9 ms·

China launches second trial space station

167 points by RyanMcGreal 10y ago

quirkafleeg 10y ago
Obligatory nitpick: > Yang Liwei became the first Chinese person to go to space Should probably be the first Chinese national to go into space. The first ethnically Chinese person in space was Chinese-born Taylor Wang. Interestingly, in a pub-quiz question kind of way, the first Chinese-born woman in space was... Shannon Lucid.
- bilbo0s 10y ago
  Well... as long as we're nitpicking historical details... Lucid is CHINA-born... not Chinese-born. She's not ethnically Chinese.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    > Lucid is CHINA-born... not Chinese-born. What is it you think "Chinese-born" means? > She's not ethnically Chinese. Yes, that's why I said Chinese-born and not Chinese.
crystalmeph 10y ago
The Chinese talk about maybe sending a man to the moon, and they've launched a couple of these space stations, but they've only done 5 crewed launches since 2003, and the last one was 3 years ago in 2013. It seems like China is doing the bare minimum to show that they have the capability, but doesn't actually have any real ambitions in this area.
- nkoren 10y ago
  I'm actually kind of impressed by how sensible they've been. On the one hand, China would have the resources to make a far more ambitious showing in space, if they really wanted to. They could easily outpace the early space-age Soviet launch rate etc; this would make a vivid statement about their prowess as a nation, but it wouldn't really do much more than that (until they get to the point of, I don't know, mining asteroids or something). On the other hand, they could equally take the view that human spaceflight is totally frivolous and they should keep their investments firmly rooted on Earth. This would be hugely short-sighted -- abdicating the rest of the universe to whomever has more vision than them. In fact, China did this already, when they reined in Zheng He, burned the Treasure Fleet, and focused all investment inward. The result was centuries of humiliation, which China is not particularly keen to repeat. So the path that they're taking seems to be keeping one foot prudently planted in space, without going nuts. When it's strategically important to make a major push in space, they'll have the technology and the experience to do that. Until then, they've mostly got other fish to fry. It seems to be a pretty reasonable approach.
- mikeash 10y ago
  No real ambitions, or just slow and steady? The US went from its first suborbital spaceflight to landing two people on the moon in just over eight years. But that furious pace didn't really work out very well in the long term. Maybe they mean it but are just taking their sweet time.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  If you actually wanted to get anything done in space, it would be far more efficient to send a robot. The only reason to send a person is to prove you can.
  - alexhawdon 10y ago
    I remember some study being conducted where they tasked a duplicate of some Mars rover with finding life... on Earth. It found none. Whilst it might be valid that you could launch a more-effective-in-aggregate fleet of rovers for the cost of a manned mission, I'm still a huge proponent of getting people out there to have a look around.
  - elsonrodriguez 10y ago
    Doing it because you can is a fine reason. In addition to that however, sending a human crew to Mars will result in more digging, surveying, water prospecting and life hunting being done within the first month of exploration than all of the rover missions combined. The added benefit of having humans in space, especially if their reason for being in there is because that particular bit of space is in the way of earth and a planet, is securing the legacy of the human race by putting our eggs in more than one basket. To that end, I'll flip your assertion back on you: The only reason to send a robot to space is to prove that you can, especially if we don't follow it up with human missions.
    - creshal 10y ago
      > In addition to that however, sending a human crew to Mars will result in more digging, surveying, water prospecting and life hunting being done within the first month of exploration than all of the rover missions combined. Remember, this isn't just wishful thinking. We can do a side-by-side comparison: The Russian Lunokhod Moon rovers were engineering marvels, vastly outperforming most of NASA's Mars rovers… and they're barely worth a footnote in our exploration history of the Moon, because Apollo astronauts collected more data during lunch breaks than the Lunokhods in a good week.
