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Two Crews For Tiangong
"We've recently had another short "up periscope"
moment in monitoring China's human spaceflight program. This latest scan, produced from some Chinese media statements, suggests that the Tiangong space laboratory will be launched in 2011, and three Shenzhou missions will be sent to it in the future." See: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Tw...ngong_999.html |
#3
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Two Crews For Tiangong
On Mar 8, 2:56�am, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 3/5/2010 9:21 AM, wrote: "We've recently had another short "up periscope" moment in monitoring China's human spaceflight program. This latest scan, produced from some Chinese media statements, suggests that the Tiangong space laboratory will be launched in 2011, and three Shenzhou missions will be sent to it in the future." See: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Tw...ngong_999.html What I can't understand is what this whole thing is about; unless Tiangong has some sort of a military mission it is to perform, it's so small as to be pretty much worthless for a manned space station, or even building a multi-modular design using this small of component modules - you would end up making a large number of booster launches to build a little space station where the crew would be constantly going through hatchways between the small modules. They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to make even a small station really practical. Pat microgravity experiments are ideally performed in small unmanned laboratories, with occasional crew visits. this was orignally proposed for nasa, but they choose the large manned type that ended up as ISS. People moving around mess up microgravity experiments. hopefully they will get somer real results unlike nasa who only has excuses |
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Two Crews For Tiangong
Pat Flannery wrote:
What I can't understand is what this whole thing is about; unless Tiangong has some sort of a military mission it is to perform, it's so small as to be pretty much worthless for a manned space station, or even building a multi-modular design using this small of component modules - you would end up making a large number of booster launches to build a little space station where the crew would be constantly going through hatchways between the small modules. They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to make even a small station really practical. Does it have to be practical to stoke national prestige? rick jones -- a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only" these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
#5
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Two Crews For Tiangong
On 3/8/2010 10:33 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to make even a small station really practical. Does it have to be practical to stoke national prestige? After a while it will have to be, as it won't be possible to get any more propaganda value out of it by doing the same thing over and over. Each of the Salyut stations did a little more than its predecessor till you ended up with Mir, which was a pretty slick little space station when everything was working right, though it kept its crew busy just keeping everything running with little time left to do productive research The Chinese station bears a strong resemblance to this never-deployed Soviet concept that was to be used for manned reconnaissance from orbit: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soyuzr.htm It was a cheaper alternative to Almaz that didn't require Proton launches. Pat |
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Two Crews For Tiangong
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message dakotatelephone... What I can't understand is what this whole thing is about; unless Tiangong has some sort of a military mission it is to perform, it's so small as to be pretty much worthless for a manned space station, or even building a multi-modular design using this small of component modules - you would end up making a large number of booster launches to build a little space station where the crew would be constantly going through hatchways between the small modules. They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to make even a small station really practical. It's pretty obvious that the size of the station is constrained by the size of their launch vehicle. The first mission to their station will be unmanned to test rendezvous and docking. Without first testing this technique, it's a bit difficult to build a station with more than one launch. In other words, they're taking baby steps. They seem to be about as advanced as the Soviets were in the early 70's (e.g. they're testing unmanned docking similar to the first Progress docking to a Salyut). The Chinese seem to lack a launch vehicle big enough to put a Salyut sized station in orbit on one launch. Jeff -- "Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National Lampoon |
#7
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Two Crews For Tiangong
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message dakotatelephone... Those are exactly my thoughts on the matter; rather than being some sort of imminent threat to the US in space, the Chinese have a manned space effort that is so minimal in its aims and so slow moving in its accomplishments that it barely exists. Without getting a larger booster into service they are pretty much stymied in what they can do, and to get funding for that larger booster it will have to be shown that it has real commercial capabilities for satellite launching, an area in which it will run into a lot of international competition. Agreed. And even if they were aggressively developing an HLV, a bigger space station, and even lunar landing plans, they'd still be duplicating feats that the US and Soviets accomplished in the 1960's and 1970's. In other words, they'd still be 30+ years behind. That's why I LOL when someone in the US uses the Chinese as a reason that the US has to maintain the lead in space or "they're going to overtake us". Yea, right! Jeff -- "Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National Lampoon |
#8
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Two Crews For Tiangong
On 3/9/2010 7:09 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
It's pretty obvious that the size of the station is constrained by the size of their launch vehicle. The first mission to their station will be unmanned to test rendezvous and docking. Without first testing this technique, it's a bit difficult to build a station with more than one launch. In other words, they're taking baby steps. They seem to be about as advanced as the Soviets were in the early 70's (e.g. they're testing unmanned docking similar to the first Progress docking to a Salyut). The Chinese seem to lack a launch vehicle big enough to put a Salyut sized station in orbit on one launch. Those are exactly my thoughts on the matter; rather than being some sort of imminent threat to the US in space, the Chinese have a manned space effort that is so minimal in its aims and so slow moving in its accomplishments that it barely exists. Without getting a larger booster into service they are pretty much stymied in what they can do, and to get funding for that larger booster it will have to be shown that it has real commercial capabilities for satellite launching, an area in which it will run into a lot of international competition. Pat |
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