty retarded point of view.
Obviously they dont have the "characters" a-z.
Hiragana and Katakana are sylable alphabets.
And in contradiction to your post they habe "singel character" sylabales for a, e, i, o, u and n. And of course they have sylabales covering the R: ra, ri, ru, re, ro ... but what should that have to do with international conventions? The japaneese used them before Parry forced them to open the country? Why? Because they "speak" like that.
Japaneese is one of the few la
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It is the Chinese language that substitutes 'L' sounds for 'R' sounds
assuming you mean Mandarin Chinese (the official language of the Chinese empire), there is an L sound, and there are multiple R sounds. Depending on where the speaker is from (which part of China, Singapore, or Taiwan) an R sound might come out sounding like L or it might not be pronounced at all.
In terms of information theory, Japanese is like Binary, English is like Decimal and Chinese is closer to duodeci
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Right... the Chinese are almost up to where the USA was 50 years ago, so they must be ahead.
Re:The final frontier (Score:4)
to be fair, NASA is sitting about where NASA was 50 years ago. their idea of advancement now is a rocket just about as powerful as the Saturn V was.
Re:The final frontier (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. 50 years ago we were landing rovers on Mars. 50 years ago we had orbiters around Saturn and Mercury. 50 years ago we were sending a probe to Pluto. 50 years ago we had two spacecraft entering interstellar space. 50 years ago we had landed on an asteroid.
The December Scientific American outlines a step by step program that makes small, incremental increases in our capability that eventually get us to Mars. Unlike the "invest tons of money and build a huge rocket" approach, this gradually increases our capability within our means to pay for it, so at no point are we going to lose ground, unlike the Apollo program where once the massive funding dried up, we were done.
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Unlike the "invest tons of money and build a huge rocket" approach, this gradually increases our capability within our means to pay for it, so at no point are we going to lose ground, unlike the Apollo program where once the massive funding dried up, we were done.
We are losing ground though because we do everything as one-off projects. Rather than set a goal to do a certain things like we did with Apollo and then develop a means to do it now we come up with single missions that don't go anywhere. We launch a probe at Mars, it crashes and burns and that's it. Why not make another one and maybe correct the problem that caused the crash? When one doesn't crash why not build on it instead of starting a new project with a different team and almost from scratch?
To be fair
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I'd watch that if the movie poster had Shatner posing with Nichelle Nichols in an "American Gothic" scene.
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Stop getting your panties in a wad and learn to take a joke. When the character of Sulu was originally created, Roddenberry didn't have a specific country of origin in mind but instead wanted him to represent Asia as a whole... and last time I checked my map, China was a big part of Asia. The fact that the actor who came to play Sulu was ethnically Japanese came later and Sulu's own Japanese backstory was based on that actor.
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Enterprise captained by Sulu and Kirk will be pitching manure in Iowa.
You say that like it would be bad.
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My Mission
To Camply go where no hand has set foot
To explore new Vistas
Quash new Monsters
And make Space
A safe Place
For the Human Race
For I, Am,
CAPTAIN KREMMIN (He's so hunky)
Thanks to the late Kenny Everett
I know its off topic but after the eat them comment......
Uh, yeah (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
China's space program has already made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time
NASA went from the first manned spaceflight to walking on the moon in around seven years. China first flew a manned spaceflight eight years ago; what major breakthroughs have they made in comparison?
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the ISS and defunct STS have always been massive financial black holes and i'm thankful the Aussie government has been smart (or stupid) enough avoid them and to remain a "user" rather than "provider" of space services.
china will have their play and show the world how gr
Re:Uh, yeah (Score:5, Informative)
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German rocket technology was crap, even with 20 years of research in US it could not be fixed to be useful at something else except throwing rocks at a city
The primary German innovation wasn't in the technology, though the technology was better than you claimed (almost everyone has gone through a suborbital phase equivalent to the V-2 before developing a rocket capable of reaching orbit), but in the process of developing, manufacturing, and launching rockets on an industrial scale.
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The problem with the American spaceflight effort wasn't the construction of the STS or ISS, it was the notion that they were the ultimate and final product and the pinnacle of what human spaceflight could ever achieve. More specifically, it was the problem of putting "all of the eggs in one basket" and hoping that a high flight rate would keep costs down for individual missions.
