My Scientific American (October) feature article on the upcoming Chinese human space flight is now on line.

jeff findley wrote:

"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx writes:

The Chinese venture is clearly a PR stunt based on the misguided belief that
launching people into space will put them in the technological forefront.
Some space technology has its applications on Earth, but most of it is very
specific for the task so the returns will be limited, especially since the
U.S. and the Soviet Union developed most of the needed equipment and
technology 40 years ago.

And this is different from NASA how? The US clearly has no "vision"
of what to do in space. Spending today is bound more by political
inertia and the preservation of jobs in key states (key in terms of
politics).

What will be interesting will be the political reaction to this
flight. The US reaction will be predictable (it's a "stunt", they're
not a real space power). However, James made a good point that China
could definitely become the world's second place space power.


China could be # 2 - after Russia. :-)

John H.;


Jeff
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"si" wrote in message
news:sD6ab.487028$YN5.329710@sccrnsc01...
And one more thing. In the article the author attempts to sort space
programs into "places": first, second, third, etc... Then, the term
"space
superpower". Based on what criteria? The number of manned flights? The
total hours spent in space?

Man hours per year in space. The ability to launch cool stuff.

Or (hope not), the amount of government money
spent?

No.

What are the metrics of this? Are they unambiguos, and universal?

Gymnastics and figure skating suffer from the same problem.

Well, currently, we (the US) are not flying anyone into space on anything,
the Chinese are about to make the very first flight with one person crew,
and this surely can't be a basis for any anlysis, they have a whole lot of
"catching up" to do across the full specturm including the unmanned
probes.
I doubt it's even possible considering how much has been done in the past
40
years.

One can look at how much they can do now as opposed to how much they did
during the last 40 years.

How were their manned reliability numbers arrived at? So, the basis
of the relative analysis contained in the article appears to be, at best,
shaky.

You can't expect an American to find out what the true reliability numbers
are. The Chinese gave him some numbers and he put them in the article. Are
those numbers accurate?. Do you expect James Oberg to know?

"James Oberg" wrote in message
.. .
My Scientific American (October) feature article on the upcoming Chinese
human space flight is now on line.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...0005B4B 6-1CE
C-1F5D-905980A84189EEDF



A very interesting article that provides a good look at the Chinese program.
Both the Chinese and the Russians show what can be do on a tight budget if
you keep it simple.
I really would have liked to have heard more about future efforts.
The simple space station concept sounds interesting and I would liketo hear
more about it.

James Oberg schreef in berichtnieuws
...
My Scientific American (October) feature article on the upcoming Chinese
human space flight is now on line.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...0005B4B 6-1CE
C-1F5D-905980A84189EEDF



Euhm, the S.I. unit for thrust is the Newton...

Filip De Vos

"Dholmes" writes:
A very interesting article that provides a good look at the Chinese program.
Both the Chinese and the Russians show what can be do on a tight budget if
you keep it simple.

And if you have cheap workers.

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

Rand Simberg wrote:

But I am not sure what the Chinese hopes are. If they hope for greater
military strength, their space program could well help them realize
their goals.


That well could be, but the Moon doesn't lie on a path to that goal.


Enroute to landing on the moon the Chinese would have to build an
infrastructure and acquire some skills.

I would think this infrastructure and skills would have other uses than
landing on the moon.

Hop
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

dinges wrote:

Euhm, the S.I. unit for thrust is the Newton...

Filip De Vos




Shsss! The Chinese may hear you...Jim is trying to lure them into
building a Mars orbiter the NASA way!

Pat

"jeff findley" wrote in message
...
"Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx writes:

The Chinese venture is clearly a PR stunt based on the misguided belief
that
launching people into space will put them in the technological
forefront.
Some space technology has its applications on Earth, but most of it is
very
specific for the task so the returns will be limited, especially since
the
U.S. and the Soviet Union developed most of the needed equipment and
technology 40 years ago.

And this is different from NASA how? The US clearly has no "vision"
of what to do in space. Spending today is bound more by political
inertia and the preservation of jobs in key states (key in terms of
politics).

What will be interesting will be the political reaction to this
flight. The US reaction will be predictable (it's a "stunt", they're
not a real space power). However, James made a good point that China
could definitely become the world's second place space power.

So that would make the US 3rd?



Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

jeff findley wrote in message ...
"Dholmes" writes:
A very interesting article that provides a good look at the Chinese program.
Both the Chinese and the Russians show what can be do on a tight budget if
you keep it simple.

And if you have cheap workers.

Jeff

Not that cheap .. a lead engineer with a foreign degree ( often PhD)
and 5+ years experience would get 7-10K RMB per month or $10,000
-$15,000 US per year. A normal engineer half that and an unskilled
labourer gets $1-1.6K per year.

Ben

jeff findley writes:

"Dholmes" writes:

A very interesting article that provides a good look at the
Chinese program. Both the Chinese and the Russians show what
can be do on a tight budget if you keep it simple.

And if you have cheap workers.

Comparing $ is completely meaningless.

A much more useful comparison would be based on how much of a
particular resource a country allocates for a certain program.

F.e. if you have X "engineer years" what proportion of that is
allocated to the space program? Of course those figures are a
bit harder to come by.

--
Manfred Bartz