Posted on 05/20/2002 10:23:21 AM PDT by RightWhale
China planning moon landing as first step to Mars
BEIJING (AFP) May 20, 2002
China may be planning to go to the moon in the course of the next decade, but an exhibition here Monday suggested it has far more ambitious goals -- Mars.
A model at the exhibition, organized for the country's National Science Week, showed China's vision of a permanent settlement on the red planet, a sci-fi fantasy replete with shiny domes and large greenhouses.
"From a long-term perspective, it is a historical necessity for man to travel into space," a poster at the exhibition proclaimed.
Chinese media reported last month that scientists were developing a new family of rockets that supposedly could send explorers to Mars.
While most Chinese scientists admit that a Mars mission is still a distant prospect, some have argued that the relevant technologies might as well be developed now.
One such device, a six-wheel robotic detector which could become China's first representative on the planet, was unveiled at the exhibition, which opened as China renewed vows to push ahead with its fledgling but ambitious space program.
China has yet to even put a man into orbit but official media claim, amid great official secrecy, that great strides are being made.
Its third successful unmanned test flight, the Shenzhou III, or "Divine Vessel III", traveled 108 times around the earth on a flight that ended April
The Shenzhou IV mission is still only being planned, but the state-run China Daily reported Monday that China had already carried out feasibility studies for traveling to the moon.
"Theoretically speaking, China is ready to explore the moon," Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's moon exploration program, said according to the paper.
"China is expected to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010 and will establish a base on the moon as we did in the South Pole and the North Pole," he said.
Chinese media said over the weekend that the nation's space scientists were planning a lunar base in order to exploit its mineral resources.
The Beijing Morning Post said China had adopted a three-step plan that would eventually make it possible to fly to the moon.
China first wants to put an astronaut in space, then establish a space laboratory, and eventually set up a space station, the paper said.
The paper quoted Wang Zhuangyin, a leading space-program engineer, as saying China would probably be able to achieve manned space flight by 2005.
The push to promote China's space program during National Science Week tallies with observers' claim that the plans are meant to trigger greater interest in technology among the public.
The tone at the exhibition also showed there is a great deal of self-interest involved in China's bid to become the third nation after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a human in space.
"The development and actual use of technologies for manned space flight have far-reaching significance for our nation in the political, military, economic and technological fields," a poster at the exhibition said.
The Chinese government said in November 2000 that the aims of its space program included meeting growing demands for national security and to "protect China's national interests and build up comprehensive national strength".
Are you back full-time?
Remember who prints money. They don't have the money, they'll buy another barrel of ink.
Please note -- we're not talking about moon landings, but a moon base. We were able to do the former, but were far from being able to do the latter, because it required far more oomph than we had on hand at the time.
The Chinese are nowhere close, either. That's why I'm calling this political posturing -- just reading the article makes that clear: "From a long-term perspective, it is a historical necessity for man to travel into space," a poster at the exhibition proclaimed.
Maybe the posters on FR are just tiny people inside your computer.
Provided you got a serious, no-BS management team -- which is what's missing from just about every space program I'm aware of. With the right management team, it would go pretty quickly. With the wrong management team, it would never go at all.
But you're right. We have the basic elements of heavy-lift capability with the Shuttle system, which can toss 250,000 lb into LEO. NASA explored the Shuttle-C concept many years back -- replace the Shuttle with an engine-holder and a big empty cargo cannister.
As I recall, there were no big technical hurdles; rather, they determined that there was no need for a booster that big. They were right, too.
Actually they offered me a job once, which I was fortunately able to turn down. Xerox is more hi-tech than NASA ever thought of being.
In all honesty, we should have had a base on the moon in the 70's, and a martian colony by now. However, since our short sighted politicians, and even shorter sighted NASA bureaucrats, we have niether. Not to mention, the Chinese will now own the moon, and the stars if we don't start making some headway here. If I thought I could do it, My Company would start making a vehicle for getting my own landers to the moon and mars.
Couldnt' agree with you more. Worked for NASA for 2-3 years, the effort it took to fly a new design was phenominal. Engineering and testing took 2 months ... the bureaucrats kept us in red tape for 2 additional years. My design flew, 2 years after I had left. And my design was nothing more than a paperclip that was bent to gently fold a sheet of paper as it exited the printer to prevent paperjams in the on-board printer.
Oh yea. The scene where they go through a time warp and everyone gets old instantly is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Bust a gut laugher.
Actually, they're too busy kissing the a**es of the Greens by researching anthropogenic global warming (which I could use right now by the way as it's been freezing here in D.C. these last couple of days).
BEIJING (AP) - Training in secret, a dozen fighter pilots are getting ready to make history as China's first astronauts.
Two attended Russia's cosmonaut school, but little else is known about them. China's communist government, pursuing a unique, costly propaganda prize and worried about embarrassing setbacks, hasn't announced their names or a launch date.
But with confidence growing after three test launches of empty spacecraft, foreign experts say China's astronauts could carry its gold-starred red flag into space as early as this year.
"The day that we achieve our dream of space flight is not far off," program director Su Shuangning said in a rare interview with the state newspaper Liberation Daily News.
A manned launch would make China only the third nation to send a human into space, after Russia and the United States.
It's a prize that Chinese leaders covet.
They have cast off leftist dogma in favor of economic reform, and now try to bind China together with such flag-waving appeals to nationalism - a strategy seen prominently in the effort that secured the 2008 Olympics for Beijing.
Success in space also could boost the Communist Party's public support after corruption scandals that have ruined its image.
China's propaganda goals echo the U.S.-Russian space race of the 1960s that made heroes of Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Yet Beijing so far is striving to keep its pilots anonymous.
State media say the first trainees are 12 pilots from the People's Liberation Army, picked from among 2,000 applicants.
Space officials won't release other information and rejected a request to visit their training center, said to be a converted medical laboratory in Beijing.
"I think they're saying as much as they think they can," said Phillip Clark, a British expert on China's space effort.
Russia's cosmonaut training center outside Moscow says two Chinese astronauts studied there in 2000. Clark said a friend of his met the pair, and they gave their names as Li Qinlong and Wu Zi.
In the only disclosure about their training in China, the newspaper Labor News said in April that the astronauts were preparing for possible emergencies during liftoff by practicing escapes from a space capsule at a launch site in the Gobi Desert.
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Yes, let's. What you've done is define just some of the elements required to get people into space. That's not the same as getting to the moon, but we may assume that they could try, and perhaps succeed. It's not all that hard, but then again, it ain't all that easy, either.
But please note that they're not just "going to the moon," they're talking about a moon BASE, and exploitation of resources, which implies a very much higher level of space logistics than merely traveling there. You might try roughing out the requirements for a lunar base sometime -- it's complicated, really expensive, and a MAJOR commitment. They aren't close to having it -- and neither were we, even at the height of Apollo.
And once again, it's important to understand that this is a geopolitical "me-too" statement. Not much of a basis for maintaining the program through the inevitable hard times such a program will endure -- not to mention that those times probably mean political (and possibly literal) death for those in the Chinese gov't who are perceived to be "patrons" of the program when it happens.
I would predict that most Chinese bureaucrats will buy in just enough to take credit if it works, but will stay far enough away to avoid blame if it doesn't. Not too hopeful.
As for the rest, it's just NASA bashing, and not worthy of comment.
Can we turn off the GPS or something like that when the time comes?
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