
China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission - bing_dai
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37670842
======
devy
According to the plan as stated in the article, China is planning to have its
own space station in 2020. By the time ISS is scheduled to retire in 2024 [1],
China could very well be the ONLY country who will have space station.

[1] [http://www.space.com/24208-international-space-station-
exten...](http://www.space.com/24208-international-space-station-
extension-2024.html)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Who cares? I'd rather have more rover and deep space missions and non-LEO
manned missions than the propagandist wins of a floating bucket in LEO. Space
stations aren't progress, they're just money wasters with a roadmap that leads
literally to nowhere - being burned up in the atmosphere.

I never understood this mentality that when the US is between launchers
everyone suddenly has a renewed appreciation for last-gen achievements. We did
the LEO psce bucket with the ISS. It leads to nowhere and had questionable
space science utility. Its not a stepping stone to anywhere[1]. We're building
the SLS and investing in SpaceX, Blue Origin, ATK, Sierra, and ULA to get out
of LEO and to have a variety of spacecraft on tap. Nations still stuck in LEO
with 60+ old launch systems are going to be left behind and they shouldn't be
applauded for it.

A few years of downtime will be forgotten the same way we've forgotten the
time between Apollo and the STS. Meanwhile, anti-US biased people will dance
during this peroid and project questionable attitudes like the US not being
interested in space (No one comes close NASA's achievements, missions, and
budget) or how the US is declining because a pig like Soyuz can still fly to
LEO.

[1] by the time the ISS was built we had enough know-how to do things like
permanent moon bases and other achievements that were within our technical
grasp but not within our political one. Its very easy to vote for splitting
the bill on a space station with a bunch of other countries. Its a whole other
thing to propose risky things like moonbases and to have them funded by
Congress. Thankfully with the SLS and SpaceX we're back to doing risky things.

~~~
spapin
This year, China will have their maiden flight for 2 new rockets CZ-5, CZ-7.
Launched a new space station: Tiangong2, is making steady progress in their
space program.

Russia is developing Angara-5, a new rocket that made its debut in 2014.
Russia upgraded in 2016 its soyuz capsule and is working on a new design
crewed vehicle.

Europe started developing its Ariane 6 next gen-launcher, following the
success of its current Ariane 5.

Europe also landed on a comet earlier this year.

I am less versed in Japan launch schedules, but they also have a strong
program.

During this time, US is developing reusable launchers that land on their
launchpad.

Space is a global effort and every country is participating in this
exploration. Each has strengths and weakness. For instance, USA can land
rockets but cannot send crew in space.

There is no more a 'me versus them' situation in space development. Everyone
works somewhat together. Russia sends US astronauts in orbit. US refuels the
ISS with Cigna cargo. Antares engines are Russian RD-181. The service of the
orion capsule is made in France and Germany. The Chinese spacecraft is derived
from Russian Soyuz.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Don't forget India.[1]

1\. [http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/23/asia/india-space-shuttle-
succe...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/23/asia/india-space-shuttle-success/)

------
Symmetry
The US should really be looking at cooperating more with China in space. Not
wanting to help them with rocket technologies is understandable but there's no
reason they shouldn't participate in the international space station or its
successor.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
There have been security concerns about sharing space technology with China,
versus with Japan and Europe. Russia is also not highly trusted, but on the
other hand their space technology is regarded as equal to ours, so there's not
much security risk to cooperation.

Probably moving forward, China will move into the top tier of space powers
alongside Russia, the U.S., Japan, and western Europe, and ahead of India
(which has its own program albeit with a lower budget).

At that point, cooperation between China and the West would be mutually
beneficial. One thing China brings to the table is a very low cost program;
they seem to be able to do launches for one tenth the U.S. budget.

~~~
varjag
> One thing China brings to the table is a very low cost program; they seem to
> be able to do launches for one tenth the U.S. budget.

This is incorrect. SpaceX Falcon 9 has lower launch costs than Chinese Long
March, and it's as American rocket as they get.

------
yohann305
Am I the only one that feels that China is helping in motivating the world to
put efforts into Space Exploration?

