China to become spacefaring

cdhostage

<a href="http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52678,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52678,00.html</a>;



Cool. One more to add to the ranks.



Don't the Chinese have a significant rocket program? Sneding satallites up? Or are the Japanese the only Orientals who do space?





&lt;edit: yeah, read the second page of the article. The Chinese send up sattalites for clients&gt;



I bet in a couple years they'll want one of those fellows on the International Space Station. I think China will have to increase its donations to the ISS in order to be able to experiment up there.



The last note in the article says the third set of footprints on the Moon will be Chinese. Fine and good. Maybe they'll use American 1960s tech <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

or maybe they'll buy reasonably modern tech from the Japanese.

airsluf

cdhostage

Sorry. Thirrd race to set foot upon our satallite.

mac guru

The Chinese government has said that they plan to land on the moon and due to the increase in questions about the US ACTUALLY landing there they will be taking lots of photo's and reporting back about if they found evidence we did or did not land.



It should be interesting if it was in fact a hoax (not saying it was, I personally beleive that there is no conclusive evidence on either side of the argument.) and China sent us pictures of a completly vacant Moon. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



Mac Guru

ghost_user_name

The Chinese actually plan a manned space flight by 2004, at which point they will begin putting things in motion to construct their own space station. They don't seem to want to have much to do with the ISS.



By 2010 they want to land a man on the moon, and then begin putting plans in motion to create a moon base for the advancement of mankind, as well as mining minerals and bringing them back to Earth.



With any luck, the US will feel threatened, and NASA may get some more funding... but probably not

cdhostage

The only reason to bring back minerals is if they are extremely rare in nature or almost improssiable to produce.



Something akin to dilithium crystals.



No element is worth enough to send up a mission, mine it, and bring it back to Earth - $10,000 a pound just on the way up. At least using USA Shutttle Technology.



Now, if someone could find an alien artifact on another Solar planet... that would be worth the trip.

ghost_user_name

Well, initially they plan to set up an outpost on the Moon like the United States has done in the South Pole and North Pole. There was a BBC article that talked more about their plans for mining the moon.



However, if you could set up a manufacturing facility on the moon and mine iron there, it does become cheaper to get the manufactured goods into space. If you can live on the moon cheaply enough, things get rather valuable there simply because they are easier to loft into outer space.

cdhostage

Ah, I see - making SPACE things is cheaper on the moon. I suppose.



But the moon is mostly the same composition as the Earth's crust and mantle. (recent research indicates perhaps even a molten core)



Unless someone figures out how to build with diamond and carbyde, meaning building things up from whatever carbon is nearby, then this plan dosn't work. it's less work to get actual metals from the Earth and make spaceships from that.

g4dude

All right! A new space race! Finally the US will get off their asses and start innovating! I've noticed that we let everything go to **** until someone threatens us. We suck

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by G4Dude:

<strong>I've noticed that we let everything go to **** until someone threatens us.</strong><hr></blockquote>But... that's the American way:



Sit on your fat duff until someone waves a stick at ya!

glurx

[quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

<strong>But... that's the American way:



Sit on your fat duff until someone waves a stick at ya!</strong><hr></blockquote>



Then develop cool new advanced stick technology and, if necessary, apply Super Stick? to foe.

jutus

Why is this a race?

ghost_user_name

It's probably not a race. I doubt it's going to encourage any additional NASA funding. The plans for the Chinese are a ways off. After reading *another* BBC article on this, the Chinese clarified statements...



Beijing will be attempting to put a man on the moon by 2010 and will attempt a moonbase, but according to China's Chief Scientist of their Moon Programme, China will officially only be exploring with unmanned probes.

cdhostage

I doubt that the Chinese plans will affect how NASA is funded or regarded. Only the staunchest patriots would approve another race - but where to? The Moon, we've (probably) already gotten to.



Now, if China were planning to send these guys to Mars.. that;s a different story.

The Chinese govt certainly has enough cash to do it.

So do we, but the question remains: why spend $100 billion on a Mars trip when you could feed people on Welfare, who don't work for the money and have no skills to offer employers?

Stupid politicians.

Money should be spent on helping everyone, not just those who ask. Public education, armies, public-funded health... sure. But people should work for their food and lodgings.

outsider

It would be funny if the Chinese were sending their first manned ship to the moon and passed right by it saying, "Sike! We're going to Mars, suckers! Try and catch us now! Hahahaha!"

finboy

Note that the article is incorrect in stating that the Chinese addition of manuevering rockets represents a change over American and Soviet counterparts of the early 1960s.



That only applies to the Soviets. Our capsules had on-board manuevering systems, although primitive at first.



I wonder what else they screwed up.



You know, too, that if China had been able to copy the necessary designs a few years earlier, they'd have put people in orbit many years ago.



[ 05-23-2002: Message edited by: finboy ]</p>