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Us current time table indicates a 2018 date while china appears to be shotting for 2017... :x
Unmanned.
They have no capable booster for manned missions.
So there will be no Chinese on the moon by 2018.
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Ah, you caught me... misleading those into a rumor that would chide Nasa into getting their buts going sooner. Though I like srmeaney's one upping the date even better.
Yes you are right in that only then china will begin working on a manned project but sure would have been nice if Nasa really was chided into trying to get there first again....
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They still stand a good chance to land first (unmanned) if NASA does not design some precursor missions..
Then again, Americans will say 'so what, been there, done that', heehee...
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These next links, which I had posted in the moon direct thread originally will answer some of the question. Other than the 2010 landing date not much else has been indicated as to what type of lander will be designed.
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This is a bone thrown to the Delta IV folks so NASA can help the Air Force pay for that lousy EELV.
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China's moon orbiting mission takes step forward with the unmanned orbiter.
Luan Enjie, commander of China's "round the moon" project, said the Chang'e 1 Lunar Orbiter and a launch rocket are being assembled and tested, and the launch site and command system are also taking shape, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Luan said the craft is still on schedule to be launched in 2007.
With this step china has launched its plans to put a "taikonauts" by the Chinese government -- on the moon before 2020.
Like wise after the vision was announce other nations have also chosen to make known plans such as Japan's plans to land a person on the moon by 2025.
This is shaping up to be a race with a manned landing hopefully by the US in 2018 but what of the other spacefairing nations, do they have there sights set on a manned landing in there future as well?
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8)
We have a race!
So it looks like it was more than idle talk after all.
Insignificant as an orbiter around Luna may be in the grand sheme of things, this will only give the VSE more backing from China-haters in Congress/Senate, heehee, good.
Let's only hope this won't degenerate into a flag and footprints race again because NASA doesn't have the budget to keep ISS/Shuttle operational and develop *expandable* VSE stuff in a reasonable timeframe... Baaaad.
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Whats this? Has China folded under intimidation from the USA not to land people on the Moon First?
Apalling!
No, what we need here is to declare the Moon and Mars territory of the Space Commonwealth and contract up the lunar Colonization by 10 million people for a payment of 2 billion billion...beginning 2010! Not sissy timetables that are just delayed long enough that once the next generation rolls around, some twat in government stands up on his million dollar sallary and says "Sorry cant afford that, Mission scrubbed!"
They should execute a Senator every day colonists are not on the Moon!
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Whats this? Has China folded under intimidation from the USA not to land people on the Moon First?
Apalling!
No, what we need here is to declare the Moon and Mars territory of the Space Commonwealth and contract up the lunar Colonization by 10 million people for a payment of 2 billion billion...beginning 2010! Not sissy timetables that are just delayed long enough that once the next generation rolls around, some twat in government stands up on his million dollar sallary and says "Sorry cant afford that, Mission scrubbed!"
They should execute a Senator every day colonists are not on the Moon!
My! My! My! Aren't we getting testy! Going to execute a Senator for every day we don't have a colonist on the Moon. Aren't you a little extreme there? But, then we killed thousand of people in Iraq and have lost over two thousand people in our armed forces in this war and have tens of thousand that are physically and mentally disabled too. So I guess what your saying can't be more radical than that. But, I would rather have Kennedy Moon mission statement of a national goal to build that colony on the Moon and go from there. That the way to go at this problem and everything else is just a waste of time and effort.
Larry,
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You know you want to execute one US Senator every day a Colonist is not on the Moon. Give in to the Pleasure. Run for President on that Platform.
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You know you want to execute one US Senator every day a Colonist is not on the Moon. Give in to the Pleasure. Run for President on that Platform.
