China Maps Out Plans to Put Astronauts on the Moon - and on Mars (nytimes.com) 56
The New York Times cites predictions from American's Defense Department that China could surpass U.S. space capabilities as soon as 2045. "I think it's entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely," said the staff director of the United States Space Force. "The progress they've made has been stunning — stunningly fast."
But in a new article this week, the newspaper notes that China recenty sent space probes to the moon and to Mars — and invited foreign media to the launch of its space station in November — and looks back over decades of development: Thirty years ago, the Chinese government initiated a secret plan for its space program, including a key goal of building a space station by 2020. At the time, the country was 11 years from sending its first astronaut into space, and its space efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people.
While grand spaceflight plans of some nations have ended up many years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong space station in late October, only 22 months later than planned. And on Nov. 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission blasted off from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert and took three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupancy of the outpost.
The article notes that the U.S. Congress "ended up banning American space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances."
But today Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's crewed space program, asserts that "within a few years, we will be able to achieve the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships." Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials are also determined that any journey will be a round-trip from which all astronauts return alive and in good health.... With nuclear propulsion, the trip could be trimmed to 500 days, Mr. Zhou said, without predicting whether China would adopt that approach.
But in a new article this week, the newspaper notes that China recenty sent space probes to the moon and to Mars — and invited foreign media to the launch of its space station in November — and looks back over decades of development: Thirty years ago, the Chinese government initiated a secret plan for its space program, including a key goal of building a space station by 2020. At the time, the country was 11 years from sending its first astronaut into space, and its space efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people.
While grand spaceflight plans of some nations have ended up many years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong space station in late October, only 22 months later than planned. And on Nov. 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission blasted off from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert and took three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupancy of the outpost.
The article notes that the U.S. Congress "ended up banning American space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances."
But today Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's crewed space program, asserts that "within a few years, we will be able to achieve the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships." Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials are also determined that any journey will be a round-trip from which all astronauts return alive and in good health.... With nuclear propulsion, the trip could be trimmed to 500 days, Mr. Zhou said, without predicting whether China would adopt that approach.
I wish them luck (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: I wish them luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: I wish them luck (Score:5, Insightful)
LetÃ(TM)s be real, the US space program would have been decades faster and billions cheaper if there was another nation with a much more advanced space program we could have studied, imitated and stolen from.
In fact it was decades faster and billions cheaper because we imported a bunch of Nazis from a nation with a much more advanced rocket program
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In fact it was decades faster and billions cheaper because we imported a bunch of Nazis from a nation with a much more advanced rocket program
Twitter? :-)
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Sorry, that's history. Check out the V2 rocket and the history of von Braun. (How much he was a Nazi is questionable, but that they funded his work isn't.)
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Sorry, that's history. ...
Ya, I'm familiar, but thanks. I was joking about Musk now owning Twitter and also SpaceX ... an authoritarian with an advanced rocket program. :-)
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I thought it was a good joke, it only required suspension of belief on one axis (time) which is perfectly acceptable
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von Braun wasn't the only one. The Soviets and Americans literally raced to claim the best bits of Germany, in no small part to sweep up the best scientists and engineers. A couple thousand were claimed by the US.
Re: I wish them luck (Score:5, Interesting)
When asked why the US won the race to the moon. Khrushchev was quoted to have said, "their Nazi's where better than our Nazi's."
On a personal note, when I lived in Huntsville AL for a while Warner von Braun is practically worshiped there. I love the space program, but I never have been comfortable with that man as a part of it. One of the best parts of the series For All Mankind is when they showed some of the crimes under his watch during the war and gave him his walking papers from the program early on.
Re: I wish them luck (Score:2)
Re: I wish them luck (Score:5, Interesting)
First all nations copied each other and as was mentioned Von Braun, among others was among the few who helped kickstart the US program - To be fair, there were a few brilliant local minds like Goddard and the people who founded JPL as well.
A lot of the knowledge transfer was self inflicted. Among others, in the middle of the red scare, the US sent home people like Qian Xuesen (https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54695598) who became the father of the Chinese Space program.