      - magila 10y ago
- creshal 10y ago
  Why would they send people in space without a proper space station? China is banned from using the ISS, no nation has a spacehab-alike capability for long-term orbital missions without a space station right now, and China's first station could not be resupplied, heavily restricting its life span (similar to Spacelab and early Salyut stations). Doing scientific missions in a cramped capsule is just pointless (and has been for decades now).
- grecy 10y ago
  > but they've only done 5 crewed launches since 2003, and the last one was 3 years ago in 2013 And the US hasn't done a manned flight since 2011, so China a doing great comparatively!
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Exactly. It's a national prestige thing, as most manned space programs tend to be. But for China's case they are going very slowly. In ... something like 17 years of operations they've only flown 5 total manned missions. They're not trying to conquer the galaxy, they're just slowly maintaining and building on their program.
Tepix 10y ago
Interesting quote from the BBC article: > If all this makes you worried about China's long-term cosmic ambitions, then you are not the only one. I think it's dumb that China is not allowed to participate in the ISS.
- mc42 10y ago
  On one hand, I think that it's a matter of policy due to NASA's downright prohibition on working with China [1] "China has been barred from the ISS since 2011, when Congress passed a law prohibiting official American contact with the Chinese space program due to concerns about national security. “National security,” of course, is the lingua franca excuse for any country to do anything it jolly well wants to do even if it has nothing to do with, you know, the security of the nation. But never mind." - [1] On the other hand, I agree with you. To paraphrase Andy Weir, scientists can always work together. Things get messy when politics are involved. [1] - http://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/ http://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/
  - fla 10y ago
    I find it funny that the United States Congress decides who takes part in the _international_ space station program.
    - arcticfox 10y ago
      Maybe if the other members of the international community invested as much into it, they'd get an equal say. The split is something like NASA 80%, Russia 10%, rest of world, 10%. (Although it depends how you adjust for inflation)
      - kuschku 10y ago
        If you look at it based on what the contributed things are actually worth, it’s more like 50 25 25. The US just happens to be very inefficient in space investments, because lots of politicians try to use it to get jobs into their states
lucb1e 10y ago
> If all this makes you worried about China's long-term cosmic ambitions Uh, as a non-American, not more than America's. Why should it?
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> In August, the country launched the world's first quantum satellite, aimed at achieving "hack-proof" communications between space and ground control. This is possible now?
- colordrops 10y ago
  Sounds like using quantum computers for decrypting data is a real thing if there is such an investment to prevent it.
- yoha 10y ago
  In short: because measuring effects the information, tampering cannot be concealed.
fweespeech 10y ago
> If the US withdrew from Europe and NATO, Russia would aggressively bully most of eastern Europe. Do you remember a few years ago how Russia invaded Georgia? Or how they are currently in the process of invading Ukraine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... Germany, UK, France, and Italy as a subset of NATO spend more than double Russia's expenditures and have a relatively narrow focus on Europe/North Africa/Med security in general. If you think Russia could actually win a war against the European members of NATO, you've completely lost sight of realistic military capabilities. I'm sorry. The reality is the Aegis of the US has more to do with Japan, India, Israel, Australia, etc. than it does NATO countries. China is a very real threat militarily to our Pacific allies. The fact you somehow think NATO stops Russia from bullying non-NATO countries is hilarious, largely because of the fact the US's power wasn't enough to stop Russia from bullying those countries because the US doesn't respond militarily to Russia and never will short of Russia invading a NATO country. Look, the reality is, military muscle only helps to the point you are on the