I will admit that I have fantasized about running for the President of the United State, but I was thinking more on the lines of having a platform of building massive infrastructural projects across the entire United State along with creating 6 million public sector jobs and another 6 million jobs in the private sector jobs. Like build subways in 70 cities in America plus upgrading rail road and top that off with a National Amtrak passenger levitated rail road system. Then I would go to the water system with other major projects like FDR four corners river project of dams, locks and power plants system, but do it on all major rivers inside the United States. This would also include the Levees around New Orleans and the rebuilding of New Orleans too. That would also exclude the planned NAWPA water project of brining down 10% to 15% of the Mackenzie and Yukon Rivers down the Rocky Mountain trench. That amount to the average flow of the Mississippi River by two or three times. Then top the whole thing off with encore of having a science driver project based around NASA and a new National Mission like John F. Kennedy Moon Mission, but a whole lot bigger in both goals to achieve and time to get it done in. I would set goals the what that Kennedy did and set a rough time schedule that I wanted it done in and I would pick something just outside our technical capability so we would have to develop new technology to complete our mission and to achieve our goals.
Our goals would be to build a settlement on the Moon for one thousand people with an agro-industrial complex in say 20 to 25 year time schedule.
I would have a second goal of building a city on Mars of 100,000 people in it in a 20 to 50 year time frame schedule.
Then I would ask one question:
How would we do that and what technologies do we have to develop, what infrastructure do we have to build and what kind of financial resources are we going to have to have to make it happen?
Then lay in a course to make it happen.
One of the first things that I would have to do would be to set NASA up as a semi autonomous agency/governorship type operation to issue contract to develop new technologies, build the need infrastructure and manage the colony after it built to both maintain, expand that colony until that colony is big enough and has a government that can take over the business of running there own colony.
Larry,
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For the benefit of someone running against you for President of the United States I would point out that 12 million jobs is about double the number of unemployed.
Also, it’s just not possible in a market economy to have zero unemployment. Joe might quit a particular job in disgust, take a few days off to cool off and relax, and then start looking for another job. After he finds the perfect job, there will be a few days while references are checked, approvals are secured, medical tests are completed, and other ducks are put in a row.
It may be two months form the end of one job to the beginning of another even when jobs are going begging and employers are desperate. The benefit, among others, is that people can quit when they want, and don’t have to start working until they want. In other words, people in a free economy are not slaves.
Such frictional unemployment may make up half the unemployment in today’s economy. This means that about nine million people with have to change jobs from whatever they are doing now to your public service jobs. This is assuming that have no concern about the particular qualifications of the 12 million you're hiring. Consider qualifications would made the transition much more difficult. And how will you pay all these people, assuming you’re not going to enslave them?
The most obvious way to solve both problems is to raise taxes to the extent that the economy will slow sufficiently that nine million people will be laid off. In other words, force people to buy subways and levitated rail road systems instead of what they want to buy, which might consist of noble things like buying poetry, education or medical care, but whatever they buy, it is now their choice.
70 cities with subways? By that I assume you mean metropolitan areas, but still, subways in Bakersfield and El Paso? With total populations under 700,000? Why not just use buses, which would be incredibly cheaper, more efficient, and would get done ten times as quickly?
“upgrading rail road and top that off with a National Amtrak passenger levitated rail road system”
Why not just let people take airplanes? It’s faster, cheaper and safer than railroads. How many “levitated rail road systems” actually work in the real world, not as big lab experiments? Zero?
Maybe at least one, probably many more, successful system would be a good idea before committing 12 million people to work on the things.
Vote for somebody other than Martian Republic—he’ll kick you out of your job, take all your money, and put you to work polishing railroad cars that run empty or don’t work.
Bob
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Not to mention spending several trillion dollars to put cities in space that can't possibly repay anything to the mother planet, based on the flawed premise that all money invested by the government is always always bennefical.