Just as important, once these programs were seen as fiscal black holes (which I will openly admit), they should have been shut dow
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I thought your tone was a bit curmudgeonly and made you seem like a crank, but I have to agree with your points 100%.
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Quite big expectations for human race there for our current level of progress. To be able to ruin the whole universe, with our current level of technology or near our current level.
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i'm thankful the Aussie government has been smart (or stupid) enough avoid them and to remain a "user" rather than "provider" of space services.
Space can be quite profitable. India's space programme makes money and is done as a commercial venture. Space is as much a commercial venture as scientific and national pride one for China too.
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pushing back our knowledge of the universe to mere instants before its creation.
But you just sit there and gripe.
You must be new here.
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NASA went from the first manned spaceflight to walking on the moon in around seven years. China first flew a manned spaceflight eight years ago; what major breakthroughs have they made in comparison?
Made an iPhone clone [gizmodo.com].
Invited WalMart [wal-martchina.com] to China.
Relaunched a 1980's Ukranian Aircraft Carrier [wikipedia.org].
Filed more crappy patents than anyone else [india.com].
They sure are scary little folk...
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They reverse engineered the Su-27 and Su-33 into the J-11 and J-15 respectively.
They made their first credible indigenous fighter the J-10.
They showed a stealth fighter-bomber prototype the J-20.
They launched the Tiangong-1 space station module which will be docked probably next year.
They are in the process of becoming the largest space launching nation in the world in the next decade once
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Everyone has forgotten that NASA landed a probe on frickin' Titan just a few years ago! That's a motherfuckin' moon way the hell out there orbiting motherfuckin' Saturn and we set a probe down on the motherfuckin' surface and took some pics in the process.
And China has put a person in orbit. How nice.
Re:Uh, yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
They're making breakthroughs in THEIR space program, not in ours. Yes, for us it just looks like catch-up, and it is. But they have to start somewhere, and the point is that they are catching up very quickly while we seem to be going nowhere.
Case in point: NASA's 2010 budget was $19 billion. The Chinese Space Agency's annual budget is estimated by analysts at $1.3 billion. NASA has 14.6 times the funding and yet the technology gap is rapidly closing. China may not be doing things better just yet, but they're certainly doing it faster and cheaper.
Let's also not forget that the cost of the Apollo program was $136 billion, adjusted to 2007 dollars. That's enough to keep the CNSA at current funding for the next 100 years. China is nowhere near committing itself to the level of funding that we needed to put a man on the moon; why would you even make the comparison to Apollo unless you are simply ignorant of context? If they manage to do it on their own terms within the next century, then they would have done it more smartly than we did. Personally, I think they have plenty of breathing room to make it happen, which is not very good news for 'patriotic' types clinging to something that happened over 40 years ago. I remember as a child of the 80s that WWII seemed like ancient history, but at the time it was also only about 40 years past. Does that put things in context? Children of today and tomorrow can't relate at all to the Apollo program. You might as well be talking about the thirteen colonies for all it means to them. Sure they'll see Neil Armstrong on hilariously old tapes, but they'll be seeing the Chinese space program in the here and now, streaming live on the interwebs (okay, with censor delay), something happening within their own lifetimes. No amount of "we got there first" is going to save NASA's reputation. Ford did it first too, and nobody cares now because Honda eventually did it better.
Politically, China has the advantage that it's not involved in a dick-waving contest with some Soviet boogeyman, and instead of racing toward a symbolic goal that serves no tangible purpose, they're slowly and steadily building up a knowledge base to make the space program a sustainable benefit for their society. Instead of figuring how to get to the moon first, they're trying to figure out if the moon can be exploited somehow, and the best way to do so. Their goals are strategic and practical, compared to NASA's which seem to be made up mostly of unspecific ambitions fueled by the academic curiosity to study things far beyond our grasp, and being content to leave them there.
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Politically, China has the advantage that it's not involved in a dick-waving contest with some Soviet boogeyman, and instead of racing toward a symbolic goal that serves no tangible purpose, they're slowly and steadily building up a knowledge base to make the space program a sustainable benefit for their society.
I think the U.S. has been in a cold war - lite with China. Seeing them land someone on the moon will be a big shock that will either motivate the U.S. to make manned flights again ( regardless of
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Politically, China has the advantage that it's not involved in a dick-waving contest with some Soviet boogeyman
Right, they're in a dick-waving contest with the US, and pretty much the rest of the world for that matter.
and instead of racing toward a symbolic goal that serves no tangible purpose, they're slowly and steadily building up a knowledge base to make the space program a sustainable benefit for their society.
