Posted on 06/30/2013 6:29:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The successful landing of China's latest manned space mission this week cast a spotlight on the country's growing human spaceflight skills as it hones the capabilities needed to build a huge, permanently crewed space station.
During the 15-day Shenzhou 10 spaceflight, three Chinese astronauts accomplished both automatic and manual dockings to China's Tiangong 1 space laboratory, where they lived and worked during the mission. The crew also achieved a two-hour-long fly-around of the module, a first in space for China seen an effort to sharpen rendezvous expertise useful for future space station construction.
Aboard the Tiangong 1, the Shenzhou 10 crew tested space medicine and conducted various technology experiments. The astronauts held China's first public space lesson, a televised view of life inside Tiangong 1, and also replaced the lab module's soft flooring with hard flooring, which was deemed necessary for the crew to better maintain their microgravity footing. [See photos from China's Shenzhou 10 space mission]
The Shenzhou 10 crew made a parachute landing early Wednesday morning (June 26) local time, setting down within a target zone in the central Inner Mongolia, with the three astronauts — commander Nie Haisheng, Wang Yaping (the second Chinese woman to fly in space) and Zhang Xiaoguang — leaving the landed module safe and sound.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Remember the novels 2001 and 2010 (or the movies)?
A lot of people thought we would be there by now. Our trajectory was such that it really looked like we were going to start exploring the solar system with manned expeditions.
We’re reduced to using the Russians as a celestial Yellow Cab now.
The Masters plans are more important than NASA’s actual mission!
When will they have their first space wok (EVA)?
Well, what is i that they’re all holding in the photo then? It’s pink and fluffy, lol.
Well, what is i that they’re all holding in the photo then? It’s pink and fluffy, lol.
Pink cellophane wrapped around the flower bouquets?
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