Space Flight history is quite fascinating. The US would be much further along in Space Technology today if they did not abruptly stopped financing anything that was not low earth orbit to fund very expensive and inefficient programs like the space shuttle and focused almost exclusively on low earth orbit for a very long time
Re: I wish them luck (Score:4, Informative)
Re: I wish them luck (Score:2)
Re:I wish them luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay just to point something out from the article:
The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people
This doesn't happen in the US because voters would absolutely behead politicians if this did happen. I mean we blew up a school teacher in the 80s and boy we can still hear the echos of the fallout from that. There's a reason the Chinese space program has a slightly faster pace. There is a reason 1960s era space program had a faster pace. The risk to human life was kind of an after thought. The Orion space capsule has more redundancy and safety features in it than all the fallback systems of every space faring vehicle we built in the 1950s to the 1970s combined. NASA didn't put all those features into Orion just because they had some extra cash laying around and thought "what the heck, why not?" There were a couple of thumbs from Congress up NASA's ass to ensure that in the remote chance that some lovable person from Sesame Street that some politician from Ohio thinks is a great idea to lift into LEO, doesn't kersplode on live TV.
You didn't put biologist or geologist in a 1960s era space capsule, you put an air-force pilot in there because they signed up to die for the country if need be. The whole moon landing thing with Apollo 11, it was 50-50 on if it was going to kill everyone involved. NASA doesn't get that luxury today. I think people forget how absolutely lucky we got with a successful landing because (just to literally pick one of the millions of points where shit could fuck up fast that was the Apollo program) the APS system to get the LM back up to the CSM was kind of hit or miss on testing on Earth before we shot it up to the moon. Sometimes the thing went off without a hitch, sometimes it just didn't do anything and everyone would be stranded on the moon. It was a flip of the coin on if that lifting engine was actually going to light up. Hell, they even prepared two speeches for the President to give because nobody was sure if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were going to become involuntary permanent inhabitants of the moon. But if they did, they were military, they gave their lives up for the betterment of the Untied States. That's a pretty easy write off.
So let's be frank here. NASA's space program and the Chinese Space program are two totally different things here. China getting some of their astronauts killed along the way is perfectly fine, they're mostly running a military space operation. All of their astronauts either come directly from the People's Liberation Army or are in some way connected to the various armed sectors of the PLA. It is the military going up into space with China.
NASA is mostly running a civilian operation at this point. Yes, there are military pilots that do go up, but for the most part, we're carrying scientist and everyday civilians with specialized training. So getting those people killed on their way up there launches a Congressional investigation because the Government just got some civilians killed. Yes, it was a known risk, but none-the-less, Congress doesn't like it all to much when the President via some branch organization adjacent to it gets people killed. Especially in a very visible on TV and what-not kind of way. I mean I'll let you all debate the merits of the US Government killing off civilians and where the line of "well they knew what they were getting themselves into" lays all day. But Congress has an itchy finger on that particular subject and for pretty good reasons albeit sometimes they like to overuse it to that power's determent.
rather than treating it like a jobs program.
That's literally anything. You think Aircraft Carrier bids are "who is the best builder" style competition? You think that's how it works in China? Politicians who call t
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You didn't put biologist or geologist in a 1960s era space capsule, you put an air-force pilot in there because they signed up to die for the country if need be.
There was a geologist on Apollo 17.
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You didn't put biologist or geologist in a 1960s era space capsule, you put an air-force pilot in there because they signed up to die for the country if need be.
There was a geologist on Apollo 17.
Apollo 17 was 1972, not the 60s.
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Apollo 17 was 1972, not the 60s.
It was a 1960s era capsule. The Apollo systems were designed and built in the 1960s with the last of them built in 1968. Of course they launched in 1972 but it was on a capsule designed in 1965, built in 1968, and then finally sent to space in 1972. Even the Space Shuttle was the best technology the 1960s had to offer.
Re: I wish them luck (Score:2)
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Why is this rated as Interesting? The Chinese space program hasn't killed a single taikonaut yet, so everything you said are pure conjuncture unless you have special internal access to their space program.
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The Chinese have demonstrated many of the technologies needed to land on the moon.
They have heavy launch. They can assemble things in orbit, and space walk. They can live in space for extended periods.
To get to the moon they need to develop a lander.
And you will do what you always do NOW (Score:1)
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Who's whining? We're busy winning. Our space program is ahead of everyone else's, and still advancing. There's no reason China shouldn't be able to get to the moon or Mars decades after others.
