China to launch a man into space on Oct 10th?

[SpaceGuy]

Shenzhou-5 Single-Person Mission Could Be Launched On October 10.

SpaceDaily.com

China may launch its first astronaut October 10 sources at Xi'an Satellite Control Centre in Shaanxi Province were reported saying earlier this week. While the date remains unconfirmed, all evidence continues to point towards a launch in early October or late September in a bid to trump this year's National Day on Oct. 1.

This will make China the third country to have placed a human being in space. The new kid on the block has already expressed ambitious goals. Reaching the moon and Mars. With recent pictures from the red planet indicating abundant water just under the surface it may be a chinese astronaut who first walks there.

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[Creator]

Originally posted by SpaceGuy
[B. With recent pictures from the red planet indicating abundant water just under the surface it may be a chinese astronaut who first walks there.
[/B]

He wouldn't be the first to walk on water. Or do you mean the first to take a drink there?

Creator

 

[Labguy]

If they make their rockets as well as they make telescope objectives, do not volunteer to be the first astronaut to take the ride. Unless, of course, you are a rock-star willing to spend $20 million for a 4 to 5 mile ride before exploding...

 

[SpaceGuy]

The Chinese were the first to invent Rockets. I wouldn't be too suprised if they became the dominant spacefaring nation before very long. They certainly wouldn't be the first communist country to achieve that goal and they have made manned space exploration a top priority.

 

[FZ+]

Where there's a will (and plenty of cash, lots of enthusiatic/idiotic volounteers, a ruthless leadership, fanatical devotion to the mission), there's a way.

Labguy: But hey, one thing you can say about chinese technology is that they are cheap!

 

[SpaceGuy]

Yeah, totalitarian regimes do have a knack for cutting through red tape no matter what else we might say about them. Cheap access to space is what all its all about.

 

[Chemicalsuperfreak]

Good for them. Too bad we can't get our **** straight.

 

[kleinma]

i have a feeling NASA will never let itself slip too far behind... once another space agency does something to put NASA to shame.. they will probably get beefed up spending to stay on top of things... and even though we might not be flying shuttles right now.. the things that NASA is doing on the ground is still pretty impressive

 

[SpaceGuy]

You are probably right. The last time a communist regime threatened to dominate space exploration the United States sent men to the moon. Ofcourse, we haven't been back there in over 30 years but it sure was a pretty flag ceremony. We have some nice moon rocks too. No more Saturn V's or Lunar landings but lots of rocks.

 

[SpaceGuy]

Success.

Didn't that go well. I just stumbled onto this thread in a search engine just now and seeing that a Taikonaut has circled the Earth 14 times it seemed an opportune moment to comment on it. I love watching history happen. September 11 wasn't very joyous though. Creation is far more inspiring than destruction. China has created the worlds third manned space program and I hope this does kick off a new space race. Go China go.

 

[ranyart]

Originally posted by SpaceGuy
Didn't that go well. I just stumbled onto this thread in a search engine just now and seeing that a Taikonaut has circled the Earth 14 times it seemed an opportune moment to comment on it. I love watching history happen. September 11 wasn't very joyous though. Creation is far more inspiring than destruction. China has created the worlds third manned space program and I hope this does kick off a new space race. Go China go.

I watched the news-report..of the launch( with apparent debris raining down from the rocket shell just after take-off) to the decent of the capsule in a remote desert ( with apparent decent shute's inadicatly opened, so the decent was to rapid!) to the china-naut emerging from the capsule obversly bemused and heavily concussed!

The chineese are masters of cutting through the Red tape as stated, this was apparent in the launch-orbit-decent footage released to the worlds media, all of which showed the whole exercise to be propaganda based, with an obvious of large amount of 'red-[safety]-tape' missing? revealing enormous gaps.

Having said this, I hope and wish they progress in a manner and spirit that will benefit the whole world, without any secret agenda's.