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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
China plans to send four crewed space missions and the same number of cargo craft to complete work on its permanent space station within about two years, officials said after the launch of a newly designed spacecraft aboard the latest heavy-lift rocket.
The announcement by the country's crewed space program further cements China's aspirations to rival the U.S., Europe, Russia and private companies in outer space exploration.
The unmanned spacecraft and its return capsule were flung into space aboard a Long March 5B rocket in its debut flight Tuesday evening from the Wenchang launch center in the southern island province of Hainan.
The capsule is reportedly an improvement on the Shenzhou capsule based on the former Soviet Union's Soyuz model and can carry six astronauts rather than the current three.
China earlier launched an experimental space station that later crashed back through the atmosphere, and plans to build a larger facility with multiple modules to rival the scale of the International Space Station.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @05:20PM (8 children)
The Chinamen heard about Trump's Space Force and decided to retaliate by sending Wuhan Flu into orbit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @05:24PM
Our uniforms are better. They are gold colored and the lettering is in all caps.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 09 2020, @05:54PM (6 children)
This will be great, now they get to fuck up everything in space just like they did on Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @06:11PM (5 children)
They even fry - I kid you not - they fry their meat. No civilized race would do that.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @06:47PM (3 children)
Colonel Sanders would like to have a word with you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:14PM (2 children)
No, contrary to popular belief, the "F" in KFC stands for Fuck You.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:21PM (1 child)
The Colonel was into poultry bestiality?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:40PM
I guess that would put the whole "finger licking good" part into a new perspective.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:00PM
And they're made of meat [eastoftheweb.com] too, so it's cannibalism.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday May 09 2020, @07:32PM (10 children)
So they want to build their own space station (... with black jack, and hookers) ? Good for them. The more the better I guess. It's not like the current station (ISS being the only one) are not living on borrowed time and need to be replaced eventually or sometime soon and perhaps this might be the kick in the nuts that are needed to get funding for them -- after all can't let all them chinese be up there in space doing god knows what alone.
There is a fair list on wikipedia so there seems to be plans for a few in the coming decade (give or take with these dates I guess). Looking at the list -- the Von Braun station is apparently going to be there in just four and half years or so with a crew of 100. That does sound a tad optimistic? Not to mention the shit storm that will probably come as it's almost like space-Nazis. I'm sure someone will have a fit about it how the master race now rotates above us in space.
Bad news for Bigelow, unless they get launching soon I doubt they'll have two stations up there at the end of the year, I guess this is why it says "2020 or later".
Did the capsule become bigger? Or did tech become better (or smaller) so it took up less space or are chinese astronauts just half the size compared to the russian once? Or are they just more used to be packed in there like space cattle.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Saturday May 09 2020, @09:36PM (4 children)
Just launch it with six and if only three survive it only launched with three, just erase the failures existance for not supporting the party harder.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:23AM (3 children)
I'm actually amazed that a right wing prick actually *does* know what corruption looks like *handclap*
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:47PM (1 child)
Does your gratuitous name-calling help anything?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:23PM
Oh my goodness, for all the stones you cast, you're going to make that statement?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday May 11 2020, @04:25PM
Tell me again how your plan not to close the borders with China to oppose Trump would have saved lives?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday May 10 2020, @01:42AM (3 children)
China has offered to let anyone join in on the fun, including the U.S.
China Will Open its New Space Station to International Partners [soylentnews.org]
It's our own fault if we don't want to participate. There's no reason it can't be the successor to ISS in low Earth orbit. At a minimum, we will probably see countries that are friendly to China and have smaller space programs, such as Pakistan, send astronauts to China's station.
Von Braun station is VAPORWARE. It's a neat concept with a nice YouTube channel, not much more.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfq9IoUJBIKORP6Q0Zp4dIg/videos [youtube.com]
Impossible to build without cheap Starship launches, but still gigantic in scale and would likely require billions in funding as well as novel construction techniques (described in some of the videos).
Bigelow Aerospace lays off entire workforce [spacenews.com]
Expanding, And Eventually Replacing, The International Space Station [soylentnews.org]
Bigelow looks done for. A Boeing-backed venture, Axiom, will send inflatable modules to the ISS. Even though we might not use ISS past 2030.
If Bigelow doesn't recover from COVID, they could sell off their designs and patents. So the B330 and other inflatable modules will live on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday May 10 2020, @02:56AM (1 child)
I'm not sure they are going to have a lot of takers for various reasons. But as you note it might be the countries that are more "friendly" (or subservient) to them that gets to come and tag along (get their own local space heroes etc). I don't really see the US, RUS, EU etc being fine being passengers on a Chinese space station.So it's easy to offer things when you know there probably won't be any takers, not hard to play willing and gracious then. While they might get to go I'm fairly certain that it's clear that it's a Chinese station and not international. Perhaps some will go once or twice or so for novelty, or spying. It's not like the Chinese have been sending lots of people to the ISS, have their even been any? I can't really recall at the moment.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday May 10 2020, @03:40AM
ESA is on board with China's space station:
ESA and Chinese astronauts train together [esa.int]
ESA-China cooperation is not new, for example, MARS-500 [wikipedia.org], Double Star [wikipedia.org], and SMILE [wikipedia.org] (maybe some smaller instruments I can't find). It's a significant partner since ESA is basically the #2 space agency in every respect and only NASA does more science. Germany (DLR [wikipedia.org]) also participated in Shenzhou with SIMBOX [sciencedirect.com].
