Chinese Crew Completes Manual Docking With Orbiting Module 119
A few days back, the crew of the Shenzhou 9 were along for the ride as their craft docked to — or rather, was docked to — an orbiting module. On Sunday, the docking procedure was repeated, but under the direction of the Chinese astronauts themselves rather than controllers on the ground.
Re:Congradulations China (Score:5, Informative)
They tried to join ISS, A certain North American country said "never, never, never!", and it wasn't the Canadians nor Mexico.
Re:Congradulations China (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is there some special about a manual docking? (Score:5, Informative)
Russian automated docking systems used to fail once in a while. The famous Mir-Progress collusion was an attempt on doing a manual docking (to save money by not carrying the automated system which would burn away once the Progress would deorbit) with an unmanned spacecraft (Progress) with the guidance but no control from the manned craft (Mir) which went horribly wrong.
Re:Congradulations China (Score:2, Informative)
>If China was serious about Space exploration and development
Hmm ... how is a country that's actually exploring and developing space by physically being there and doing the work all by themselves not considered serious?
Maybe their technology is trailing but they aren't kissing anyone else's ass or asking permission to be there. They're just getting the job done.
Re:Congratulations on a successful expedition (Score:4, Informative)
What do you mean "stole" the technology? As part of the red scare from 1950, the US government blacklisted the guy that created the first step rocket at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and later became their director, and when the guy wanted to leave got instead five years of house arrest and was exchanged for American prisoners in the Korean war.
This brilliant episode of American realpolitiks effectively exported the whole US rocket program (including nuclear carrier technology) to China in a felling swoop. At least the guy was decent enough to start the development of the chinese program from soviet designs instead of just ripping the US ones that he ** design himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen