Report on China's Space Program

China's space goals: Fact vs. fiction


By Frank Sietzen
UPI Science News


This is the fourth in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the
aerospace industries of selected countries.

--

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Much has been written and spoken lately
about China's space capabilities, but how much is true and plausible,
and how much is merely wishful thinking? The answer: equal parts of
both.

Chinese leaders have told their state-run press that Oct. 15 is the
date they will attempt to launch a man into space. In stories
published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the paper quoted Xie
Guangxuan, the nation's chief rocket scientist, saying the Shenzhou V
spacecraft might carry a single astronaut in a 90-minute, single
circuit of the globe.

The event, which would occur a day after completion of the Communist
Party Central Committee's Third Plenum meeting, is to be televised
nationwide. If successful, it would mark the fulfillment of China's
long-held desire to join America and Russia as a superpower capable of
human spaceflight.

Four previous tests of the Shenzhou capsule were conducted without
pilots aboard. The craft, a modified version of Russia's 30-year-old
Soyuz capsule, is thought capable of carrying up to three astronauts,
once the vehicle is flight proven.

These are exceptional details because much of China's space program is
shrouded in secrecy. Though the government has released films and
photos of several launches of the Shenzhou capsules, one or more of
the landings may have taken place off course. The exact nature of the
astronaut training program also has been kept from the public's prying
eyes.

The exception the secrecy is China's long-range space goals, which
have been publicized widely.

For example, Ouyang Ziyuan, a member of China's Academy of Sciences
and the purported head of a lunar program, told reporters at the
opening of an exhibit highlighting the country's Science-Technology
Week, on May 18, 2002, that China would attempt a landing on the moon
by 2010. Ziyuan added China hoped to establish a base there shortly
thereafter. Future missions to Mars also were under design, he said.

The piloted Shenzhou program, Ziyuan continued, was part of a
three-phased effort, involving:

-- Obtaining experience in human space flight,

-- establishing a space station, and

-- connecting the manned program to the International Space Station or
other international space projects.

"By now, China's lunar program has gone through detailed feasibility
studies and China is totally capable of moon exploration, in theory,"
Ouyang told the People's Daily. "China's long-term aim and task is to
set up a base on the moon to tap and make use of its rich resources.
China's first-time moon exploration is to begin with launching an
exploration satellite," he added.

Impressive goals, but how hard will it be for China to achieve them?
How much of this is merely political posturing, designed to persuade
the West to treat China as an emerging superpower? And how many of
these advanced space goals actually can be achieved by China's
technology capabilities?

The answer should help frame future U.S. space plans, as well as
encourage bridging the two nations' programs with greater cooperative
efforts. China has many resources to apply to space, all accumulated
from decades of commitment to exploration and technology. Its
strongest elements include space capsule technology and advanced
launch vehicles. Its electronics and guidance systems, used in the
ballistic missile programs, also can be applied to space.

Moreover, China has spent decades in cooperative technology exchange
partnerships with the Russian Federation. The Shenzhou manned capsule
is one result. Chinese engineers took Russia's existing Soyuz designs,
enlarged their version, and made the newer craft more capable of
sustained space flights. Russia's Soyuz was built originally to
service space stations and function as the precursor of a manned lunar
spacecraft called Zond.

Using space capsules to sustain a possible space exploration program
beyond Earth orbit is not as backward as it might seem to analysts in
the West, who are accustomed to dealing with the larger and more
capable -- but more fragile and expensive -- U.S. winged space
shuttles. After all, the United States achieved the only manned
exploration of the moon in the 1960s and 1970s using -- the Apollo
capsule series.

The Chinese modified Soyuz to permit it to detach from the manned
vehicle and remain in Earth orbit for extended periods, long after the
astronauts have returned to Earth. A portion of Shenzhou also
functions as a space laboratory. Though small and rudimentary, both
elements could give Chinese astronauts valuable experience in space
research without having to build space station components. The
Shenzhou program could give China extensive experience in
long-duration manned space flight, experience considered crucial if
the country ever plans to send astronauts to the moon or Mars.

Meanwhile, China's satellite technology programs are sufficiently
advanced to form the basis of a series of robotic probes that could
scout the moon's surface for both resources and potential landing
sites. The United States conducted just such precursor missions in the
1960s, using Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor landing craft to clear the way
for Apollo's lunar footprints. The Chinese research satellites seem to
have such capabilities.

China's space booster program is designed around a family of vehicles,
each capable of different payload weights and different orbital
profiles. The same technology used in their commercial satellite
launchers -- the Long March 3B and 2E and F -- could send spacecraft
to the Moon and outward to Mars. But carrying people or larger space
station units in the future will require bigger versions of these
rockets. Nothing currently available is powerful enough to hurl
advanced Shenzhou capsules or manned landers to the moon.

China also will need to refine its space rendezvous and docking
techniques, which it will need to link up cargo modules or larger
rocket stages for the push into deeper space. Thus far, it has not
demonstrated such technologies.

Advanced space suits, power sources for long-duration lunar missions,
and precision landing and navigation capabilities, also are missing
from China's space programs. Likewise, building moon bases would
require extensive experience in creating structures that could sustain
life in the harsh lunar environment. Developing all of these resources
to sustain a manned landing six or seven years from now seems
unlikely.

Nevertheless, such capabilities are well within China's technological
and industrial base. Perhaps not by 2010, but within a decade or two
-- given both a successful manned Shenzhou program and unmanned
robotic probes flying regularly into space -- a manned lunar mission
would be entirely feasible.

What plans does the U.S. or Russia have to accomplish lunar flights
during the next decades? None -- yet.

The White House is conducting a review, set to be completed late this
year, of NASA's advanced goals. The cash-strapped Russian space
program is hoping to sell more of its hardy launching rockets and
Soyuz capsules to the West.

Perhaps a successful Chinese manned launch, and the growing prospect
of lunar missions, will serve to stimulate U.S. space thinking.

It is true if China reaches the moon it merely will be replicating
what the United States achieved 34 years ago, but the achievement
would represent a pathway to space that America seems to have
abandoned. Perhaps, some years hence, if the successor to Apollo is
sent to the moon, the Chinese will be helping that spacecraft navigate
the distance from their bases there.

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.


"Steve Dufour" wrote in message
om...
China's space goals: Fact vs. fiction


By Frank Sietzen
UPI Science News


This is the fourth in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the
aerospace industries of selected countries.

--

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Much has been written and spoken lately
about China's space capabilities, but how much is true and plausible,
and how much is merely wishful thinking? The answer: equal parts of
both.

Chinese leaders have told their state-run press that Oct. 15 is the
date they will attempt to launch a man into space. In stories
published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the paper quoted Xie
Guangxuan, the nation's chief rocket scientist, saying the Shenzhou V
spacecraft might carry a single astronaut in a 90-minute, single
circuit of the globe.

The event, which would occur a day after completion of the Communist
Party Central Committee's Third Plenum meeting, is to be televised
nationwide. If successful, it would mark the fulfillment of China's
long-held desire to join America and Russia as a superpower capable of
human spaceflight.

Four previous tests of the Shenzhou capsule were conducted without
pilots aboard. The craft, a modified version of Russia's 30-year-old
Soyuz capsule, is thought capable of carrying up to three astronauts,
once the vehicle is flight proven.

These are exceptional details because much of China's space program is
shrouded in secrecy. Though the government has released films and
photos of several launches of the Shenzhou capsules, one or more of
the landings may have taken place off course. The exact nature of the
astronaut training program also has been kept from the public's prying
eyes.

The exception the secrecy is China's long-range space goals, which
have been publicized widely.

For example, Ouyang Ziyuan, a member of China's Academy of Sciences
and the purported head of a lunar program, told reporters at the
opening of an exhibit highlighting the country's Science-Technology
Week, on May 18, 2002, that China would attempt a landing on the moon
by 2010. Ziyuan added China hoped to establish a base there shortly
thereafter. Future missions to Mars also were under design, he said.

The piloted Shenzhou program, Ziyuan continued, was part of a
three-phased effort, involving:

-- Obtaining experience in human space flight,

-- establishing a space station, and

-- connecting the manned program to the International Space Station or
other international space projects.

"By now, China's lunar program has gone through detailed feasibility
studies and China is totally capable of moon exploration, in theory,"
Ouyang told the People's Daily. "China's long-term aim and task is to
set up a base on the moon to tap and make use of its rich resources.
China's first-time moon exploration is to begin with launching an
exploration satellite," he added.

Impressive goals, but how hard will it be for China to achieve them?
How much of this is merely political posturing, designed to persuade
the West to treat China as an emerging superpower? And how many of
these advanced space goals actually can be achieved by China's
technology capabilities?

The answer should help frame future U.S. space plans, as well as
encourage bridging the two nations' programs with greater cooperative
efforts. China has many resources to apply to space, all accumulated
from decades of commitment to exploration and technology. Its
strongest elements include space capsule technology and advanced
launch vehicles. Its electronics and guidance systems, used in the
ballistic missile programs, also can be applied to space.

Moreover, China has spent decades in cooperative technology exchange
partnerships with the Russian Federation. The Shenzhou manned capsule
is one result. Chinese engineers took Russia's existing Soyuz designs,
enlarged their version, and made the newer craft more capable of
sustained space flights. Russia's Soyuz was built originally to
service space stations and function as the precursor of a manned lunar
spacecraft called Zond.

Using space capsules to sustain a possible space exploration program
beyond Earth orbit is not as backward as it might seem to analysts in
the West, who are accustomed to dealing with the larger and more
capable -- but more fragile and expensive -- U.S. winged space
shuttles. After all, the United States achieved the only manned
exploration of the moon in the 1960s and 1970s using -- the Apollo
capsule series.

The Chinese modified Soyuz to permit it to detach from the manned
vehicle and remain in Earth orbit for extended periods, long after the
astronauts have returned to Earth. A portion of Shenzhou also
functions as a space laboratory. Though small and rudimentary, both
elements could give Chinese astronauts valuable experience in space
research without having to build space station components. The
Shenzhou program could give China extensive experience in
long-duration manned space flight, experience considered crucial if
the country ever plans to send astronauts to the moon or Mars.

Meanwhile, China's satellite technology programs are sufficiently
advanced to form the basis of a series of robotic probes that could
scout the moon's surface for both resources and potential landing
sites. The United States conducted just such precursor missions in the
1960s, using Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor landing craft to clear the way
for Apollo's lunar footprints. The Chinese research satellites seem to
have such capabilities.

China's space booster program is designed around a family of vehicles,
each capable of different payload weights and different orbital
profiles. The same technology used in their commercial satellite
launchers -- the Long March 3B and 2E and F -- could send spacecraft
to the Moon and outward to Mars. But carrying people or larger space
station units in the future will require bigger versions of these
rockets. Nothing currently available is powerful enough to hurl
advanced Shenzhou capsules or manned landers to the moon.

China also will need to refine its space rendezvous and docking
techniques, which it will need to link up cargo modules or larger
rocket stages for the push into deeper space. Thus far, it has not
demonstrated such technologies.

Advanced space suits, power sources for long-duration lunar missions,
and precision landing and navigation capabilities, also are missing
from China's space programs. Likewise, building moon bases would
require extensive experience in creating structures that could sustain
life in the harsh lunar environment. Developing all of these resources
to sustain a manned landing six or seven years from now seems
unlikely.

Nevertheless, such capabilities are well within China's technological
and industrial base. Perhaps not by 2010, but within a decade or two
-- given both a successful manned Shenzhou program and unmanned
robotic probes flying regularly into space -- a manned lunar mission
would be entirely feasible.

What plans does the U.S. or Russia have to accomplish lunar flights
during the next decades? None -- yet.

The White House is conducting a review, set to be completed late this
year, of NASA's advanced goals. The cash-strapped Russian space
program is hoping to sell more of its hardy launching rockets and
Soyuz capsules to the West.

Perhaps a successful Chinese manned launch, and the growing prospect
of lunar missions, will serve to stimulate U.S. space thinking.

It is true if China reaches the moon it merely will be replicating
what the United States achieved 34 years ago, but the achievement
would represent a pathway to space that America seems to have
abandoned. Perhaps, some years hence, if the successor to Apollo is
sent to the moon, the Chinese will be helping that spacecraft navigate
the distance from their bases there.

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.


"Steve Dufour" wrote in message
om...
China's space goals: Fact vs. fiction


By Frank Sietzen
UPI Science News


This is the fourth in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the
aerospace industries of selected countries.

--

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Much has been written and spoken lately
about China's space capabilities, but how much is true and plausible,
and how much is merely wishful thinking? The answer: equal parts of
both.

Chinese leaders have told their state-run press that Oct. 15 is the
date they will attempt to launch a man into space. In stories
published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the paper quoted Xie
Guangxuan, the nation's chief rocket scientist, saying the Shenzhou V
spacecraft might carry a single astronaut in a 90-minute, single
circuit of the globe.

The event, which would occur a day after completion of the Communist
Party Central Committee's Third Plenum meeting, is to be televised
nationwide. If successful, it would mark the fulfillment of China's
long-held desire to join America and Russia as a superpower capable of
human spaceflight.

Four previous tests of the Shenzhou capsule were conducted without
pilots aboard. The craft, a modified version of Russia's 30-year-old
Soyuz capsule, is thought capable of carrying up to three astronauts,
once the vehicle is flight proven.

These are exceptional details because much of China's space program is
shrouded in secrecy. Though the government has released films and
photos of several launches of the Shenzhou capsules, one or more of
the landings may have taken place off course. The exact nature of the
astronaut training program also has been kept from the public's prying
eyes.

The exception the secrecy is China's long-range space goals, which
have been publicized widely.

For example, Ouyang Ziyuan, a member of China's Academy of Sciences
and the purported head of a lunar program, told reporters at the
opening of an exhibit highlighting the country's Science-Technology
Week, on May 18, 2002, that China would attempt a landing on the moon
by 2010. Ziyuan added China hoped to establish a base there shortly
thereafter. Future missions to Mars also were under design, he said.

The piloted Shenzhou program, Ziyuan continued, was part of a
three-phased effort, involving:

-- Obtaining experience in human space flight,

-- establishing a space station, and

-- connecting the manned program to the International Space Station or
other international space projects.

"By now, China's lunar program has gone through detailed feasibility
studies and China is totally capable of moon exploration, in theory,"
Ouyang told the People's Daily. "China's long-term aim and task is to
set up a base on the moon to tap and make use of its rich resources.
China's first-time moon exploration is to begin with launching an
exploration satellite," he added.

Impressive goals, but how hard will it be for China to achieve them?
How much of this is merely political posturing, designed to persuade
the West to treat China as an emerging superpower? And how many of
these advanced space goals actually can be achieved by China's
technology capabilities?

The answer should help frame future U.S. space plans, as well as
encourage bridging the two nations' programs with greater cooperative
efforts. China has many resources to apply to space, all accumulated
from decades of commitment to exploration and technology. Its
strongest elements include space capsule technology and advanced
launch vehicles. Its electronics and guidance systems, used in the
ballistic missile programs, also can be applied to space.

Moreover, China has spent decades in cooperative technology exchange
partnerships with the Russian Federation. The Shenzhou manned capsule
is one result. Chinese engineers took Russia's existing Soyuz designs,
enlarged their version, and made the newer craft more capable of
sustained space flights. Russia's Soyuz was built originally to
service space stations and function as the precursor of a manned lunar
spacecraft called Zond.

Using space capsules to sustain a possible space exploration program
beyond Earth orbit is not as backward as it might seem to analysts in
the West, who are accustomed to dealing with the larger and more
capable -- but more fragile and expensive -- U.S. winged space
shuttles. After all, the United States achieved the only manned
exploration of the moon in the 1960s and 1970s using -- the Apollo
capsule series.

The Chinese modified Soyuz to permit it to detach from the manned
vehicle and remain in Earth orbit for extended periods, long after the
astronauts have returned to Earth. A portion of Shenzhou also
functions as a space laboratory. Though small and rudimentary, both
elements could give Chinese astronauts valuable experience in space
research without having to build space station components. The
Shenzhou program could give China extensive experience in
long-duration manned space flight, experience considered crucial if
the country ever plans to send astronauts to the moon or Mars.

Meanwhile, China's satellite technology programs are sufficiently
advanced to form the basis of a series of robotic probes that could
scout the moon's surface for both resources and potential landing
sites. The United States conducted just such precursor missions in the
1960s, using Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor landing craft to clear the way
for Apollo's lunar footprints. The Chinese research satellites seem to
have such capabilities.

China's space booster program is designed around a family of vehicles,
each capable of different payload weights and different orbital
profiles. The same technology used in their commercial satellite
launchers -- the Long March 3B and 2E and F -- could send spacecraft
to the Moon and outward to Mars. But carrying people or larger space
station units in the future will require bigger versions of these
rockets. Nothing currently available is powerful enough to hurl
advanced Shenzhou capsules or manned landers to the moon.

China also will need to refine its space rendezvous and docking
techniques, which it will need to link up cargo modules or larger
rocket stages for the push into deeper space. Thus far, it has not
demonstrated such technologies.

Advanced space suits, power sources for long-duration lunar missions,
and precision landing and navigation capabilities, also are missing
from China's space programs. Likewise, building moon bases would
require extensive experience in creating structures that could sustain
life in the harsh lunar environment. Developing all of these resources
to sustain a manned landing six or seven years from now seems
unlikely.

Nevertheless, such capabilities are well within China's technological
and industrial base. Perhaps not by 2010, but within a decade or two
-- given both a successful manned Shenzhou program and unmanned
robotic probes flying regularly into space -- a manned lunar mission
would be entirely feasible.

What plans does the U.S. or Russia have to accomplish lunar flights
during the next decades? None -- yet.

The White House is conducting a review, set to be completed late this
year, of NASA's advanced goals. The cash-strapped Russian space
program is hoping to sell more of its hardy launching rockets and
Soyuz capsules to the West.

Perhaps a successful Chinese manned launch, and the growing prospect
of lunar missions, will serve to stimulate U.S. space thinking.

It is true if China reaches the moon it merely will be replicating
what the United States achieved 34 years ago, but the achievement
would represent a pathway to space that America seems to have
abandoned. Perhaps, some years hence, if the successor to Apollo is
sent to the moon, the Chinese will be helping that spacecraft navigate
the distance from their bases there.

Come on you whiteys, the Chinese space program never claim such
things, all those suppositions were done by the western media and
then these western created media reports was attacked by the western
"scientists" and politicians as either ridiculous or a threat.
Talking about talking out of both sides of your mouths. Read the
article below you illiterates which said the "Chinese space program
was shrouded in secrecy" that means little or no information was
publicised.

One simple question: Why do you ridicule or exaggerate conjectures
made NOT by the Chinese but by western media as things as if they were
made by the Chinese?


On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:52:49 -0700, "Peter L"
wrote:

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.


"Steve Dufour" wrote in message
. com...
China's space goals: Fact vs. fiction


By Frank Sietzen
UPI Science News


This is the fourth in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the
aerospace industries of selected countries.

--

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Much has been written and spoken lately
about China's space capabilities, but how much is true and plausible,
and how much is merely wishful thinking? The answer: equal parts of
both.

Chinese leaders have told their state-run press that Oct. 15 is the
date they will attempt to launch a man into space. In stories
published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the paper quoted Xie
Guangxuan, the nation's chief rocket scientist, saying the Shenzhou V
spacecraft might carry a single astronaut in a 90-minute, single
circuit of the globe.

The event, which would occur a day after completion of the Communist
Party Central Committee's Third Plenum meeting, is to be televised
nationwide. If successful, it would mark the fulfillment of China's
long-held desire to join America and Russia as a superpower capable of
human spaceflight.

Four previous tests of the Shenzhou capsule were conducted without
pilots aboard. The craft, a modified version of Russia's 30-year-old
Soyuz capsule, is thought capable of carrying up to three astronauts,
once the vehicle is flight proven.

These are exceptional details because much of China's space program is
shrouded in secrecy. Though the government has released films and
photos of several launches of the Shenzhou capsules, one or more of
the landings may have taken place off course. The exact nature of the
astronaut training program also has been kept from the public's prying
eyes.

The exception the secrecy is China's long-range space goals, which
have been publicized widely.

For example, Ouyang Ziyuan, a member of China's Academy of Sciences
and the purported head of a lunar program, told reporters at the
opening of an exhibit highlighting the country's Science-Technology
Week, on May 18, 2002, that China would attempt a landing on the moon
by 2010. Ziyuan added China hoped to establish a base there shortly
thereafter. Future missions to Mars also were under design, he said.

The piloted Shenzhou program, Ziyuan continued, was part of a
three-phased effort, involving:

-- Obtaining experience in human space flight,

-- establishing a space station, and

-- connecting the manned program to the International Space Station or
other international space projects.

"By now, China's lunar program has gone through detailed feasibility
studies and China is totally capable of moon exploration, in theory,"
Ouyang told the People's Daily. "China's long-term aim and task is to
set up a base on the moon to tap and make use of its rich resources.
China's first-time moon exploration is to begin with launching an
exploration satellite," he added.

Impressive goals, but how hard will it be for China to achieve them?
How much of this is merely political posturing, designed to persuade
the West to treat China as an emerging superpower? And how many of
these advanced space goals actually can be achieved by China's
technology capabilities?

The answer should help frame future U.S. space plans, as well as
encourage bridging the two nations' programs with greater cooperative
efforts. China has many resources to apply to space, all accumulated
from decades of commitment to exploration and technology. Its
strongest elements include space capsule technology and advanced
launch vehicles. Its electronics and guidance systems, used in the
ballistic missile programs, also can be applied to space.

Moreover, China has spent decades in cooperative technology exchange
partnerships with the Russian Federation. The Shenzhou manned capsule
is one result. Chinese engineers took Russia's existing Soyuz designs,
enlarged their version, and made the newer craft more capable of
sustained space flights. Russia's Soyuz was built originally to
service space stations and function as the precursor of a manned lunar
spacecraft called Zond.

Using space capsules to sustain a possible space exploration program
beyond Earth orbit is not as backward as it might seem to analysts in
the West, who are accustomed to dealing with the larger and more
capable -- but more fragile and expensive -- U.S. winged space
shuttles. After all, the United States achieved the only manned
exploration of the moon in the 1960s and 1970s using -- the Apollo
capsule series.

The Chinese modified Soyuz to permit it to detach from the manned
vehicle and remain in Earth orbit for extended periods, long after the
astronauts have returned to Earth. A portion of Shenzhou also
functions as a space laboratory. Though small and rudimentary, both
elements could give Chinese astronauts valuable experience in space
research without having to build space station components. The
Shenzhou program could give China extensive experience in
long-duration manned space flight, experience considered crucial if
the country ever plans to send astronauts to the moon or Mars.

Meanwhile, China's satellite technology programs are sufficiently
advanced to form the basis of a series of robotic probes that could
scout the moon's surface for both resources and potential landing
sites. The United States conducted just such precursor missions in the
1960s, using Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor landing craft to clear the way
for Apollo's lunar footprints. The Chinese research satellites seem to
have such capabilities.

China's space booster program is designed around a family of vehicles,
each capable of different payload weights and different orbital
profiles. The same technology used in their commercial satellite
launchers -- the Long March 3B and 2E and F -- could send spacecraft
to the Moon and outward to Mars. But carrying people or larger space
station units in the future will require bigger versions of these
rockets. Nothing currently available is powerful enough to hurl
advanced Shenzhou capsules or manned landers to the moon.

China also will need to refine its space rendezvous and docking
techniques, which it will need to link up cargo modules or larger
rocket stages for the push into deeper space. Thus far, it has not
demonstrated such technologies.

Advanced space suits, power sources for long-duration lunar missions,
and precision landing and navigation capabilities, also are missing
from China's space programs. Likewise, building moon bases would
require extensive experience in creating structures that could sustain
life in the harsh lunar environment. Developing all of these resources
to sustain a manned landing six or seven years from now seems
unlikely.

Nevertheless, such capabilities are well within China's technological
and industrial base. Perhaps not by 2010, but within a decade or two
-- given both a successful manned Shenzhou program and unmanned
robotic probes flying regularly into space -- a manned lunar mission
would be entirely feasible.

What plans does the U.S. or Russia have to accomplish lunar flights
during the next decades? None -- yet.

The White House is conducting a review, set to be completed late this
year, of NASA's advanced goals. The cash-strapped Russian space
program is hoping to sell more of its hardy launching rockets and
Soyuz capsules to the West.

Perhaps a successful Chinese manned launch, and the growing prospect
of lunar missions, will serve to stimulate U.S. space thinking.

It is true if China reaches the moon it merely will be replicating
what the United States achieved 34 years ago, but the achievement
would represent a pathway to space that America seems to have
abandoned. Perhaps, some years hence, if the successor to Apollo is
sent to the moon, the Chinese will be helping that spacecraft navigate
the distance from their bases there.

