Posted on 11/29/2022 8:13:13 PM PST by BenLurkin
The spacecraft Shenzhou-15, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre at 11:08 p.m. on Tuesday amid sub-freezing temperatures in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, according to state television.
Shenzhou-15 was the last of 11 missions, including three prior crewed missions, that began in April 2021 needed to assemble the "Celestial Palace", as the multi-module station is known in Chinese.
The trio will take over from the Shenzhou-14 crew who arrived in early June. The previous crew members are expected to return to Earth in early December after a one-week handover that will also establish the station's ability to temporarily sustain six astronauts, another record for China's space program.
The space outpost took on its current "T" shape in November with the arrival of the last of three cylindrical modules.
The next batch of "taikonauts", coined from the Chinese word for space, to step foot on the station, in 2023, will be picked from the third generation of astronauts with scientific background. The first and second batches of astronauts in the 1990s-2000s were all former air force pilots.
China has started the selection process for the fourth batch, seeking candidates with doctoral degrees in disciplines from biology, physics and chemistry to biomedical engineering and astronomy.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What word in Chinese is translated to ‘Divine’ in English? What does it mean in the Chinese?
We join Fox News in hailing another glorious victory for Socialism, The People's Republic of China, and their majestic leader Xi Jinping!
Uncomfortable, but the US is behind in space. Only this year were US astronauts able to get to the ISS any way other than on Russian launch vehicles. That was 11 years like that.
Russian rocket engines were, until recently, the primary propulsion on US unmanned rockets.
China has a lunar rover mission on the far side of the moon, in operation now. Russia is dropping out of the ISS because they will have their own space station.
And no, don’t talk about cheap vs expensive. We print money from thin air. There is no such thing as cheap vs expensive when the measurement is a substance that comes from nothingness. Russia has their own Central Bank and they don’t do trillions of Quantitative Ease. Instead, they do superior spacecraft and launch vehicles for the past 11 years.
We are so screwed. And we have our heads in the sand. We are NOT the leaders in space technology any longer.
I am so glad the Chinese are our friends. I hate to think what they might otherwise do to our communication satellites and anything else in near-Earth orbit if we went to war with them.
Wrong SpaceX 1st crewed launch was May 30th 2020. Russia has been upgraded their 1/2 of the iss so why leave.
Hope the drywall doesn’t burn up on re-entry.
What’s wrong with you? The last shuttle launch was 2009. This is 10 years and 10 months? This 2 months excites you after NASA went hat in hand to Baikonur for launches for 10 friggin years?
Meanwhile, the replacement for Soyuz, Federatsiya or whatever they're calling it now, has been under development for many years and hasn't flown a single time.
Yep. We are so screwed and many have their heads in the sand.
Imo, it is too late to do anything but prepare.
And we funded all of this by buying crappy tools and shoes so a limited amount of Americans could get rich…
the last shuttle launch was in 2011 what is wrong with you??
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.