Good job on China for pulling this off and helping Mankind.

~~~
EdSharkey
Yeah, and as soon as a U.S. Senator makes a floor speech lamenting that "the
Chinese are beating us at our own game!", I expect that the pork will start to
roll and U.S. Aerospace industry will be thanking the Chinese as well.

~~~
hawkice
I would take even odds against you on that bet. While the US would like to be
seen as gearing up to take on China, most policy is driven in the direction of
symbolism and a desire to have China step up so the US can step down in
international affairs (a much more likely scenario is a renewed emphasis on
North Korea as China's most potent regional security threat).

The American space program has been doomed for so long that it's hard to
imagine a single speech would turn anyone around.

More generally, this outlook is part of why the TTP is staggeringly unpopular
-- developing a soft power base in Asia, independent of China, simply isn't
worth sacrificing _anything_, no matter how small, in the eyes of both the
American public and it's current major party nominees.

------
Animats
Right now, the US has one person in space. China has two. The US has no manned
launch capability.

~~~
ChuckMcM
An interesting, if somewhat disingenuous perspective. Japan has one person in
space, no manned launch capability, Russia has one person in space, with
manned launch capability.

I think of the Soyuz system as the "B-52 of space capsules", conceived in the
50's, first flown in the 60's, and kept flying by incremental avionics updates
to the present day. Which makes for a well understood system.

In many ways the Chinese system is an offspring the Soyuz system, while great
efforts are made to stress it is a completely Chinese design, clearly they
have made many design choices which were directly inspired by the Soyuz
capsules, from how the solar panels are attached/deployed to the mass
fractions allocated to various parts of the system.

I expect that is for the same reason that Boeing's CST looks like a bigger
version of Apollo, because Boeing had all of the Apollo data already and it
was perhaps easier for them to start from there and tweak rather than take it
from the a blank sheet. I find it particularly interesting that SpaceX's
Dragon, Blue Origin's New Armstrong, and SNC's Dream Chaser manned capsules
are quite a bit different both from each other and previously flown designs.

So what I see is that the US will shortly (as in within 12 - 18 months) have a
variety of manned space launch capabilities, some of which will have targeted
return to base capability.

The odd duck out here are the Russians as they really don't seem to have a
replacement for Soyuz either in the works or anywhere close to being deployed.
That surprises me as they certainly have the expertise to build such a system
and they will be at a tactical and strategic disadvantage when both the US and
China can launch crews with greater on orbit maneuvering options.

~~~
Alupis
> The odd duck out here are the Russians as they really don't seem to have a
> replacement for Soyuz either in the works or anywhere close to being
> deployed

Perhaps this is because they don't really see a need for a new vehicle (Soyuz
meets mission requirements just fine), let alone the benefit of having
partially re-usable rockets?

Partially re-usable rockets require special launch/recovery procedures (ie. a
"smart" barge parked in the ocean somewhere, or worse, over land someplace
risking the population), a whole lot of R&D, a new untested vehicle, and no
guaranteed payoffs (SpaceX's cost reduction and re-usability claims are yet to
be proven).

The Soyuz, as you've pointed out, is fairly inexpensive (given it's mission),
and is very well understood. From their perspective, it seems, the Soyuz is
the ideal craft for the job, and any new build would largely result in a new
craft meeting the same mission goals, ie. a waste of time and resources when
they already have a vehicle that fills that need.

As of ~2013, Soyuz has about 939 successful launches, 24 failures, for a total
of 963 launches[1]. Seems to be a "recipe" one doesn't want to tinker with.