Re: And you will do what you always do NOW (Score:1)
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Sure, nobody has ever done that before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ha, NYT probably did not mention Musk/SpaceX (Score:3)
Re: Ha, NYT probably did not mention Musk/SpaceX (Score:3)
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Any rocket that can get you there and back and which you can then walk away from, is a good rocket.
That would be an adequate rocket. Assuming of course that the success rate is high enough.
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Any rocket that can get you there and back and which you can then walk away from, is a good rocket.
Then Boing's space dick is inferior to Musky's space dick, because you don't walk away from it, you mic drop it.
Re: Ha, NYT probably did not mention Musk/SpaceX (Score:2)
Once Starship works, the US will be far ahead (Score:2)
Defense people always overhype the threat in order to get even more tax dollars.
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Don't bet on "for decades to come". That thing didn't take decades to develop from scratch. (Well, unless you count things like the Centaur as part of its development.) Years to come is more like it.
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SpaceX was founded 20 years ago. It's fantasy to believe that Merlin didn't contribute to Raptor, or that figuring out how to land Falcons doesn't contribute to Starship.
Once you've demonstrated how to do something, it's much faster to duplicate though.
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When Spacex's Starship launches ( in a about 2 months from now ), the US will have a massive, cheap-to-build-and-launch, reusable rocket and that will put the US far ahead in space for decades to come.
Not the U.S. - SpaceX will have. The U.S. can merely rent it.
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When Spacex's Starship launches ( in a about 2 months from now ), the US will have a massive, cheap-to-build-and-launch, reusable rocket and that will put the US far ahead in space for decades to come.
Not the U.S. - SpaceX will have. The U.S. can merely rent it.
Well, considering the problems Musk-rat is running into on various fronts, he's now floated the possibility of taking SpaceX public for $150 billion. Problem with that is that, given his recent total meltdown, nobody is going to buy unless he gives up enough shares so he's just a minority shareholder, same as nobody will buy a company where he's in charge.
Better the gov't just expropriate it and pay a fair sum for it, because the only way Musk is going to get his ass to Mars is by hitching a ride on a Chi
Re: Once Starship works, the US will be far ahead (Score:2)
Also, if you think nobody wants Spacex if Elon is connected, then wow. You must be delusional.
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How's that FSD (full self driving) working out for ya?
It was always lies.
And his neural implants are flat-out stupid, and are getting worse results than companies that actually do proper research at a much slower pace.
Boring company? Total failure.
Hyperloop? Ditto.
Just look at the 10 minutes of booing that he got at the Dave Chapelle concert. It's not like Chapelle's fans can be described as "woke" or "left-wingers". And yet they basically booed Musk of the stage. For 10 minutes.
For some reason
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No, it's accurate to say the US will have it due to ITAR restrictions [ecfr.gov]. SpaceX cannot export it, thus the only place Starship will be able to launch from will be the US. They can't even build the launch infrastructure in another country, or even the engines, guidance systems, or various other parts.
It was developed by a US company, and therefore it stays in the US unless they want to discover the length, width, and breadth of the federal shaft.
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Or the US will have a momentary fireball somewhere between 0 feet ASL and the Karman Line. You have no idea if Starship is going to survive ascent, staging, re-entry, or splashdown, and neither does anyone else.
That's why they test.
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The first Starship launched may not survive... but the Starship program will.
Plans? (Score:2)
Re:Plans? (Score:4, Informative)
It's a little more than plans at this point, they did make it to mars with a rover. They made it a few times on the moon and have half a dozen planned in the next 5 years. Sure, no humans yet but they are a big part of the way there
Re: Plans? (Score:3)
If we're going to waste money (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're going to waste money on an international pissing contest, I'd rather it be a space race than an arms race
Name A Fate Worse Than Death (Score:2)
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Name A Fate Worse Than Death [...] To be stuck on a month long (or longer) trip to Mars with nothing but freeze-dried Chinese food to eat.
Name A Fate Worse Than That: To be stuck on a month long (or longer) trip to Mars with nothing but freeze-dried British food to eat
Nuclear propulsion (Score:2)
Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines.
I'm glad somebody is finally looking into this. Why aren't we?
China's economy is falling apart (Score:1)