Come on you whiteys, the Chinese space program never claim such
things, all those suppositions were done by the western media and
then these western created media reports was attacked by the western
"scientists" and politicians as either ridiculous or a threat.
Talking about talking out of both sides of your mouths. Read the
article below you illiterates which said the "Chinese space program
was shrouded in secrecy" that means little or no information was
publicised.

One simple question: Why do you ridicule or exaggerate conjectures
made NOT by the Chinese but by western media as things as if they were
made by the Chinese?


On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 10:52:49 -0700, "Peter L"
wrote:

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.


"Steve Dufour" wrote in message
. com...
China's space goals: Fact vs. fiction


By Frank Sietzen
UPI Science News


This is the fourth in a weekly series of UPI articles examining the
aerospace industries of selected countries.

--

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Much has been written and spoken lately
about China's space capabilities, but how much is true and plausible,
and how much is merely wishful thinking? The answer: equal parts of
both.

Chinese leaders have told their state-run press that Oct. 15 is the
date they will attempt to launch a man into space. In stories
published Wednesday in the People's Daily, the paper quoted Xie
Guangxuan, the nation's chief rocket scientist, saying the Shenzhou V
spacecraft might carry a single astronaut in a 90-minute, single
circuit of the globe.

The event, which would occur a day after completion of the Communist
Party Central Committee's Third Plenum meeting, is to be televised
nationwide. If successful, it would mark the fulfillment of China's
long-held desire to join America and Russia as a superpower capable of
human spaceflight.

Four previous tests of the Shenzhou capsule were conducted without
pilots aboard. The craft, a modified version of Russia's 30-year-old
Soyuz capsule, is thought capable of carrying up to three astronauts,
once the vehicle is flight proven.

These are exceptional details because much of China's space program is
shrouded in secrecy. Though the government has released films and
photos of several launches of the Shenzhou capsules, one or more of
the landings may have taken place off course. The exact nature of the
astronaut training program also has been kept from the public's prying
eyes.

The exception the secrecy is China's long-range space goals, which
have been publicized widely.

For example, Ouyang Ziyuan, a member of China's Academy of Sciences
and the purported head of a lunar program, told reporters at the
opening of an exhibit highlighting the country's Science-Technology
Week, on May 18, 2002, that China would attempt a landing on the moon
by 2010. Ziyuan added China hoped to establish a base there shortly
thereafter. Future missions to Mars also were under design, he said.

The piloted Shenzhou program, Ziyuan continued, was part of a
three-phased effort, involving:

-- Obtaining experience in human space flight,

-- establishing a space station, and

-- connecting the manned program to the International Space Station or
other international space projects.

"By now, China's lunar program has gone through detailed feasibility
studies and China is totally capable of moon exploration, in theory,"
Ouyang told the People's Daily. "China's long-term aim and task is to
set up a base on the moon to tap and make use of its rich resources.
China's first-time moon exploration is to begin with launching an
exploration satellite," he added.

Impressive goals, but how hard will it be for China to achieve them?
How much of this is merely political posturing, designed to persuade
the West to treat China as an emerging superpower? And how many of
these advanced space goals actually can be achieved by China's
technology capabilities?

The answer should help frame future U.S. space plans, as well as
encourage bridging the two nations' programs with greater cooperative
efforts. China has many resources to apply to space, all accumulated
from decades of commitment to exploration and technology. Its
strongest elements include space capsule technology and advanced
launch vehicles. Its electronics and guidance systems, used in the
ballistic missile programs, also can be applied to space.

Moreover, China has spent decades in cooperative technology exchange
partnerships with the Russian Federation. The Shenzhou manned capsule
is one result. Chinese engineers took Russia's existing Soyuz designs,
enlarged their version, and made the newer craft more capable of
sustained space flights. Russia's Soyuz was built originally to
service space stations and function as the precursor of a manned lunar
spacecraft called Zond.

Using space capsules to sustain a possible space exploration program
beyond Earth orbit is not as backward as it might seem to analysts in
the West, who are accustomed to dealing with the larger and more
capable -- but more fragile and expensive -- U.S. winged space
shuttles. After all, the United States achieved the only manned
exploration of the moon in the 1960s and 1970s using -- the Apollo
capsule series.