I don't think launching a Chinese space station or landing a Chinese citizen on the moon is g
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AFAIK they did not lose one man during it.
And if you consider 8 years Space flight not a break through, you are a moron.
Re:Uh, yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
More than what China has done before or since? Not denigrating the Chinese efforts, but NASA hasn't exactly been sitting on their hands. How many Mars probes, Lunar orbits, or comet flybys has the Chinese space agency done?
Re:Uh, yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
Not denigrating Nasa efforts... discovery of water on the moon is awesome... can't wait for curiosity to land... but china is definitely moving forward for MANNED exploration... while the world is in a recession. When they announced they wanted 10 space stations in orbit (not a typo), i thought they were mad... now, I am thinking... hey it might not have been such a crazy announcement after all... all that because they were not allowed to participate in the ISS.
It actually may be a good thing for Nasa too... because soon china space program will increasingly be doing more interesting stuff, there may be a new space race and therefore an incentive to increase the budget.
The problem with Nasa is so many awesome projects get canceled every new election as its direction changes... and they keep reinventing the wheel... stalling the space program, wasting resources.
Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Just to correct, but it was the research team led by Carle Pieters of Brown University which discovered water on the Moon, using the M3 instrument on the Indian-launched Chandrayaan-1 space probe.
NASA just followed up with a bunch of announcements after the fact, to drown out that landmark announcement with their own also-ran announcements.
Re:Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA (Score:4, Informative)
My apologies, it was Chandrayaan indeed... Though, it is interesting to note Nasa did contribute the M3 mineral maper module that made the discovery... I may be wrong but without it, I do not think that without this instrument, it would have been possible to make the discovery (not to diminish in any way Chandrayaan's accomplishment... awesome to see a new country doing something interesting, Kudos to the Indians). To be fair, I was more referring to the Nasa LCROSS mission which actually settled for sure there water was present in big quantities... before that, there was a lot of speculation
Re:Lunar Water Not Discovered by NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
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This kind of error in reporting is very common. The media will typically credit any discovery in astrophysics, planetary science, and related fields to "NASA" or "NASA scientists", regardless of who the actual discoverer is. Often the project is funded by a grant from NASA, but the science team are rarely employees of the agency.
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There's plenty of money. You just need to stop wasting it all on overseas wars and no-strings bailouts for banks that are "too big to fail".
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Yes.
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A lot? For instance, I would say sending 3 probes past the orbit of Pluto is quite a feat.
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4 probes. Pioneer's 10,11 and Voyager 1, 2.
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Seriously? Have you lived in a bunker all that time?
if you really cared you would have Googled it.
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Lol. Sadly, the progress of NASA is charted against which planet / moon they landed a human on recently.
Re:Uh, yeah (Score:5, Informative)
But otherwise, nothing much.
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Did the original nuke engines that are capable of sending us all over the solar system.
I think this calls for a "pics or it didn't happen". Sorry, some nuclear engines on a drawing board somewhere amount to nothing if they're never built.
Have funded multiple private launch systems which will carry cargo and shortly ppl.
Still waiting on this one. I'll believe it when it happens.
Got the ISS going with multiple other space organizations.
Last I heard, they were planning on scrapping the ISS in a couple of yea
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I think this calls for a "pics or it didn't happen". Sorry, some nuclear engines on a drawing board somewhere amount to nothing if they're never built.
The Rover/NERVA program accumulated 17 hours of operating time with 6 hours above 2000 K. [wikipedia.org]
Still waiting on this one. I'll believe it when it happens.
Lets see. The Falcon 9 has made 2 launches without any major issues. The dragon capsule has done 1. In med feb., they will be launched for doing cargo to the ISS.
OSC is everybody else's equipment put together. Not likely to fail except for the parts that OSC actually built. And considering that they are not carrying a climate sat, I suspect that they will do just fine.
Last I heard, they were planning on scrapping the ISS in a couple of years and letting it fall back into the atmosphere because there's no funding, since we need to spend all our money on wars.
Currently slated for 2020, though extensions are [nasaspaceflight.com]
Qeng Ho beginnings? (Score:4, Interesting)
Feels odd to be living through the prequel to a Vernor Vinge novel....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky [wikipedia.org]
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Feels odd to be living through the prequel to a Vernor Vinge novel....