same level as everyone else. Past that point, there isn't alot of intimidation factor due to the nuclear power of countries like Russia. They know exactly where the line is on their use and they won't cross that line. Short of that, they are going to do WTF they want. > It isn't an accident that the Poland is one of the most eager participants in NATO and is the only other NATO country other than the US that is meeting their 2% GDP membership requirements. http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160704_160704-pr2016-116.pdf http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_0... There is also Greece, the UK, and Estonia. There is no legitimate need for the US to be substantially over the guideline of 2% of GDP and it would allow the US to invest in things at home. Why are you trying to paint me as arrogant & ignorant when you repeat bad propaganda that is publicly verifiable as false based on NATO's own publications?
- CountSessine 10y ago
  Germany, UK, France, and Italy as a subset of NATO spend more than double Russia's expenditures and have a relatively narrow focus on Europe/North Africa/Med security in general. That's a difficult comparison to make because of the difference in purchasing power parity between Russia and the EU nations. And Russia doesn't have to attack the core of Europe; brinksmanship, sabre rattling, and superior initiative have gotten Putin most of what he wants up until now. The fact you somehow think NATO stops Russia from bullying non-NATO countries is hilarious O_o , largely because of the fact the US's power wasn't enough to stop Russia from bullying those countries because the US doesn't respond militarily to Russia and never will short of Russia invading a NATO country. There are a lot of people who live in those countries, especially Georgia, who were hoping otherwise. Georgia in particular had and has a close relationship with their treaty ally, the US; their post-soviet military was largely trained by and worked closely with the US military, both in eastern Europe and abroad. Their invasion was a humiliating black-eye for American diplomacy, signalled the beginning of a belligerent new foreign policy in Moscow, and set the stage for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If you were to argue that the United States shouldn't have put it's reputation on the line in eastern Europe the way they did, I would agree with you. What these countries really needed was their own military alliance to counter Russia. In the 90's that was a non-starter though; Poland and the Baltic states were sufficiently economically sophisticated and had established enough trade with Germany to achieve EU membership - membership in an overlapping eastern european alt-NATO wouldn't have worked for them. Belarus was firmly aligned with Russia. Ukraine was largely non-aligned. And it wasn't at all clear that Russia would ever want to exercise military control over their 'sphere of influence'. Look, O_o the reality is, military muscle only helps to the point you are on the same level as everyone else. Past that point, there isn't alot of intimidation factor due to the nuclear power of countries like Russia. They know exactly where the line is on their use and they won't cross that line. Short of that, they are going to do WTF they want. I disagree. I believe the invasion of Georgia was Putin's Sudetenland-moment. We can only be thankful that the Russian economy and productivity won't support his ambitions. But if this is really what you think, would you agree that NATO should expand eastward as soon as possible? Or should the weak suffer what they must? There is also Greece, the UK, and Estonia. Estonia is in the same situation as Poland and proves my point. They probably wouldn't have their independence anymore if they hadn't secured EU/NATO membership. The UK is ideologically aligned with the US. Greece is only on that list because their economy shrunk faster than their military spending did. Why are you trying to paint me as arrogant & ignorant when you repeat bad propaganda that is publicly verifiable as false based on NATO's own publications? Nothing you've presented amounts to counter-verification. Condemning other's arguments as 'propaganda' is intellectually lazy. And my post didn't 'paint' you as 'arrogant & ignorant', but I will say that you seem to have a persecution complex.
Shivetya 10y ago
I figure it this way, the more they invest in space and science to allow for probes to other planets the less they will spend on their military. Now if we could our country (US resident here) to follow suit