Martian Republic is a dedicated deciple, his faith completly unshakeable, in the ideas of one Lyndon LaRouche... a former political type who is clearly wacko.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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To begin with, there probably about 20 million Americans that are either unemployed or under-employed like those people that work at Wal-Mart for 9.00 dollars an hour and get instruction from Wal-Mart to get government hand out for disadvantaged workers. Instead of having to subsidize Wal-Mart though our taxes and having to take care of there workers with government financed healthcare, these workers will have good paying jobs which pay for there own Healthcare instead of being Government subsidized Healthcare. Besides we need those subway system and the United States has about 70 city with over two hundred thousand people in cities that would make for a good transportation linked together with a good Amtrak levitated rail system. With a levitated rail system of trains going 300 miles an hour, we could have people going from down town to down town of any city two city within that distance within the hour and have it serviced by a subway system to move people out from there. Besides I would save the air lines too by re-regulating them so that they would become profitable again. Beside needing those subways and train system, we also need those air lines too, to provide for our national transportation needs. Beside that would be the best way to also save the industrial sector or our machine tool sector that we still left inside the United State so that the United States doesn't turn into a third world nation. It would also be a good way to save the manufacturing section of GM, Ford, Delfia auto parts manufacturers, along with the air line manufactures which are also in trouble too and get them involved project too. Give them something to build that we really need built so we can continue to me a modern nation and advance forward.
Besides, it was the Federal, State, County and City government that built or contracted to build the rail roads, road, dams, canals, levies, electric power plants, water and sewer system, city air ports, and subways in the past that helped to create a modern nation in the first place. If we want the United State to continue to be a modern nation, then we need to get the US National Government ass in gear and get on with these project. It was Lincoln that signed the transcontinental act during the middle of the American Civil War that got us the transcontinental rail road four years after the civil war in 1869 in the link in Utah. It was FDR that got the dams built at the four target rivers with the Tennessee Valley Authority being one of those rivers. FDR rural electrification program. Either during and just before World War II, at FDR they were even building factories to prepare for World War II and was even handing them over for private management. That the primary reason why the United State could out produce the Japan, Germany and Italy along with most of the countries that were on our side by a four to one margin of the war material that got produced during World War II. We had the infrastructure, transportation system and manufacturing plants, ship yards in place, that we just out ran them. The United States generated between 10,000 to 20,000 air plane of one type or another. At the time of the Japanese surrender, we had after Pearl Harbor attack which happened about four years earlier over 25 Air Craft Carriers or more, seven to ten battle ships. We had fleet of ship of over thousand or more at the time of the Japanese surrender. Instead of fighting a war, we are going to use the same principle and develop the industrial capacity to rebuild the United States and colonize space. We are going to take the Kennedy Moon Mission National Goal and oversize it a couple of sizes and stick it back out there and run with it. John F. Kennedy understood the technology principle driver concept that started with Ike and he ran with it. There are several things that happen in a government generated credit system that is being invested in a science driver/infrastructure project that strung out over twenty to fifty year time frame of simple interest of 2% interest rate at a fix exchange rate.
The advantages are:
1. For every dollar of credit that generated internally by the US Government by the United State that it borrows from itself and not from a private bank or banking system like the Federal Reserve System, then the US Government get to set the terms of that credit instead of private bankers setting those terms.
2. For every dollar of credit that the US Government generates within a certain limit and if the follow certain principle of investing will roll over three to four times the value that they created. But, they have to follow certain rules, they can’t just generate credit and through it out there, but they have to direct where it going and what purpose they intend to accomplish when they put it out there.
3. The life expectancy of a nuclear power plant is twenty to thirty years. So spread our low interest 2% government loan for the use of that power plant over twenty year period to build our infrastructure and get paid back on it at a price that we can afford to build it, use it for the purpose that we intended to use it for. That how we intend to finance building needed infrastructure by government generated credit.
4. But, the new technology that we have to develop for our new National Space Goal or as I like to refer to as a science driver is not only going to roll that generated credit over three or four time to every dollar of credit that was generated, but will also have a spin-off factor to it too. The NASA Moon Mission generated another fourteen dollars to every dollars invested in spin-off in addition to the three to four roll over of every dollar that was generated by the government of the United States.
