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Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: The Race with China

I assume the poll should be
'Will we beat China to Mars'

and I vote No
as long as George keep running up huge deficts, a civil war sees Arab people that keep dying for no reason and George keeps burning billions of dollars in his quest to bring democracy to places that have now fallen apart. Think about it, can Islam and Democracy really co-exist ?

If not, then that says something real racists about the Arabs as a people doesn't it. In other words, "Arabs are too stupid for democracy!" Do you believe that? And what about the Chinese, do they deserve to select their own government, the people of Taiwan seem to think so, but the Mainland government disagrees, are they racist?

Chinese have a very young space program but as long as GW Jnr keeps shooting himself in the foot, I think China has a got chance at turning Mars into a real Red-Planet.

It would be nice if China was a real republic as they accomplish this and not one in name only. The Chinese government goes all out to do everything in the "name of the people" without actually handing the people the reins of power and the ability to choose their own governments in free and fair elections, that the Chinese government denies them this is racist in my opinion. The Red Communist government is in a way "self-hating Chinese" to think that the Chinese do not deserve a vote.

Yang Liwei Rocket

Member

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 993

Re: The Race with China

If not, then that says something real racists about the Arabs

It ain't racism Numbnuts, and I love how some of you Neo-Cons look at yourself as some kind of Abraham Lincoln prophet that freed the slaves from tyranny ( I got a big surprise for you - the GOP has made quiet a U-turn since those days of old)
I also think you need an English dictionary - racism means hating a certain ethnic group or group of races.
the Middle-East is a mix-mash of ethnic groups and if I was racist against  their races then I'd hate one specific ethnic group there or them I'd hate all, I'd hate the Kurds (who are honourbale people), I'd Turks (even though I admire this people), I'd hate the peoples of Iran...et cetera

Let me explain it - as I would explain to a child.
All I have said is that I'm not sure Islam and Democracy can co-exist.
Islam has been taken hostage and put in a dark place now much like Christianity was when they burnt witches in the Dark Ages.
This was London

After some guy drew a funny Cartoon, the Cartoonists had an Ironic take on religion and in response - people were killed across the Islamic world in an orgy of violence by Islamic loonys. Are these the people that GW Jnr says he has brought democracy to ?

I admire the Arabs who came to work in America and the hardworking Arab immigrants who respct the USA's democray, I respect the British Muslims who work hard and don't want sharia law ruling the people.

As for the loonys that seem to be hijacking parts of the Middle East, no I've no respect for them, nor do I think are they ready for GW's vision of Democracy.

---

'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: The Race with China

If not, then that says something real racists about the Arabs

It ain't racism Numbnuts,

I never said you were, but the implication if you just give up on the Arabs ever having a democracy because they are constitutionally incompatible with democracy suggests a number of things with racial inferiority complexes inferred. Why can white christians have democracy and not Arab muslims? Does this suggest any sort of inferiority on the muslims part if they can't adopt democracy and so govern themselves? Why do they need a "Master" that never consults with them and rules them with an iron fist? Why must Arabs be slaves to an undemocratic government that rules over them with impunity? Why can't they free themselves from their religious masters that no one elected? George Bush for his part assumed they can, he assumes they are capable of governing themselves and choosing their own government just like white Christian caucasians can, if George Bush is wrong in making this assumption, at least it was a generouis assumption starting out by considering the Arabs to be our equals instead of our inferiors, which an assumption that they can't have democracy would imply. People are either masters of their own fate or slaves. If all Muslim Arabs can do is follow their masters blindly and give up their lives for them, then they are slaves. I think George Bush's assumption of them is more progressive then the liberal's standard argument that they are not ready for democracy, so any attempt to push democracy on them is a mistake. I for one think a democratic world is a safer would than one with a number of petty tyrants keeping large fractions of the World's population in their thrall.

and I love how some of you Neo-Cons look at yourself as some kind of Abraham Lincoln prophet that freed the slaves from tyranny ( I got a big surprise for you - the GOP has made quiet a U-turn since those days of old)

When, I have't seen any Republicans supporting secession or slavery, quite the opposite in fact, we're trying to liberate the Arabs from their masters by pushing democracy on them, as Lincoln said, tyranny anywhere threatens freedom everywhere. I think in fact Lincoln would be in agreement with George Bushes policies in Iraq, and I also think he would view other issues such as same-sex marriage to be quite daft, he would probably view abortion as immoral. Lincoln believed in preserving the Union and so do the Modern Republicans. The Democrats in Lincoln's day were anti-war and guess what, so are the Democrats of today. In Lincolns time the Democrats supported a candidate, McClellan, who supported withdrawing and redeploying Federal troops out of the South and negotiation a Peace Treaty with the Confederacy, and that is the same sort of thing the Democrats want to do now only this time with the Terrorists and Iraqi insurgents, they always support something other than what George Bush is doing.