167 points by RyanMcGreal 10y ago

Obligatory nitpick: > Yang Liwei became the first Chinese person to go to space Should probably be the first Chinese national to go into space. The first ethnically Chinese person in space was Chinese-born Taylor Wang. Interestingly, in a pub-quiz question kind of way, the first Chinese-born woman in space was... Shannon Lucid.

bilbo0s 10y ago
Well... as long as we're nitpicking historical details... Lucid is CHINA-born... not Chinese-born. She's not ethnically Chinese.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  > Lucid is CHINA-born... not Chinese-born. What is it you think "Chinese-born" means? > She's not ethnically Chinese. Yes, that's why I said Chinese-born and not Chinese.

crystalmeph 10y ago

The Chinese talk about maybe sending a man to the moon, and they've launched a couple of these space stations, but they've only done 5 crewed launches since 2003, and the last one was 3 years ago in 2013. It seems like China is doing the bare minimum to show that they have the capability, but doesn't actually have any real ambitions in this area.

nkoren 10y ago
I'm actually kind of impressed by how sensible they've been. On the one hand, China would have the resources to make a far more ambitious showing in space, if they really wanted to. They could easily outpace the early space-age Soviet launch rate etc; this would make a vivid statement about their prowess as a nation, but it wouldn't really do much more than that (until they get to the point of, I don't know, mining asteroids or something). On the other hand, they could equally take the view that human spaceflight is totally frivolous and they should keep their investments firmly rooted on Earth. This would be hugely short-sighted -- abdicating the rest of the universe to whomever has more vision than them. In fact, China did this already, when they reined in Zheng He, burned the Treasure Fleet, and focused all investment inward. The result was centuries of humiliation, which China is not particularly keen to repeat. So the path that they're taking seems to be keeping one foot prudently planted in space, without going nuts. When it's strategically important to make a major push in space, they'll have the technology and the experience to do that. Until then, they've mostly got other fish to fry. It seems to be a pretty reasonable approach.
mikeash 10y ago
No real ambitions, or just slow and steady? The US went from its first suborbital spaceflight to landing two people on the moon in just over eight years. But that furious pace didn't really work out very well in the long term. Maybe they mean it but are just taking their sweet time.
794CD01 10y ago
If you actually wanted to get anything done in space, it would be far more efficient to send a robot. The only reason to send a person is to prove you can.
- alexhawdon 10y ago
  I remember some study being conducted where they tasked a duplicate of some Mars rover with finding life... on Earth. It found none. Whilst it might be valid that you could launch a more-effective-in-aggregate fleet of rovers for the cost of a manned mission, I'm still a huge proponent of getting people out there to have a look around.
- elsonrodriguez 10y ago
  Doing it because you can is a fine reason. In addition to that however, sending a human crew to Mars will result in more digging, surveying, water prospecting and life hunting being done within the first month of exploration than all of the rover missions combined. The added benefit of having humans in space, especially if their reason for being in there is because that particular bit of space is in the way of earth and a planet, is securing the legacy of the human race by putting our eggs in more than one basket. To that end, I'll flip your assertion back on you: The only reason to send a robot to space is to prove that you can, especially if we don't follow it up with human missions.
  - creshal 10y ago
    > In addition to that however, sending a human crew to Mars will result in more digging, surveying, water prospecting and life hunting being done within the first month of exploration than all of the rover missions combined. Remember, this isn't just wishful thinking. We can do a side-by-side comparison: The Russian Lunokhod Moon rovers were engineering marvels, vastly outperforming most of NASA's Mars rovers… and they're barely worth a footnote in our exploration history of the Moon, because Apollo astronauts collected more data during lunch breaks than the Lunokhods in a good week.
    - magila 10y ago
creshal 10y ago
Why would they send people in space without a proper space station? China is banned from using the ISS, no nation has a spacehab-alike capability for long-term orbital missions without a space station right now, and China's first station could not be resupplied, heavily restricting its life span (similar to Spacelab and early Salyut stations). Doing scientific missions in a cramped capsule is just pointless (and has been for decades now).
grecy 10y ago
> but they've only done 5 crewed launches since 2003, and the last one was 3 years ago in 2013 And the US hasn't done a manned flight since 2011, so China a doing great comparatively!
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Exactly. It's a national prestige thing, as most manned space programs tend to be. But for China's case they are going very slowly. In ... something like 17 years of operations they've only flown 5 total manned missions. They're not trying to conquer the galaxy, they're just slowly maintaining and building on their program.

Tepix 10y ago

Interesting quote from the BBC article: > If all this makes you worried about China's long-term cosmic ambitions, then you are not the only one. I think it's dumb that China is not allowed to participate in the ISS.

mc42 10y ago
On one hand, I think that it's a matter of policy due to NASA's downright prohibition on working with China [1] "China has been barred from the ISS since 2011, when Congress passed a law prohibiting official American contact with the Chinese space program due to concerns about national security. “National security,” of course, is the lingua franca excuse for any country to do anything it jolly well wants to do even if it has nothing to do with, you know, the security of the nation. But never mind." - [1] On the other hand, I agree with you. To paraphrase Andy Weir, scientists can always work together. Things get messy when politics are involved. [1] - http://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/ http://time.com/3901419/space-station-no-chinese/
- fla 10y ago
  I find it funny that the United States Congress decides who takes part in the _international_ space station program.
  - arcticfox 10y ago
    Maybe if the other members of the international community invested as much into it, they'd get an equal say. The split is something like NASA 80%, Russia 10%, rest of world, 10%. (Although it depends how you adjust for inflation)
    - kuschku 10y ago
      If you look at it based on what the contributed things are actually worth, it’s more like 50 25 25. The US just happens to be very inefficient in space investments, because lots of politicians try to use it to get jobs into their states

lucb1e 10y ago

> If all this makes you worried about China's long-term cosmic ambitions Uh, as a non-American, not more than America's. Why should it?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> In August, the country launched the world's first quantum satellite, aimed at achieving "hack-proof" communications between space and ground control. This is possible now?

colordrops 10y ago
Sounds like using quantum computers for decrypting data is a real thing if there is such an investment to prevent it.
yoha 10y ago
In short: because measuring effects the information, tampering cannot be concealed.