Except that the names in that book weren't distinctively Chinese; if anything they look more Vietnamese: Vinh, Nuwen (i.e. Nguyen), etc., plus one character named Park, which I believe would be Korean. More importantly, the Qeng Ho was essentially a quasi-libertarian interstellar trading consortium, not an authoritarian government. If anything, a closer analogue to the modern PRC is the Emergents (whose ethnic background is never specif
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I read a story by Frank Herbert (and his son) years ago called "Man of Two Worlds". Wasn't the greatest book, but it did have a part about the Chinese and French fighting a small war on Venus. The soldiers wore an armor made of a fictional material called "inceram" which was resistant to the heat and pressure on Venus's surface, but if this armor became damaged, the soldier inside would very quickly be liquified.
American funded space programs ... (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell is wrong with you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, not even going to post this anonymously.
Whatever you think of how China's gov't works. No matter the motivations. How is this anything other than an overall good thing? Seriously? We have a space agency in the world right now with both the government funding, the will and potentially the skills to advance manned spaceflight again!
Worse case scenario, things don't work out and remain as they are(not counting deaths here since that's always a possibility with these and NASA as well as the Russians have had their fair share).
Best case scenario: They pull off something here and either succeed or encourage this awesome spirit of competition we've been sorely lacking since the Soviet Union and the US fought over the moon.
Please, keep your racist, xenophobic, nationalist or just plain ignorant bile to yourselves and enjoy what MOST people who admire the stars have been wishing for for a very long time: a renewed interest in space travel.
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Worse case scenario, things don't work out and remain as they are(not counting deaths here since that's always a possibility with these and NASA as well as the Russians have had their fair share.
Worst case scenario is actually: they mount weapons on space stations (nuclear, most likely) and start an arms race that ends in all out war. But the aggressive expansionist Chinese government surely wouldn't do anything like that. It's not like they expanded their military budget by 12% last year [wikipedia.org] or anything.
Unlikely? Maybe. Possible? Yes.
Re:What the hell is wrong with you? (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Repeat after me: China will NOT shoot at the US any time soon. The two nations are connected at the hip economically. They'll continue to play games with each other, for sure. there will be some sabotage, some espionage, some tensions, but China and the USA have the dollar bill version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
b) Both the Russians AND the USA have weapons in space regardless of treaties. How's that World War with Russia going?
c) How much did the USA expand their military budget last year? Or the year before that? Or before that? Heck, when's the last time it DIDN'T? How did that affect the ability of the last space race to allow a man to walk around on the moon?
d) Doesn't the tinfoil hat itch?
e) Given current sentiments(as demonstrated by your post) and the fact that the USA owes all the money, it's technically more likely the USA would act first. but again, see point a) for why this won't happen any time soon.
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I don't buy the economic arguments. Here is some food for thought:
In the year 1938, who was the largest importer of goods from Germany? Would you believe France? #2 was Russia and #3 was Britain.
And in the same time period, who was Japan's largest trading partner? America, followed by China.
Yeah, all of those economic ties did a whole lot of good in terms of convincing the leaders of Germany and Japan to not bomb and destroy their leading customers.
If a country will go to war, they will have their reaso
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What I'm complaining about here are people who buy into the kool-aid of establishing trade relations with countries and thinking that solves all potential problems..... just at the GP post was trying to suggest that there was no possible way that China would become a significant military threat or even flat-out enemy to America in a declared war with China capturing and holding American territory.
The sarcastic reply here could be countered as such: you really know how the social, political, and economic sy
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The reason why China has typically not been "the aggressor" is mainly because there was no need: they controlled almost all of the territory, resources, and people that they cared to have. There was the invasion of Japan in 1281 that resulted in a dismal failure (and how the mysticism of the Kamikaze started in Japan) as well as ongoing bumping up against Russia in terms of control of Siberia, but for the most part they have been the top dog in their end of the world holding what amounted to be essentiall
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b) [citation needed]. I know of the Russian 23mm autocannon and their Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, but have never heard a single example of a US space based weapon. Ever. Nothing on Wikipedia, either. The US does have an ASAT system, but then again so does the Chinese.
c) 2.8%. Or about inflation. The budget expanded previously to cover the active wars. Whereas China has n
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Both the Russians AND the USA have weapons in space regardless of treaties.
