Posted on 12/29/2002 1:56:43 PM PST by NP-INCOMPLETE
China launches fourth unmanned spacecraft |
The official Xinhua news agency said the spacecraft was sent into a preset orbit by a "Long MarchII F" carrier rocket, which blasted off at 00:40 am (1640 GMT Sunday).
Space scientists at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center said the "Shenzhou IV" successfully entered its preset orbit.
Su Shuangning, commander and leading designer of the astronaut system for China's manned space program, said Chinese astronauts, all of whom were airforce fighter pilots, had entered the spacecraft to receive training for the first time.
The launch of the "Shenzhou IV," or "Divine Vessel IV" is considered the latest dress rehearsal for China's eventual launch of a manned spacecraft.
Gu Yidong, commander and chief designer of the space application system, said a number of scientific experiments would be conducted while the spacecraft remained in space, including some involving the astronaut flight system, control of the spacecraft environment and life support sub-system.
While it remains decades behind the United States and Russia in space technology, the Chinese Communist Party appears to view putting an astronaut amongst the stars as an important prestige project. The launch came during a visit to China by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
In May, official Chinese media said a longer-term aim of China's fiercely ambitious space program was to establish a base on the moon in order to exploit its mineral resources.
Compared with the previous three unmanned space capsules launched between 1999 and March this year, Shenzhou IV "represents China's most sophisticated and fullest preparations to finalizing its goal of manned space flights," official media quoted Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. president Zhang Qingwei as saying last month.
NOT
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And for those companies it’s nice to know you have a President who is bought and paid for, to let you off the hook for breaking the laws dealing with technology transfers to restricted countries.
Another reason not to miss the Nineties.
Does this mean that they are any less totalitarian or any less brutal or any less corupt.
And from what I have heard lately the Chinese the students in college now have anti-American sentiments and are on the large confirmed communist.
You actually have a good point there, and one that most people are missing.
The Chinese paradigm is one that flies against all orthodox theory! For one it is not purely communist! The Chinese have managed to meld communist ideology with Capitalist pragmatism .....which is why the Chinese economy is growing at a frenetic pace. Yet for some reason many people think the Chinese economy is a purely centrally-controlled/communist system when it is not! China is basically the only nation that has managed to delve into the tricky area of merging communism and capitalism, and made it work to a great extent.
And as for the current generation in China i believe the bode the greatest threat to the US. And i do not mean militarily!
This year alone there were more Chinese graduates in the hard sciences and math than all the graduates from US universities (by all i mean ranging from Art to Zoology). People think that China is a threat only because low-level jobs flee there, but in the next couple of years you will see high-level/tech jobs heading East .....and this is due to some major cost advantages that even surpass those in India (think of a Chinese graduate who is extremely well versed in tech, yet works for a pitance and does not complain).
That is the major impetus behind American companies heading to china is droves (i saw a documentary that showed just how far this has progressed, and to be honest with you it was crazy).
And then there are people like Jack Welch who was saying that China stands to be a serious competitor to the US (his exact words were that 'the Chinese will make what the Japanese were in the 70s and early 80s seem like a Water Pistol'). And then there are the projections of China becoming a superpower around 2030.
In essence certain protocols need to be applied right now in the US or else the Chinese might become an amazingly potent threat (economically expecially). The current business doctrine in the US is one that has become risk averse, where all decisions are meant to decrease any and all risk! That is not the usual US doctrine (it used to be decisions that although gutsy are well thought out ....nowadays it is more like reduce all risk).
The Chinese (like the Japanese in the 70s) are extremely adept at copying and cloning tech ....meaning they can ape almost anything! However unlike the Japanese the Chinese are not interested in becoming 'American' ....meaning they are willing to take the best of American-style capitalism yet keep some vestiges of old-style communist centralization! That may be bad for the average Chinese, but it serves as a major boost to the Chinese economy (imagine Harvard MBA graduates worth 300,000 being paid 10,000 a year; and a prime engineer who is worth his weight in gold being paid next to nothing ....and yet both those guys work diligently. There is a huge cost advantage there).
What it reminds me of is those aliens in Star Trek ....the Borgs ....who work systematically and efficiently, yet demand nothing.
And while all this is going on people are focussing on what Clinton did! Clinton was a fool for giving China that tech (eg the nuke miniturization and advanced targeting), and consequently some of the stuff he did was tantamount to treason (actually in my book it is treason)! However just focussing on that is not going to be of any help!
Focus on US schools! Schools that have atrophied into a mess reminiscent of a cesspool! And i know, i am in college and the only viable competition i have is from foreign students! The real threat is not Chinese stealing stealth fighter tech (they did) .....btu the real threat is that what makes America great (people who are full of zeal and patriotism, and who love freedom, and who believe in hard work) is being eroded! Look at the public high schools! Go to the colleges where the kids are mis-educated, apathetic, and cannot even speak straight let alone think for themselves (i had to organize a music band in my college to get the kids to vote Republican during the mid-term elections because they were so nonchalant about politics only a rock-group would make them come ...and what was really ironic is i myself am not even American)!
This is troublesome, and something needs to be done because there will be a time when todays brainwashed apathetic kids become tomorrows adults! And that will be about the same time China is supposedly supposed to become a super-power ...and i do not think that is an optimal mix (at least for the free world).
The Chinese think in the long-term, and they have lingering visions of the great 'middle empire.' They believe there destiny is global hegemony ....and unless some changes are done their dream may become a reality.
The Chinese and the Vietnamese are both looking for prosperity of economic freedom without the insecurity of political freedom. Sure, you can get rich, but that doesn't mean the secret police won't disappear you in the middle of the night when a party apparatchik gets a little too envious of your prosperity.
Ultimately, that model is unstable. The corrupt and power-mad will always butcher the golden goose. Heck, look at what politicians here are willing to do to hold on to power.
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