The Chinese modified Soyuz to permit it to detach from the manned
vehicle and remain in Earth orbit for extended periods, long after the
astronauts have returned to Earth. A portion of Shenzhou also
functions as a space laboratory. Though small and rudimentary, both
elements could give Chinese astronauts valuable experience in space
research without having to build space station components. The
Shenzhou program could give China extensive experience in
long-duration manned space flight, experience considered crucial if
the country ever plans to send astronauts to the moon or Mars.

Meanwhile, China's satellite technology programs are sufficiently
advanced to form the basis of a series of robotic probes that could
scout the moon's surface for both resources and potential landing
sites. The United States conducted just such precursor missions in the
1960s, using Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor landing craft to clear the way
for Apollo's lunar footprints. The Chinese research satellites seem to
have such capabilities.

China's space booster program is designed around a family of vehicles,
each capable of different payload weights and different orbital
profiles. The same technology used in their commercial satellite
launchers -- the Long March 3B and 2E and F -- could send spacecraft
to the Moon and outward to Mars. But carrying people or larger space
station units in the future will require bigger versions of these
rockets. Nothing currently available is powerful enough to hurl
advanced Shenzhou capsules or manned landers to the moon.

China also will need to refine its space rendezvous and docking
techniques, which it will need to link up cargo modules or larger
rocket stages for the push into deeper space. Thus far, it has not
demonstrated such technologies.

Advanced space suits, power sources for long-duration lunar missions,
and precision landing and navigation capabilities, also are missing
from China's space programs. Likewise, building moon bases would
require extensive experience in creating structures that could sustain
life in the harsh lunar environment. Developing all of these resources
to sustain a manned landing six or seven years from now seems
unlikely.

Nevertheless, such capabilities are well within China's technological
and industrial base. Perhaps not by 2010, but within a decade or two
-- given both a successful manned Shenzhou program and unmanned
robotic probes flying regularly into space -- a manned lunar mission
would be entirely feasible.

What plans does the U.S. or Russia have to accomplish lunar flights
during the next decades? None -- yet.

The White House is conducting a review, set to be completed late this
year, of NASA's advanced goals. The cash-strapped Russian space
program is hoping to sell more of its hardy launching rockets and
Soyuz capsules to the West.

Perhaps a successful Chinese manned launch, and the growing prospect
of lunar missions, will serve to stimulate U.S. space thinking.

It is true if China reaches the moon it merely will be replicating
what the United States achieved 34 years ago, but the achievement
would represent a pathway to space that America seems to have
abandoned. Perhaps, some years hence, if the successor to Apollo is
sent to the moon, the Chinese will be helping that spacecraft navigate
the distance from their bases there.

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.

It seems to be much more about national pride than about any practical
or even scientific benefit.

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.

It seems to be much more about national pride than about any practical
or even scientific benefit.

For China to say? It was quoted by "anonymous sources" from a western
aeronautics organization that they believe that it was China's
intention. Does that mean the Chinese Space Agency really said that?
Prove that any Chinese sources that said this by posting a link.


The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.

It seems to be much more about national pride than about any practical
or even scientific benefit.

For China to say? It was quoted by "anonymous sources" from a western
aeronautics organization that they believe that it was China's
intention. Does that mean the Chinese Space Agency really said that?
Prove that any Chinese sources that said this by posting a link.


The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources", or if
there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to establish a
moon base is laughable.

It seems to be much more about national pride than about any practical
or even scientific benefit.

Steve Dufour wrote:

The US was on the moon 30 years ago, and still has no plans now to
establish
a base on the moon. The moon does not have any "rich resources",
or if there is any, it'll be hugely expensive to explore those
resources.
Everybody knows this already. For China to say they plan to
establish a moon base is laughable.

It seems to be much more about national pride than about any
practical or even scientific benefit.

Go back about 300 years and that's what Europeans were saying about
North America. They described Canada as "a few acres of snow." (OK,
I'm not sure about the date, but the idea is the same.
Establishing a lunar base is an expensive proposition, but it is long
term thinking. We in the West are used to short term thinking.
Establishing the first moon base doesn't guarantee exclusive rights
to space exploration, but it does give whichever country that does it
a big head start. If it is self sustaining, it also means that
humans have a better chance of surviving if we do something stupid
and destroy ourselves on the Earth.

NOTE: I only read on alt.astronomy so that is where I have set
followups to be posted. (My news reader/poster does this
automatically). Please check that any followups are going where you
want them to go.

--
Regards
Fred

Remove FFFf to reply, please