Whoa whoa whoa, what? What weapons do the Russians and the U.S. have in space?
A fixed blade knife in a survival kit maybe?
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Umm.... a long time ago they apparently had 23mm cannons on space stations..... tested them successfully as well. Would likely have been able to shred an Apollo capsule quite nicely. Or the later Space Shuttle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut#Salyut_3 [wikipedia.org]
Salyut 3
OPS-2 (Salyut 3)
Main article: Salyut 3
Salyut 3 (OPS-2) (Russian: -3; English: Salute 3) was launched on June 25, 1974. It was another Almaz military space station, this one launched successfully. It tested a wide variety of reconnaissance sensors,
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everything also costs more for the US military.
Soldiers @ China are tremendously cheap as well.
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You were clear and blunt, I shall also be. It's not xenophobia that makes me concerned about the Chinese program, it's simple geopolitical self-interest..
Nations conflict; that's human history. They conflict in many venues - on the ground, sea, and air militarily; in media culturally; in commerce economically - and the next venue will be space. I think that's almost inarguable.
There's a reason that the otherwise-economically-worthless islands in the Pacific were fought over so bitterly in WW2 - they were
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Well, I wouldn't say China is peaceful. It's just that their wars are mostly fought amongst themselves, deciding who gets to rule China.
And of course "themselves" always includes their latest conquests (China didn't get so large by fighting "amongst themselves") and next conquests "xxx has always been an integral part of China and is strictly an internal affair".
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I am one of the people "who admire the stars".
My dreams are of a world like Star Trek, not like the stories Robert Heinlein wrote of strip mining and slave labor being exported to other worlds.
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Great! NASA did some awesome manned stuff 50 years ago! Now what? Don't get me wrong, I'm a space nut. Just had a lovely weekend trip to Johnson Space Center a couple of months ago. I remem
What a joke (Score:2)
"China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes weaponization or any arms race in outer space," Thursday's white paper states.
And yet, ppl will ignore the fact that this SAME PEACEFUL SPACE PROGRAM shot a sat out of the sky.
But even this article missed some interesting points by China. The Chinese government on Thursday (Dec. 29) issued a broad statement on its five-year space program, saying top priorities include developing three new launch vehicles — including a rapid-response launch system — [space.com]
Basically, they want their civilian launch system to be able to launch on short notice. The west's DOD units want that
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I could have sworn I watched a similar test of an American anti-satellite system when I was a kid on TV..... and I was right.... back in the 80's we shot down a satellite or two. Launched from an F-15. Stop treating people like barbarians for developing the same tech we love and enjoy because we won't sell it to them. And if we did, it would have a remote kill switch. Not that I want to live in China... but just sayin... they have rights too and that includes developing tech that is equal to or better t
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What is "space technology"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Other than the considerations of zero gravity environmental safety, radiation protection, and atmospheric preservation, I can't think of anything special about "space technology." Sound engineering practices and safety standards come from long established research and experience and are applied to space exploration by NASA and others.
It seems trite, but even rocket science isn't rocket science any more. The nations have shared too much data and information for anyone to really be starting from scratch.
China has some pretty aggressive schedules tabled. It's interesting how much more can be done by a government which supports a space program than one that lets the bean counters cut such budgets. But it's not surprising -- China has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to tackle huge long term projects that would never even get approved in the US or Canada over the bleating of NIMBYs and environmentalists.
It's a subtle difference, but Chinese society has always emphasized the importance of the nation over the rights of an individual. I realize it's shocking to North Americans, but the Chinese immigrants and exchange workers I've talked with over the years think it's a good idea for the government to restrict the activities of protesters to quell dissent and social unrest. Most seem to consider it an honour to make a personal sacrifice in support of a big government program, rather than doing their best to stop the government from proceeding because it would inconvenience them.
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I think you overestimate how special NASA technology is. The same high-quality "must not fail" principles have applied to the entire aerospace industry for decades, particularly for any company working on missile and aircraft technologies.
The only thing "special" about a mil-spec part is that it's tested to tighter tolerances than the regular commercial product. It's not inherently more reliable or produced by a different manufacturing process -- it's just been tested more stringently before being ship
Re:What is "space technology"? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a "mil-spec" tidbit for you. Back with my first job at SED Systems in Saskatoon, SK fresh out of university two weeks before I started with them, I was assigned to work on a project delivering to the Canadian military.
