Chinese spacecraft dock in orbit

BBC News ^ | 2 November 2011 | Jonathan Amos

[QuickSandWillow]

China has joined two space vehicles together in orbit for the first time.

The unmanned Shenzhou 8 craft, launched earlier this week, made contact with the Tiangong-1 space lab at 1729 GMT. The union occurred over China itself.

Being able to dock two space vehicles together is a necessary capability for China if it wants to start building a space station towards the decade's end.

Although no astronauts were in the Shenzhou craft this time, future missions will carry people.

Tuesday's procedure (Beijing time 0029, Thursday) took place at an altitude of about 340km. It was automated but overseen on the ground at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Centre.

The vehicles used radar and optical sensors to compute their proximity to each other and guide their final approach and contact. A video feed from orbit showed the final moments of the vehicles coming together.

Shenzhou 8 was the active craft in the docking. It fired its thrusters to push its front end towards the docking port of Tiangong-1. Once the vehicles' docking rings had made a good capture, 12 hooks were deployed to fix the craft in place. Protruding pins made electrical connections.

From first contact to confirmation of a seal took about 10 minutes.

Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong-1 will spend two weeks circling the globe together before Shenzhou 8 heads back to Earth

[bmwcyle]

If there was no vacuum, you would hear “CRINK”.

[MHGinTN]

Smoke screens are a funny thing, they sometimes escape recognition as diversion. While folks are ramping up concern that China is tryign to become the lone military super power, the Chicoms are slowly becomign the prime source for the things a future globe will need if it remains technologically advanced. China will be mining the Moon sooner rather than later, and they are already hard at work buying up the resource pools in Africa and elsewhere. The Chicoms have looked at the ‘trends’ and discerned that the future power of this globe will be the controller of the resources needed to produce the advanced technologies.

[MHGinTN]

Spittle on yourself much? ... Do you really want to equivocate the 1790’s economy with the current realities?

[ScottinVA]

I remember the USA having an active space program...

Ah, life back in the day..

[ScottinVA]

It must be inspirational to live in a country that can do Great Things. I remember what it was like, vaguely.

Nowadays, it takes more than 10 years to get a replacement for the Twin Towers built. A return trip to the Moon or a reach out to Mars seems rather distant now...

[MichaelCorleone]

Why is China wasting their money and talent on dumb things like space exploration?

Our own NASA does the really important job of m0slim outreach instead of bothering with space, ain’t that right Barry?

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[af_vet_rr]

It must be inspirational to live in a country that can do Great Things. I remember what it was like, vaguely.

I remember when we were a nation of pioneers.

Now we are a nation of settlers.

[theDentist]

"How do those capitalist Americans so this so easily?"

[central_va]

Since Rush Limbaugh thinks Free Trade™ is a good think, our free thinking "conservative" FRiends will not change their minds.

You know that super famous "conservative" guy with a national show that refused to discuss the repeal of DADT. Yeah, that guy.

[The Theophilus]

Tariffs were the largest source of federal revenue from the 1790s to the eve of World War I, until it was surpassed by income taxes.

Yes indeed that is true. Can you find anything today that resembles that era's domestic and global economy?

In the 1700s were we importing apples (the fruit, not the electronic gizmos) from New Zealand? Did we have Just-in-Time inventory management systems then? Which do you suppose is easier to implement in the 19th century economy, an import duty at our nation's seaports, or an individual income tax on every man, woman and child in every holler and crossroad across a sparsely populated nation? Could the Fe'ral Government today even give the illusion of getting by primarily on Tariffs?

Because, other than a snarky cynical answer, why was the 16th Amendment even passed? It takes one heck of a lot of political agreement to get enough States to ratify it (even though some entities claim that it wasn't properly ratified). Why are tariffs never even mentioned today by conservatives or even libertarians but only by selfish Union thugs, Marxists, Anti-americans and random kooks who can barely look ahead enough to pack a lunch?

[central_va]

Getting screwed by unfair trade policies and foreign import duties is a timeless concept.

[ecomcon]

I am not a cheerleader for tariffs. I suppose there are good reasons for some tariffs.

I am an implacable foe of global anything as a positive moral value, because it will inevitably lead to the diminution of our sovereignty as well as our moral and cultural identity.

Do you not see that the end game of globalism is the equalization of global wage cost?

Wow, we save an extra $1,000 per year for 10 years buying communist slave labor manufactured goods. We pay the price with a narrowed and hollowed out manufacturing sector, and wonder about job loss.

Trading freely with our enemies is stupid on the face of it. We want to defeat our enemies, not strengthen them. But perhaps we no longer have enemies who want to see our country destroyed, just multi-culti trading partners. After all, China has had most favored nation status for 30 years, and things are going our way. Not.

[stevie_d_64]

I wonder if they’ll create the Chinese equivalent to our Tang drink???

[snowrip]

You’re right, because China only has a couple of dozen ICBMs, they’re no threat to us. Perhaps the better question would be “Who has the will to use nuclear weapons?”

Their aircraft are not spectacular, but their SAM envelope is. Compare the numbers of active combat aircraft between China and the US, then ask the Germans (who had vastly superior tanks) how they fared against superior numbers of Shermans.

B-2s and F-22s don’t fare so well without satellite-guided weapons and navigation, and the country with the most active ASAT program in the world is... ? You guessed it. And as an aside, those weapons require rare-earth minerals to produce; guess who controls 92% of the rare-earth mineral leases on the planet?

China isn’t the toughest kid on the block, but it will be if things continue in the direction they are headed. While our government picks union-colored rainbows out of its own ass, the Chinese are busy hacking our military and industrial networks, building the largest and most effective spy network on the planet, taking control of strategic chokepoints, and spending hundreds of billions on 4th generation weapons.