I also think you need an English dictionary - racism means hating a certain ethnic group or group of races.
the Middle-East is a mix-mash of ethnic groups and if I was racist against  their races then I'd hate one specific ethnic group there or them I'd hate all, I'd hate the Kurds (who are honourbale people), I'd Turks (even though I admire this people), I'd hate the peoples of Iran...et cetera

Let me explain it - as I would explain to a child.
All I have said is that I'm not sure Islam and Democracy can co-exist.

The only way to find out is to put Islam to the test, which is what George Bush is attempting to do in Iraq. If you are so sure the Iraqis will fail democracy, then you are prejudiced against their ability to live in a democratic society. What George Bush is doing is giving them a thorough rigourous test, such that if they fail, we'll know without a doubt that Islam and democracy are incompatible, but so far I think we know no such thing.

Islam has been taken hostage and put in a dark place now much like Christianity was when they burnt witches in the Dark Ages.
This was London

After some guy drew a funny Cartoon, the Cartoonists had an Ironic take on religion and in response - people were killed across the Islamic world in an orgy of violence by Islamic loonys. Are these the people that GW Jnr says he has brought democracy to ?

I admire the Arabs who came to work in America and the hardworking Arab immigrants who respct the USA's democray, I respect the British Muslims who work hard and don't want sharia law ruling the people.

As for the loonys that seem to be hijacking parts of the Middle East, no I've no respect for them, nor do I think are they ready for GW's vision of Democracy.

That depends on whether they are in the minority or the majority. If democracy cannot work in the Middle East because the people there are so messed up, then I don't see why we should let these same screwed up people into our country so they can try to mess up and sabotage our democracy. That is the other side of the coin. Whether democracy succeeds or fails in the Middle East says alot about the people that live there and whether we should let them live in our country.

dicktice

Member

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Registered: 2002-11-01

Posts: 1,764

Re: The Race with China

Re. China's latest space exploit, a quote taken from today's Google, regarding weapons in space:

[Quote] ... In addition to introducing a renewed military dimension to space, the destruction of the Chinese satellite created a large "debris cloud" that could seriously damage other satellites in nearby orbit, and possibly even spacecraft on their way to the moon or beyond. Analysts said that based on computer models, as many as 300,000 pieces of debris may have been created. While many would be very small, they said, hundreds would be large enough to create potentially serious problems. The US and the former Soviet Union tested anti-satellite technology in the 1980s, and the US shot down one of its orbiting satellites in 1985. Partially as a result of the debris problem, both sides stopped the programs ... [Unquote]

My own reaction is a sense of violation of a vital natural resource of Earth: the unique Geostationary Orbit. The Chinese really should have conferred internationally on how better to extract their unwanted comsat from GEO  without "fouling their nest" with random-velocity debris--if that was their true objective. Much worse: if they have the eventual military destructiom of vulnerabile other GEO comsats in mind they should at once be taken to task--as a pariah space-nation, without honour for having allowed such an irresponsible experiment even to take place!

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: The Race with China

Re. China's latest space exploit, a quote taken from today's Google, regarding weapons in space:

... In addition to introducing a renewed military dimension to space, the destruction of the Chinese satellite created a large "debris cloud" that could seriously damage other satellites in nearby orbit, and possibly even spacecraft on their way to the moon or beyond. Analysts said that based on computer models, as many as 300,000 pieces of debris may have been created. While many would be very small, they said, hundreds would be large enough to create potentially serious problems. The US and the former Soviet Union tested anti-satellite technology in the 1980s, and the US shot down one of its orbiting satellites in 1985. Partially as a result of the debris problem, both sides stopped the programs ... [Unquote]

My own reaction is a sense of violation of a vital natural resource of Earth: the unique Geostationary Orbit. The Chinese really should have conferred internationally on how better to extract their unwanted comsat from GEO  without "fouling their nest" with random-velocity debris--if that was their true objective. Much worse: if they have the eventual military destructiom of vulnerabile other GEO comsats in mind they should at once be taken to task--as a pariah space-nation, without honour for having allowed such an irresponsible experiment even to take place!

