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China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com
by Rattle at 6:06 pm EST, Feb 3, 2003 |
] China has vowed to push ahead with plans to launch its
] own first manned space mission this year despite the
] Columbia tragedy, state press reported on Monday .
]
] "China will launch its first manned space shuttle this
] year," said Tu Shou'e, an astronautics academic at the
] Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the People's
] Daily.
]
] "The key work now is to learn lessons from the accident
] to make our programme better and to make the dream of the
] Chinese people of reaching into space come true." Go China! The more countries and corps putting their efforts into the exploration and colonization of space, the better. Now more then any other time, we should be keenly aware of how easy it is for major setbacks to occur in humanity's endevour to push this frontier. I hope all the players in the space game truly do believe that this is a "humanity" thing, and not a "country" thing. If we do not enbrace that belief, we will be doing ourselves a great disservice. |
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RE: China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com
by Decius at 6:52 pm EST, Feb 3, 2003 |
Rattle wrote:
] I hope all the players in the space game truly do believe that
] this is a "humanity" thing, and not a "country" thing. If we
] do not enbrace that belief, we will be doing ourselves a great
] disservice. Hrm... Space flight affords delivery of ICBMs. Manned space flight affords advanced surveillance capability. |
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RE: China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com
by Rattle at 10:35 pm EST, Feb 3, 2003 |
Decius wrote:
] Hrm... Space flight affords delivery of ICBMs. Manned space
] flight affords advanced surveillance capability. China already has ICBMs and all of our space based surveillance capability comes from unmaned satellites. We are past the point where those are the goals to be attained by space travel technology. They have already been attained. |
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RE: China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com
by Decius at 11:29 pm EST, Feb 3, 2003 |
Rattle wrote:
] China already has ICBMs and all of our space based
] surveillance capability comes from unmaned satellites. We are
] past the point where those are the goals to be attained by
] space travel technology. They have already been attained. I don't think its that simple. Imagine having to run a large website without ANY physical access to the equipment. You can't even get remote hands support. Its in a locked box. You can't upgrade it, you can't change it, and if the hardware fails, its gone. I know you know what its like. You know the difference between doing a hairy config change on a network device locally versus from remote. You have to put three times more thought and care into it from remote. You typo a single character and you're either getting on the phone or you're getting in the car. In space there is no phone, and there is no car... Well, unless there is... Manned space flight makes a lot of things a lot easier. Many of them are scientific. Many of them aren't. Eitherway, I think its unwise to view the "space race" between the Soviets and the West in purely altruistic terms, and you can rest assured that the Chineese will have manned military missions. Hell, Columbia had a top secret DOD payload. Consider that they freely told the press that they had an Isreali Colonel taking photographs of "dust storms" in Iraq. Thats the stuff thats NOT secret. Think about what is. |
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RE: China firm on its first manned space flight : HindustanTimes.com
by Rattle at 3:04 am EST, Feb 4, 2003 |
Decius wrote:
] I don't think its that simple. Imagine having to run a large
] website without ANY physical access to the equipment. You
] can't even get remote hands support. Its in a locked box. You
] can't upgrade it, you can't change it, and if the hardware
] fails, its gone.
]
] I know you know what its like. You know the difference between
] doing a hairy config change on a network device locally versus
] from remote. You have to put three times more thought and care
] into it from remote. You typo a single character and you're
] either getting on the phone or you're getting in the car.
]
] In space there is no phone, and there is no car... Well,
] unless there is...
]
] Manned space flight makes a lot of things a lot easier. Many
] of them are scientific. Many of them aren't. Eitherway, I
] think its unwise to view the "space race" between the Soviets
] and the West in purely altruistic terms, and you can rest
] assured that the Chineese will have manned military missions.
] Hell, Columbia had a top secret DOD payload. Consider that
] they freely told the press that they had an Isreali Colonel
] taking photographs of "dust storms" in Iraq. Thats the stuff
] thats NOT secret. Think about what is. Didn't know about the dust storms thing. Ok, they do military shit all the time. Yes, the space shuttle brings up DOD satellites all the time. Hrm. I'd like to think that in general, most usage of our space tech is used for more positive/peaceful means.. Maybe I'm just being naive. I think its a pretty important thing that we are doing what we can to get our shit together in regard to space habitation and travel. I do feel that a damn strong effort, by everyone involved in the space game, should be made to make whats up there thats important, the place(s) where research, science, etc -- all the stuff we care about -- is an open "all invited to be involved" kinda thing. The ISS seems like a good start. I'd like to see everyone have a module on that thing. US, China, EU, corporations involved in space, etc. Sure, every major power will want their own manned space program, and there will be lots of space politcs, I'm sure. Everyone with a space program can already drop bombs on each other effectively enough. The "eye in the sky" has been a reality for awhile now, everyone is aware of it and just has to deal with it. Several countries and corporation have them. Their number and capability is only going to go up, manned or unmanned. The last thing we need is a space arms race. I really don't hope the world's leader are so dense that they can't see that as self defeating. Major technical leaps always seem to have a dangerous side.. Now that we have tapped the basic of that, and weaponizied space, how much more is really be necessary? I think all the most tantalizing things about spac... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ] |
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