Larry,
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Woo, here we go again... you above innappropriate comparisons with history aren't worth addressing, other then this business about America not being a "modern country" or something anymore.
"For every dollar of credit that generated internally by the US Government by the United State that it borrows from itself and not from a private bank or banking system like the Federal Reserve System, then the US Government get to set the terms of that credit instead of private bankers setting those terms."
Um, "devalue?" The buying power of the US dollar would disappear overnight.
"For every dollar of credit that the US Government generates within a certain limit and if the follow certain principle of investing will roll over three to four times the value that they created."
No, it won't. Not on the scale of trillions of dollars you are thinking of.
"But, the new technology that we have to develop for our new National Space Goal or as I like to refer to as a science driver is not only going to roll that generated credit over three or four time to every dollar of credit that was generated, but will also have a spin-off factor to it too. The NASA Moon Mission generated another fourteen dollars to every dollars invested in spin-off in addition to the three to four roll over of every dollar that was generated by the government of the United States."
Most science will advance, yes, but at the moment we know that rocket science won't, because chemical fuels aren't going to get any better and nuclear engines aren't practical nor bennefical for ground launch.
How do you know that the "spinoff factor" effect will occur again? Thats a trillion-dollar gamble, and if it doesn't pan out, the economic damage would be devestating.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Reading the [economic] discussion preceding above reminded me of some of the arguments put forward by Robert A. Heinlein in his first "lost" novel "For Us, The Living" (published in 2003 for the first time) - quite an interesting read.
Heinlein postulates in his book that private credit (i.e. lending by banks) is one of the drivers that lead to the economic bankcrupty of many households and corporations - as interest and charge remove production from the economy that is multiplied over successive cycles. According to the theory, credit should only be extended by governments - in part as an distribution of "excess capacity" generated by overproduction (Production i.e. supply - exceeding demand) to the public (this also equates to [massive] government spending), to cover the gap between production (supply) and the demand for that production. The idea is to provide means to particpate in the production generated to every citizen. All very provocative and utopian ... but clashing with just about every established economic theory out there ...
Still a good read. It would be interesting to hear your take on this theory [and the book, if you manage to find it]
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Not to mention spending several trillion dollars to put cities in space that can't possibly repay anything to the mother planet, based on the flawed premise that all money invested by the government is always always bennefical.
Martian Republic is a dedicated deciple, his faith completly unshakeable, in the ideas of one Lyndon LaRouche... a former political type who is clearly wacko.
I'll still take an infrastructuralist at worst to libertarian NewSpacer fraud at his best.
The lessons of spaceflight and the massive thrust needed to get to space are of a blue collar nature...less MSN and more TVA.
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China should set up a governmental agency as a leading body of the nation's space program, a former chief designer of spacecraft said during the annual session of the country's top political advisory body.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Aeros … ogram.html
China needs a unified leading organ to plan the country's program of manned space mission, satellites and lunar exploration as a whole, said Qi Faren, chief designer of China's first five Shenzhou spaceships and a National Committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
China will seek three breakthroughs in its space program in the next five years, a former senior commander of the country's manned space mission said Tuesday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006- … 268630.htm
Space walk, lunar exploration and carrier rockets with greater propulsive forces are listed on the top agenda of the country's space program for the 2006-2010 period, said Hu Shixiang, former deputy commander-in-chief for China's manned space mission.
In the "space race" of the early 1960s, when reporters asked U.S. rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun what he expected to find on the moon, he jokingly replied: "Russians."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f … pe=science
Nowadays, his answer might be: "Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans."
India, China, Japan and Europe are busy launching, or planning to launch, robotic spaceships to the moon and points beyond.
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U.S. losing space race, congressmen say
news item
...Griffin was asked to produce
in 30 days an unclassified report to Congress containing an assessment of the Chinese space program and its goals.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with NASA oversight, said he would hold a hearing on the subject to coincide with the report's release.