Wait a minute, if you blow up a satellite in Geostationary orbit, how will that harm other satellites in Geogeostationary orbit? Do not all satellites in Geostationary orbit in the same direction at the same velocity around the Earth so each can stay above a fixed spot on the Earth's surface? Seems to me that if a satellite in such an orbit blew up, the fragments would only hit other satellites at the relatively small velocity of the initial explosion relative to position of that satellite in geostationary orbit. I don't see how any of the fragments could end up in a wildly different orbit so as to impact with other satellites in that same orbit with orbital velocities such as that of two objects hitting each other in significantly different orbits.

Offline

Grypd

Member

From: Scotland, Europe

Registered: 2004-06-07

Posts: 1,879

Re: The Race with China

The problem is that the US cannot complain about the debris cloud. The 1985 Asat test against the Solwind satelite created just as big a debris cloud and the last part of trackable debris only decayed in 2002. Any complaint and the Chinese will note that the US already did it.

In July 1999 a part of this debris passed within one mile of the nascent ISS spacestation.

Wait a minute, if you blow up a satellite in Geostationary orbit, how will that harm other satellites in Geogeostationary orbit? Do not all satellites in Geostationary orbit in the same direction at the same velocity around the Earth so each can stay above a fixed spot on the Earth's surface? Seems to me that if a satellite in such an orbit blew up, the fragments would only hit other satellites at the relatively small velocity of the initial explosion relative to position of that satellite in geostationary orbit. I don't see how any of the fragments could end up in a wildly different orbit so as to impact with other satellites in that same orbit with orbital velocities such as that of two objects hitting each other in significantly different orbits.

Tom the problem with an Asat test is that the targeted satelite is broken into many pieces and these are given a good degree of momentum. This like a shotgun spreads out the debris and this debris eventually starts its decay back to Earth. This debris will be a risk to everything in orbit not just GEO. If it collides with any other orbiting entity the debris has a momentum in the kms per second. The damage that was done to a spaceshuttle when a fleck of paint hit shows how dangerous debris can be. A collision with the large debris from the Chinese test could easily go through the Shuttle lengthways.

---

Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.

RedStreak

Banned

From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: The Race with China

China doesn't really have a lot of money to spend. They are desperately trying to keep their country together without having an economic meltdown. But just to piss you off. I do hope China get their first. American arrogance doesn't need to be feed.

*rolls over laughing* 

Seriously though, after that anti-satellite weapons test we ought to give them harder consideration.  Since they only have medium boosters their manned program will stay small I figure for at least another decade if not two.  Eventually they will, I suspect, wean themselves off exSoviet tech and develop a variety of their own.  They've obviously stated they're not content to be small players and even small players are not to be estimated.

Martin_Tristar

Member

From: Earth, Region : Australia

Registered: 2004-12-07

Posts: 305

Re: The Race with China

With the display of both US and China anti-satellite weapon tests the world could only hope that it is the last demonstration of this technology or It could start the development of more anti-satellite weapons and even some offensive weapons for satellites.

The development of Moon and Mars will come down, to the resources and infrastructure paid for by the organization going into space. Even if the country like China is behind at the present in the technology , IF the country spends the equivalent in GDP to the US it will exceed the monetary value in five years ( 4% China will be equal over 12% US in physical resources), We need to get to these planetary bodies and get them processing resources in the shortest timeframe to increase the infrastructure on the US side before the Chinese Earth resources overtakes the US Earth resources in Space exploration. Don't forget about the India ambitions to space either. They want to get to the Moon and possible for Mars for the same reasons.

We could also have smaller players as well, including single enterprise or business groups that may want the resources for commercial reasons or market growth reasons. It will be an interesting century ahead for the space industry globally and the political, and economic futures for all humanity.

dicktice

Member

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Registered: 2002-11-01

Posts: 1,764

Re: The Race with China

How about discussing how the chinese rocketeers must've gone about the "cutting out" of their comsat from GEO? That should provide the basis for less political (ugh) and more technical and interesting commentary....

dicktice

Member

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Registered: 2002-11-01

Posts: 1,764

Re: The Race with China

Well, I'm kind of surprised that nobody took me to task, for claiming that the Chinese had knocked out a GEO comsat, almost as far away as the Moon, in an orbit parallel with the Equator--when it was really a polar-orbiting, meteorology satellite only about  500 miles up. The fact that it was done using a direct-ascent, 2-stage ballistic missile "armed" with nothing but a kenetic energy warhead sounds impressive. According to Google (my source in all things!) the debris cloud has as of this writing already propagated in a growing ring about the poles at roughly 17000 mph, between 300 and 1000 miles up. Just because you're bright enough to do something distructive iwithin theEarth's gravity well, is no reason to go ahead and do it--and to hell with the consequences, for years to come. Talk about fouling the nest....