We failed a mil-spec inspection because some valves we were shipped were the commercial versions. The difference between the mil-spec and commercial versions? mil-spec meant they were spray painted Canadian military olive green; the commercial version was spray painted black.
We took out the valves, spray painted them green, and put them back. We passed the next inspection.
You wouldn't believe how much extra the company charged to spray paint the valves green instead of black.
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if the mil spec valves were painted a different color to indicate a certain material used or to indicate certification for use in certain temperature range, and the comme
With China it's always big plans and intentions (Score:2)
It's always plans of what China will do after 10 years, 20 years, 100 years. China seems a lot bigger on plans and intentions than on things it's doing right now. It's like the hunter bragging how much game he's going to kill, or a fisherman saying he'll catch the entire lake. Well, I say why don't we wait untill after you've come back and see what you've got. Let's not put the oil in the frying pan while the bird's still in the forest.
Why China won't take the lead in space (Score:2)
The largest problem with the Chinese space program is mainly one of operational tempo. Other countries; notably Russia and even America.... if you consider commercial enterprises like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and other endeavors; are launching vehicles on a regular basis. The Soyuz rocket is flying at a rate of about one launch per month, and in the case of Virgin Galactic they are hoping for weekly flights when they get going. Contrast that to the Chinese who are launching one of their manned spacefligh
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You completely missed the point I was trying to make, and perhaps I could clarify it a bit. If China wants to be in space, if they want to get something happening, they need to have an operational tempo including financial commitments from the government to make it happen. That financial commitment can happen in a number of ways, but most significantly they need to have a high flight rate doing whatever it is that they are doing.
China isn't doing that at all, and instead this whole thing is just a pure pr
So what? (Score:2)
As long as we all can enjoy the fruits of this labor, who cares, if the russians, chinese, koreans, or americans, make this happen, IT WILL HAPPEN, just make sure to be part of it, so extend the arm of friendship and become a partner already.
resembles US science rise in 1940s (Score:2)
After WWII the US got many immigrant scientists and permanent government S&E funding. They started winning the bulk of Nobel prizes then. And led way in major engineering projects like the space programme.
China may be the dominant S&E country by 2030, if not earlier.
Re:We should have nuked them 30 years ago (Score:5, Funny)
we should start nuking nascar events. biggest concentration of retard mutants I can think of.
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hey, how come i can't get no tang round here?
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Oh please. The only way the private sector will do anything in space is under hefty government contracts. The "private sector" builds all our military hardware too, and that stuff isn't cheap and massive cost overruns are commonplace. As soon as the contracts dry up, these companies will fold as there's no short-term profit in space at the moment.
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The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress.
The second problem is that you fail to comprehend that the amount of money required isn't a drop in the bucket, it's the evaporation off a drop in the bucket.
Your scenario isn't so much 'contrived' as it is 'a drug addled hallucination'.
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"The first problem with your scenario is that you are so disconnected from reality that you fail to understand that most Americans just don't give a flying fuck about space - and that includes Congress." -> Ad Hominem attack which fails to address my point. Anything flying under the guise of national security these days gets allocated a nice fat budget. Any regular /.er wouldn't have noticed the TSA article not a few posts earlier that despite massive amounts of negative press and a huge infringement on
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No, it's not an Ad Hominem attack, it's a brutal statement of fact. American's don't give a flying fuck about space, which means it's not going to be identified as "important to national security". Period.
And the same goes for your second program, you've got no clue as to how big our economy (even in it's currently reduced state) is if you think 40 billion is anywhere even *close* to the bankruptcy line.
It's not trolling to point out that y
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Yes, it is an Ad Hominem attack: you made various insinuations that I am disconnected from reality, and then, if the previous slur could be considered ambiguous, you went so far as to suggest I had a substance abuse problem, and it was affecting my judgement. You did not, however, attempt to address my argument in a meaningful manner.
Ad Hominem -> "An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a neg
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Indeed. While I am not a history major, I have a passing understanding of how a number of the "Great" Civilizations fell, the policies they employed before they fell, and a general idea of where they stood when they were at their best and at their worst. It is by no means a complete understanding, but a careful search for a handful of patterns that always seem to appear in groups, and tend to correlate with that civilization's destruction.
A quick review of Rome implies two different stages of their civiliza