[1] [http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/how-many-
succe...](http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/how-many-successful-
soyuz-launches-have-there-been)

~~~
mikeash
I don't think the Russians see "over land" as a particularly big obstacle.
Right now they just drop their spent first stages on land without much
guidance. Before launches from Baikonur, they send out soldiers in helicopters
to warn the nomads, and otherwise it's pretty much every man for himself.
Salvaging the spent stages is apparently a bit of a cottage industry there.

Just a bit of a nitpick, your overall point here is entirely sound.

------
m_mueller
Why isn't China using its southernmost locations for equator proximity, like
the US does? Not enough distance to heavily populated areas?

For example, are these islands owned by the PRC?

[https://www.google.co.jp/maps/dir//21.1143616,115.9785889/@2...](https://www.google.co.jp/maps/dir//21.1143616,115.9785889/@21.1144381,115.9434835,13z/data=!3m1!4b1?hl=en)

~~~
paradite
According to a Chinese source [1] that I just Googled, 2 main reasons:

1\. Need enough distance to populated area. This has to take into account of
the situation where something goes wrong in soon after the launch, when rocket
is still close enough to the ground to cause damages. The launch location that
you see is in the middle of the desert, so it is suitable.

2\. Need to consider the landing location. The choice of landing location is
limited by the launch location. This launch location allows for suitable
landing location which are safe and far from populated area.

[1] [http://www.weidu8.net/wx/674945](http://www.weidu8.net/wx/674945)

~~~
m_mueller
(2) is a good point, I never thought of that. So, if KSP is giving the right
hints here, it seems like the inclination needs to be pretty exact because
they don't have any delta-v left to adjust it for the landing. Maybe South
China Sea water landings are not considered because of territorial disputes?

------
anders098
Missing the old days that US and USSR competing on space and innovating tons
of new technologies for mankind. Now what do we got, Snapchat, Instagram,
Uber, Airbnb and we call that innovations?

------
hanoz
Massively off topic but I hate the BBC's recent penchant for using the main
event as backdrop for a piece to camera. Do other countries have to put up
with this ridiculous trend?

~~~
botskonet
That really bugged me, especially with an event like this. Would I rather
listen to some dude yelling or a rocket launch? Hmm...

------
melling
It's great that China is excited about space. Hopefully, they get soon excited
about Nobel Prizes, and basic research. They could easily double the world's
output of research.

~~~
nebula
I could be completely off the mark here, but is it wrong in my part to assume
that China may not necessarily have the right environment for basic research
to flourish? The way you mentioned the "China being excited" translates to
"Chinese authorities deciding to push basic research". That will no doubt get
human and other resources allocated for it, but is it sufficient? China, and
USSR may not be a fair comparison, but I feel China is much closer to how the
USSR functioned, of course with the added opening up of the economy, and
probably economic freedom within the country (The two missing pieces that led
to bankruptcy of USSR). Now, let me explain the reason why I brought this
comparison here. USSR in its day probably matched the west in defence, and to
some extent space tech, but did USSR produce any original major basic research
breakthroughs? Basic research is not amenable to top-down push and needs an
environment where ideas and expressions of those ideas have freedom. Anyway
those are passing thoughts I had when I read your comment.

~~~
T-A
The USSR had world-class mathematicians and theoretical physicists. A partial
list of household names among the latter:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Alexeyevich_Abrikosov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Alexeyevich_Abrikosov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Bogolyubov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Bogolyubov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Cherenkov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Cherenkov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Faddeev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Faddeev)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Fock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Fock)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaly_Ginzburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaly_Ginzburg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Gribov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Gribov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Ioffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Ioffe)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau)

~~~
nebula
Thanks a lot for the pointers. Many here have already pointed that I am buying
too much into the "free market" propaganda; may be I was indeed brainwashed
into buying that, but I am trying to open my eyes and learn. AFAICT, there
seems to be strong correlation between wealth/prosperity of a nation and the
openness of its economy. Are there any counter examples to this? Coming to
back to the original topic, is it fair to say there is no strong correlation
between development of science and freedom of thought? Well, it may be true if
the state does not repress the ideas being produced under science; I can now
see why that might have been the case under USSR, and even in China.
Scientific thought being largely apolitical may not have to be repressed by
authoritarian regimes. Any holes in this logic? Sorry for being naive!

~~~
vkou
> AFAICT, there seems to be strong correlation between wealth/prosperity of a
> nation and the openness of its economy.

Countertexamples: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Haiti, China vs India, China vs Brazil,
Authoritarian South Korea vs Democratic South Korea.

