Posted on 08/28/2013 8:28:27 AM PDT by ClaytonP
China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to launch its astronauts to the moon.
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Unmistakable warning signs Writing for the journal Foreign Policy this month, John Hickman, a professor of political science at Berry College in Georgia, said there "are unmistakable warning signs that China may surpass the United States and Russia to become the world's pre-eminent spacefaring power."
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
When you buy or steal most of the necessary technology, it makes it a lot easier to match what the other guys have already done.
It’s putting in the effort and “Money” for advanced R&D that will prove how serious they are about it.
Lord knows we are no threat to their preeminence.
I suspect China is much more willing to take human losses to advance it's space program than the West is. And that will speed advancement.
/johnny
Yes, that willingness to advance by human sacrifice could be just the chink in their armor that enables us to steal their fast-track technology, while sparing our chaps.
Just what we need, another Chinese Restaurant to order out from
Yes, it can cost lives. We used to be willing to pay that price, and had brave men that volunteered, knowing the risks.
/johnny
Their plan is to dominate space.
They don’t have to worry about stupid treaties and such
It’s a given too that a Chinese space station will have nuclear weapons onboard that will be able to strike anywhere in the world within minutes. When that happens they will say, “YOU LEAVE CHINA SEA NOW!!”, and we will have no choice but to obey.
Good way to gloss over Clinton's blatant selling of our space technology to China for his personal gain. And no mention of the massive espionage mounted by Red China to steal our space technology allowed by Carter and continued by every Democrat in the White House since.
That's how Red China came from behind so quickly.
Now we are a fading power in everything, including outer space. Our population has been dumbed down. Work ethic has been stifled. Business is being crushed out of existence by our government. We make nothing. And NASA's primary mission is to fill Muslim space with our money and technology.
This is the Democrats' dream of totalitarian vice representative government. It is their dream of rulers and slaves. But it will become their nightmare as they find themselves also living in the slave quarters instead of the ruler's palace.
So don't look to the stars, Democrats. You've built the fence that's going to keep America out of space.
I took a tour of Johnson Space Center last Sunday while in Houston. It’s pretty much a decaying museum of what was once our technological prowess. All they are doing now is wasting time on various schemes to put a man on Mars...sometime between 2030 and 2035. Or so they claim. When asked if anyone had any questions I had to pipe up with “so what you’re saying is the astronauts who will fly this mission are in elementary school right now.”
NASA has a training hangar with mock ups of the current space station. It doesn’t look that high-tech. It looks like my garage (only much larger). Notably absent from the facility was anything to do with the People’s Republic of China. They are obviously going their own way. And I can see why they are reluctant to deal with the memo-writing bureaucrats from NASA.
I’m guessing the Chicoms will get the Russians to jump ship, join them, and dump our sorry asses. The Europeans and Japanese will have to follow. Then it’s a question of how we get our astronauts into orbit since we aren’t interested in doing any real space stuff any more.
Their plan is to dominate space.
What are the Chinese going to do about the other alien races that have already intimidated us into not exploring?
Joking of course, or am I? Dun dun Dun....
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think a willingness to accept human losses has ever entered the equation, on the part of any space program. The equipment is just too expensive and the funding is always at risk because of the non-tangible nature of the output. For instance, are the Chinese better off with more silly experiments in space costing tens of billions a year, or are they better off with several dozen ballistic missile subs hovering off both coasts of the continental US that provide them with a first strike capability or an enhanced second strike capability? Ultimately, we chose to more or less mothball manned exploration and keep our military procurement. The Soviets wound down their space program as the 80's arms race kicked into gear. There's every likelihood that the Chinese will do the same. I think the Chinese space agency cannot afford any large scale embarrassments (and a loss of several hundred million dollars of launch equipment is an embarrassment) - I suspect there are plenty of other government departments looking at space program funding, thinking that this money really ought to be theirs and lobbying hard for it.
They already have. They can put people in space, and we cannot right now.
Our SLBM subs in the Western Pacific can hit any Chinese city within minutes, and if they ever get round to it, the Chinese could equally deploy missile subs off both coasts of the continental US. Nuclear subs are way cheaper to maintain and far less vulnerable to attack. Space stations are sitting ducks.
Our SLBM subs in the Western Pacific can hit any Chinese city within minutes...
I'm sure you're right, Zhang Fei, unless, of course, communist China puts anti-missile weapons in space.
If that were a panacea, we'd already have done it. NASA put men on the moon almost 50 years ago. I think ABM researchers have pretty much looked at every possibility, ever since the old days of thinking about launching nukes to hit incoming nukes.
And again, space stations are sitting ducks.
Yes, but we'll be the world's preeminent Muslim outreach power. So there!
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