Posted on 08/13/2014 9:59:33 AM PDT by raptor22
Leadership: As our space program, once an example of American exceptionalism, now sits mainly in museums, Beijing's ambitious program takes another leap forward toward an eventual return of man to the moon.
As the world unravels, efforts to leave it don't seem very newsworthy, and efforts by our strategic rivals to do what we did decades before seem redundant and almost irrelevant to more immediate concerns. Yet China's space program does matter, as it's part of that country's dream of world leadership and, yes, domination.
It represents a commitment to world leadership that we have lost under this administration.
Beijing sees its multibillion-dollar space program as a symbol of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise as it builds a military with global reach and flexes its strategic muscle.
Its moon orbiter has been transported to the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the southern province of Sichuan for launch later this year, according to a statement Sunday by China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Is there anyone here who honestly thinks that NASA can build their next generation space capsule and next generation heavy lift rocket in anything close to the schedule and budget they've been talking about? I sure don't. We have a vibrant and potentially thriving private sector space program that we can take advantage of, if we'd only let it. They can get us back to the ISS or the moon or anywhere else in a fraction of the time or cost that NASA would require. But instead of giving them their lead we have Shellby, Brooks, and Coffman doing everything in their power to derail the company. And why? Pork. NASA builds their crap in Alabama so these three want to make sure that we overpay for the rockets and wait on deadlines. So they do their best to block private business.
So watch China go back to the moon and when they do, remind yourself that it's Congress preventing us from doing the same and not lack of ability or know-how.
China is doing it right. Reaching out rather than playing in low earth orbit.
I wonder if when China has established a moon colony if we can buy a ticket to escape the ever socialist Earth...
It is well documented that Clinton and the Democrats took illegal campaign money from groups and individuals tied directly to the Chinese People’s Republican Army. It is therefore not surprising that in January 1998 Clinton went against the advice of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Pentagon experts by lifting long-standing restrictions against the export of American satellites to China for launch on Chinese rockets.
Not only did he move control over such decisions from the more security-focused State Department to the Commerce Department, but he intervened in a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications, retroactively enabling Loral to sell critical missile technology to the Chinese. Interestingly enough, Clinton’s decision was made at the request of Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, whose earlier $1.3 million campaign donation made him the single biggest contributor to the Democratic election effort.
The result, as stated eloquently by syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, was that “the Democrats got money from satellite companies and from Chinese communists; China got supercomputors, advanced production equipment and missile technology; Loral got its satellites launched at bargain basement prices . . . and the transfer of sensitive missile technology gave China [for the first time] the capability of depositing bombs on American cities.”
Incidentally, Loral ultimately failed to benefit from this permanent injury to America’s security interests: in July 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, and in order to raise cash was forced to sell its most profitable business – a fleet of communications satellites orbiting over North America.
Can China send Obama to the Moon while US Citizens watches?
“It’s amazing what one can do with technology stolen from other nations.”
Yeah, they actually use it to do what those nations are too inept to attempt.
IIRC, the NASA guys in Huntsville have been examining one of the surviving Saturn V first-stage F-1 engines, determining how best to adapt the design to modern production processes and materials.
It's true that many of the companies that produced small, less "important" components used on the rocket are gone, leaving no records, but there's no need to reverse-engineer every last museum piece. There are indeed many documents from the Apollo program which survived.
The National Archives facility near Atlanta has around 3,000 cubic feet of Saturn V documents. The Rocketdyne division of Pratt & Whitney has archives, too - dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program (begun in the late '60s, well before the last flight of the Saturn V). The express purpose of that program was to record every facet of F-1 and J-2 engine design and production to assist in any future production restart.
Re: “I would argue our space program is more robust than ever.”
I agree.
In the last 20 years, we have learned more about the universe, about our solar system, and about human survival in space than in any other 20 year period in human history.
And most of those discoveries were sponsored by USA taxpayers.
IBD EDITORIAL PING
....howeva, it was sorta funny.
Actually, a couple of heavy-lift vehicles are on the drawing boards and their components are being tested in other applications (as other vehicles). Some have been designed with lifting capacities approaching that of the Saturn V. Space X is only one of the contenders. Net search will show them to you.
Articles here:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/01/battle-of-the-heavy-lift-launchers-monster-200mt-vehicle-noted/
and here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdd0di_ariane-the-heavy-lift-launchers-mad_news
.....keeping in mind that Germany was the home of Werner von Braun and the other V-2 rocketeers.
Wait for me in the Principal’s office!
” ...
The express purpose of that program was to record every facet of F-1 and J-2 engine design and production to assist in any future production restart.”
Thanks for the information. Maybe we can forward that documentation to the Chinese, because I just don’t think there will be a future production restart for NASA.
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.