Generally, it's not simple - there's a lot of factors at play that influence a
country's economic prosperity.

~~~
gnipgnip
India is not really open; sure it's a "democracy", but it's really a de-facto
feudal state, often with very little private property rights, and a
bureaucracy that would put the Vogons to shame. It's not clear if contemporary
India is better than contemporary China in any social/economic aspect (other
than possibly allowing a free-movement of its people).

Indeed considering that India's literacy rate is bettered by regimes like
Myanmar and DPRK, one wonders why India is being played up, when in reality
the only real comparison at this point is with other lower-middle income
nations in Africa. This is not to say there is prosperity in cities which are
essentially brought up to serve English-speaking nations, but to replicate
this across the country[1] will likely lead to a further fall in education
levels (this obsession[2] gets back to my "feudal" point). Unlike
manufacturing in China, India can't ever extend the service economy (other
than e-retail) to its own market.

While some may romanticize Modi's plebeian origins [3], it must be inferred
from his policies that he remains yet a handmaiden of the feudal powers that
put him into power. I have been to (native?) universities in India, and level
of ignorance/acceptance of the current situation baffles me to no end. It
should be noted that, considering the stiflement of economics in India, a job
in the state apparatus is seen often as the entire point of life outside the
IT realm.

Don't fall for all the propaganda being spewed from India for self-flattery,
and from America for its "Asian pivot". The reality is much more nuanced and
murkier.

[1] [http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-
policy/indi...](http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-
is-going-to-be-a-services-driven-economy-nilekani-116073000289_1.html)

[2] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/11/06/the-
problem-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/11/06/the-problem-with-
the-english-language-in-india/)

[3] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/how-
english...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/how-english-
ruined-indian-literature.html)

~~~
maverick_iceman
India's backwardness is the result of decades of socialist policies.
Restrictive license permit raj, inefficient and wasteful public delivery
system, inflexible labor laws are some of the reasons that have kept India
hobbled up.

~~~
gnipgnip
Myanmar, DPRK, Vietnam etc. were less "socialistic" than India ?

Words, words, words, how they trap us all.

------
blisterpeanuts
Very impressive; congratulations to China on another successful manned launch.

The article reports that their space budget is $2 billion a year, an
impressively modest budget (assuming it's accurate).

This should be a kick in the pants to the U.S. to get its own manned space
program back in operation, after a hiatus of 5 years.

------
gnipgnip
Awesome work China!

------
maverick_iceman
I wish someone was working on nuclear propulsion technology with Isp of
1000-10000km/s. Chemical rockets are a dead end for space exploration even
within the solar system.

------
intrasight
It is really amazing what China has accomplished in a short period of time -
especially given that the Cultural Revolution sort of threw them back to the
stone age.

------
paradite
One interesting observation about what the narrator said at the beginning
section of the video:

 _" It's not something a journalist is normally allowed to experience in this
country."_

I understand that you do not like certain aspects of my country, but do you
really need to squeeze in comments like that when covering a spacecraft
launch?

Edit: It was referring to the visit to the "secret launch base", so it is
technically a fair statement. Still, the tone bothers me.

~~~
hackuser
A journalist's job is not to give anyone or anything a pass.

You can identify a good publication because everyone, on all sides of an
issue, thinks the publication is out to get them. Both the Clinton and Trump
camps think that about the NY Times, for example. In a way, a good way, it's
true.

~~~
paradite
That's a fair and nice argument. I do think BBC is a fine example of covering
all sides of an issue.

My only complain is that sometimes the narrator's personal sentiments get
mixed up with the factual reporting.

~~~
hackuser
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I'm afraid we still don't quite agree
(not that agreement is necessary):

>>> _" It's not something a journalist is normally allowed to experience in
this country."_

> My only complain is that sometimes the narrator's personal sentiments get
> mixed up with the factual reporting.

The statement you quoted doesn't seem personal to me; it's not about the
reporter's experience but about the experiences of journalists in general. And
it's factual, not opinion or sentiment.