fweespeech 10y ago

> If the US withdrew from Europe and NATO, Russia would aggressively bully most of eastern Europe. Do you remember a few years ago how Russia invaded Georgia? Or how they are currently in the process of invading Ukraine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... Germany, UK, France, and Italy as a subset of NATO spend more than double Russia's expenditures and have a relatively narrow focus on Europe/North Africa/Med security in general. If you think Russia could actually win a war against the European members of NATO, you've completely lost sight of realistic military capabilities. I'm sorry. The reality is the Aegis of the US has more to do with Japan, India, Israel, Australia, etc. than it does NATO countries. China is a very real threat militarily to our Pacific allies. The fact you somehow think NATO stops Russia from bullying non-NATO countries is hilarious, largely because of the fact the US's power wasn't enough to stop Russia from bullying those countries because the US doesn't respond militarily to Russia and never will short of Russia invading a NATO country. Look, the reality is, military muscle only helps to the point you are on the same level as everyone else. Past that point, there isn't alot of intimidation factor due to the nuclear power of countries like Russia. They know exactly where the line is on their use and they won't cross that line. Short of that, they are going to do WTF they want. > It isn't an accident that the Poland is one of the most eager participants in NATO and is the only other NATO country other than the US that is meeting their 2% GDP membership requirements. http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160704_160704-pr2016-116.pdf http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_0... There is also Greece, the UK, and Estonia. There is no legitimate need for the US to be substantially over the guideline of 2% of GDP and it would allow the US to invest in things at home. Why are you trying to paint me as arrogant & ignorant when you repeat bad propaganda that is publicly verifiable as false based on NATO's own publications?

CountSessine 10y ago
Germany, UK, France, and Italy as a subset of NATO spend more than double Russia's expenditures and have a relatively narrow focus on Europe/North Africa/Med security in general. That's a difficult comparison to make because of the difference in purchasing power parity between Russia and the EU nations. And Russia doesn't have to attack the core of Europe; brinksmanship, sabre rattling, and superior initiative have gotten Putin most of what he wants up until now. The fact you somehow think NATO stops Russia from bullying non-NATO countries is hilarious O_o , largely because of the fact the US's power wasn't enough to stop Russia from bullying those countries because the US doesn't respond militarily to Russia and never will short of Russia invading a NATO country. There are a lot of people who live in those countries, especially Georgia, who were hoping otherwise. Georgia in particular had and has a close relationship with their treaty ally, the US; their post-soviet military was largely trained by and worked closely with the US military, both in eastern Europe and abroad. Their invasion was a humiliating black-eye for American diplomacy, signalled the beginning of a belligerent new foreign policy in Moscow, and set the stage for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If you were to argue that the United States shouldn't have put it's reputation on the line in eastern Europe the way they did, I would agree with you. What these countries really needed was their own military alliance to counter Russia. In the 90's that was a non-starter though; Poland and the Baltic states were sufficiently economically sophisticated and had established enough trade with Germany to achieve EU membership - membership in an overlapping eastern european alt-NATO wouldn't have worked for them. Belarus was firmly aligned with Russia. Ukraine was largely non-aligned. And it wasn't at all clear that Russia would ever want to exercise military control over their 'sphere of influence'. Look, O_o the reality is, military muscle only helps to the point you are on the same level as everyone else. Past that point, there isn't alot of intimidation factor due to the nuclear power of countries like Russia. They know exactly where the line is on their use and they won't cross that line. Short of that, they are going to do WTF they want. I disagree. I believe the invasion of Georgia was Putin's Sudetenland-moment. We can only be thankful that the Russian economy and productivity won't support his ambitions. But if this is really what you think, would you agree that NATO should expand eastward as soon as possible? Or should the weak suffer what they must? There is also Greece, the UK, and Estonia. Estonia is in the same situation as Poland and proves my point. They probably wouldn't have their independence anymore if they hadn't secured EU/NATO membership. The UK is ideologically aligned with the US. Greece is only on that list because their economy shrunk faster than their military spending did. Why are you trying to paint me as arrogant & ignorant when you repeat bad propaganda that is publicly verifiable as false based on NATO's own publications? Nothing you've presented amounts to counter-verification. Condemning other's arguments as 'propaganda' is intellectually lazy. And my post didn't 'paint' you as 'arrogant & ignorant', but I will say that you seem to have a persecution complex.

Shivetya 10y ago

I figure it this way, the more they invest in space and science to allow for probes to other planets the less they will spend on their military. Now if we could our country (US resident here) to follow suit