Griffin acknowledged that China's new Shenzou spaceships are capable of supporting a crew on a round-trip mission to the moon.
But their Long March rockets are not powerful enough to get them there, he said.
The United States has neither a crew vehicle nor a rocket capable of making a moon run.
The shuttle is designed for low Earth orbit only....
Some congressmen believe the United States and China are in an unacknowledged space race that this country could lose if it doesn't spend more money on the civilian space program.
The communist nation's military runs its manned space program, employs an estimated 200,000 workers and has set a goal of putting an astronaut on the moon by 2017.
By contrast, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is a civilian government program with a limited budget that directly employs fewer than 20,000 civil servants and has lost the commanding lead it once held over the rest of the world in human space exploration.
http://www.space.com/news/ft_060331_nas … gress.html
"We have a space race going on right now and the American people are totally unaware of all this," said Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican whose district includes Johnson Space Center near Houston.
The theme, which is not new, emerged again Thursday at a Capitol Hill hearing where lawmakers were quizzing NASA Administrator Mike Griffin about the Bush administration's budget request for the space program.
The China space-race discussion was touched off by Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who in February participated in the first U.S. government delegation visit to China's remote space launch facility.
"The American people have no idea how massive the China space program is," Kirk said.
The first-of-its-kind, behind-the-scenes tour revealed a modern high-tech facility that would be the envy of NASA employees, some of whom still work out of buildings more than 40 years old, Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, told FLORIDA TODAY in February after participating in the China tour.
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If thats what it takes to get more money out of them, so be it.
The trouble is the same conservitives that view China as a rival are also penny-pinchers.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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China would have to roughly double or tripple the payload of their present launch vehicles, they would have to develop superior rocket engines (RL-10 equivilent) and probobly employ multiple fueling flights per mission, stationkeeping and automated docking systems, and of course their own Lunar lander replete with crew cabin and so on.
And thats just to get their boots on the ground
The Apollo program, with its huge Saturn rocket and multibillion dollar price tag could deliver somewhere around 15MT of payload to the Lunar surface. And thats without the Apollo Command, Service, or Lunar acent modules with a "stretch" Lunar decent module. Even if China could actually get people to the surface and back again, they probobly couldn't do anything there.
NASA VSE on the other hand, Griffin has rightly insisted that the Lunar lander be powerd by Hydrogen fuel, and riding on the top of the HLLV should be able to deliver 20MT or more of payload to the surface, for a total cost somewhere between $600-800M, give or take.
The Chinese space program may be "big," but thats because it would have to be... they don't have the same level of automation as American rocket builders, much of the construction of the Shuttle tanks and boosters is done by machine. If they are going to use multiple medium rockets instead of a single heavy, then they will have to build and fly many more rockets. Constructing and flying one heavy rocket is easier then a bunch of medium ones, that China would have to launch likly five or six times with an Atlas-V 551/Delta-IV Heavy class rocket, to NASA's two, maybe more if China sticks with hypergolics. Plus, if the CLV is built well, it should be easier to fly then China's counterpart.
___________________________________________
More thoughts:
Say Mr Congressman; You've been to China and seen their big impressive launch complex, and you've recently heard the Chinese state that they are going to race us back to the Moon. How embarrasing it would be to see the red flag planted on the Moon by Taikonauts on CNN? NASA could get to the Moon faster and beat them there, but they would need like ~$25 billion dollars, a rocket factory for HLLV production, and a large number of extra engineers. Thats alot of money! And NASA doesn't have either of those things available right now nor would they if for some time if they started building or hiring tomorrow...
There is a solution! Infact, it won't cost the government a single dime, and NASA would have these needed physical reasources by the end of the year!