Russia is friendly with China and might participate:
China, Russia to cooperate on lunar orbiter, landing missions [spacenews.com]
China Ready to Cooperate with Russia on Orbital Space Station [parabolicarc.com]
So you can see that random smaller nations will participate in Chinese programs. And the future of Russia-U.S. space cooperation is in doubt. Given the tensions between U.S. and Russia, and the weird incidents like the hole in the ISS [wikipedia.org] that was briefly blamed on the U.S., I would find U.S.-China cooperation less weird than U.S.-Russia cooperation. I expect that President Trump or the next President will absolve China of all wrongdoing related to the coronavirus, and could move for a closer relationship, even if that is a bad idea.
I don't think the Chinese vs. international status of the station will really matter. ISS was previously the only game in town. The important thing is that ESA et al. are not paying for it, or are paying only for a module or two of their choosing to be attached. That's very important for Russia since their space program has been propped up by the U.S. and is in dire straits these days. Russia can justify their own manned spaceflight as long as they don't have to build an entire destination for it.
Nope, U.S. has vetoed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_International_Space_Station#China [wikipedia.org]
If the exclusion policy is rock bottom, there is only one trajectory for U.S.-China cooperation.
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(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2020, @01:44AM
Seems closer to vacuumware... ;)
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday May 11 2020, @06:50PM
They don't have the option of joining the ISS because of NASA's Chinese Exclusion Policy [wikipedia.org].
No, I am not trolling. That's what it's called.
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday May 10 2020, @07:16AM (1 child)
Will it be space colony with a giant centrifuge containing a thriving biosphere?
Will it be a mining platform to capture asteroids and harvest their minerals?
Will it be a luxury hotel in space that is used as a tourist attraction?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:08PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_large_modular_space_station [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Sunday May 10 2020, @12:55PM (2 children)
If we want to re-ignite a Cold War with its attendant space race, then, yes, such a thing matters. If we want to build true infrastructure to take humanity to the stars, then it seems to me that other projects outweigh China's construction of a national pride piece in orbit. That is, a functional space elevator to solve the problem of Earth's gravity well, and a permanent base on the Moon to serve as a springboard to the rest of the solar system.
That's not to diminish China's remarkable achievements in space. Rather, it's to say that if their achievements spur others to greater effort in space then let them be spurred to better solutions, not mimicry by re-building competing national space stations.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 11 2020, @10:32AM (1 child)
It is unclear that a space elevator (on Earth) can be built anytime soon or at all. It looks very possible to build fully reusable rockets, such as Starship, which could lower launch costs from ~$2000/kg* to as low as $13-50/kg ($2-5 million per 100-150 tons).
Reducing launch costs by 99% would spark a new space age. And that is set to happen within a few years, vs. decades or centuries for a space elevator which may not be feasible or economical (space elevators could work much better on the Moon [wikipedia.org] and other locations, using existing cheap materials).
This is probably unnecessary, depending on what you mean by "springboard". If you use lunar ice and carbon to create methane, you could use that for Starship refueling. But in-orbit refueling is probably preferable in the near term, even if it takes a few launches to get a single payload to Europa, Enceladus, Pluto, etc.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 11 2020, @10:36AM
OTOH a Moon base is a good springboard in the sense that it is an easy-to-reach but valuable destination. As opposed to going to Mars which is a bigger commitment and can't get supplies or evac within days. It can be the trial run for humanity expanding into space.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday May 10 2020, @06:01PM
The Chinese government have always taken the long view, they will put into motion plans that take years, if not decades sometimes. They are also smart enough to realize that this time Humanity was lucky, COVID is only a pandemic with a comparatively low death rate, not a full blown epidemic that wipes out 60% of the population and causes near total economic and social collapse. They will have come up with a plan to ensure that the Chinese government will not only survive into the future but thrive.
For examples look at their efforts in the Sea of Japan, the port facilities they control in Sri Lanka and other locations along the major shipping lanes, And all the long term investments in African countries that are rich in resources. Those plans were put in place decades ago and the Chinese have stayed the course all this time.
So first a push to build a viable modular space station,
Then a ferry in a low energy Earth-Moon transfer orbit, probably made out of the same modules used for the space station, all they would need is an engine module and extra radiation shielding,
And then a permanently manned moon base that will become as self sufficient as possible as quickly as possible.
The plan will take at least the better part of two decades but the Chinese WILL stay the course on it and succeed in a fairly short time frame. Unlike the USA, Russia and other countries who's governments are more focused on short term goals and will waste their effort and resources on simple gaining power and trying to hold onto what little control they still have in the world.
China is playing the long game, they are willing to yield the lead now and then, if it puts them into a position where they can seize the lead when they want to to cross the finish line first.
Just thoughts that came to mind when I read the summary.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."