...get rid of Shuttle and cancel ISS construction, NOW
Problem solved
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The US may actually be facing a choice here:
-Risk the America-hating Europeans, back-stabbing Russias, and some Japanese scientists ire
-Risk China pulling off a major prestiege coup
The trick is, this choice has to be made NOW, not years down the road.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Spacedaily. Fly Me To A Red Moon
As Mr Jones states China's statements over its space programme are vague that can lead to various interpretations and one of these is that they go for the Moon. But without a Heavy lift they will need to do a series of launches to then build in space the craft that would go to the Moon. Mr Jones considers that this is extremely unlikely before at the least 2017. Another option and easier for them to do is to instead launch into a circumLunar orbit or straight into the Moons orbit.
Certainly using Shenzhou 8,9 and 10 they can practice this ability if it gives them a spacestation then they will simply announce they have a completed research station and needless to say draw a paralel between the ISS disaster and themselves. Less complicated but functional. This may even spur Nasa and the USA on.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Don't have much time to post here this week, but look at this
Heavy launcher by 2010 ? I hope that's a v.Heavy and not medium Heavy, but even a 30 T or 25 T would have some NASA folks worried because it means Chinese will have built a Stick/Proton class before NASA does.
A top Chinese space official on Monday described China's ambitious exploration plans, including robotic Moon missions starting next year.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/04/0 … pace.reut/
Beyond Moon missions, including a flight to collect and return lunar samples to Earth in 2017, the Chinese space agency plans to develop a nonpolluting launch vehicle into orbit by 2010, said Luo Ge, a vice administrator at the Chinese National Space Administration...
...I think they might have a planned a manned mission but just aren't ready to declare it, or are still thinking about very heavy Lift.
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AP China's unmanned spaceship to near the Moon next year
China plans to send an unmanned probe/spacecraft around the Moon in 2007. This is according to Luo Ge deputy administrator of Chinas national space administration. He said it as he was visiting the USA this week. He also berated the USA in not willing to share in space exploration with China.
So avoiding the obvious political nature of this piece we see that China has again resurfaced its plans to create a heavy lift option but theres will only carry about 25 to 30 tons to orbit and in 2011. And they plan landings on the Moon in 2012 and samples back in 2017. You will note that there is no talk of a manned prescence this means that China plans a robotic series of missions to the Moon and sample return like the Russian version will be done by a Robotic lander maybe in conjunction with a rover. China may have plans and wish to send people to the Moon and Mars it just lacks the capability.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Storm In A Spacecraft
by Morris Jones
Geelong, Australia (SPX) Apr 06, 2006
Like a salvo of shots, another round of Chinese statements on their space program has filled the media. After so many interesting revelations in February and March, China should have been happy to suspend commentaries on the Shenzhou program for a while. In fact, the opposite has happened.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Storm … craft.html
China's recent media statements suggest that its human spaceflight program is far from settled, and some details are still subjected to extreme volatility...
...The recent US tour of Luo Ge, a vice-administrator at the Chinese National Space Administration, has been surprisingly controversial. Previous visits by Chinese space officials to the USA, including a visit by Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, have been relatively low-key and quiet, presumably in an effort to avoid excessive controversy. Luo has certainly bucked that trend.
The Chinese delegate was apparently serious when he accused the USA of a lack of openness in its society and space program, and seemed to insinuate that China was making better progress in opening its own space program to the world. "Countries should be open," said Luo in a syndicated story.
In such a case, your correspondent would be happy to see the incredible stonewalling that has hidden most aspects of Shenzhou from the world disappear. Your correspondent would also like to know if a brainwashing experiment has given him false memories of his previous access to NASA personnel, information and facilities.
The apparent goal of Luo's barbs has been some sort of attempt to gain access to the US space program. China has been knocking on NASA's door for some time, and has an interest in the International Space Station. But actions like this are unlikely to heal the already frosty relationship between the nations. What does China want to do? Send Shenzhou to ISS? The chances of this happening are growing slimmer, especially when the US Government is currently fretting over China's rapid gains on the USA in space....
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