China rockets forward in race to moon

[unhappycamper]

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/08/world/asia/florcruz-china-space/index.html?hpt=ias_c2




Long March-3B carrier rocket blasts off from the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on December 20, 2011.

China rockets forward in race to moon
By Jaime A. FlorCruz, CNN
March 9, 2012 -- Updated 0247 GMT (1047 HKT)

Beijing (CNN) -- Watch out, America. China is steadily catching up in space.

Between June and August this year, China plans to launch its manned Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and then rendezvous and dock with a space lab which has been orbiting the earth since September.

Three astronauts will undertake the voyage, but one of them will not board the space lab. He will remain inside the spacecraft as a precautionary measure in case of emergency.

It will be China's first crew expedition involving manual docking.



unhappycamper comments: It appears that CNN's tack to the right is the culprit.

Lesley (aka Wolf) and the rest of the talking heads have successfully dumbed down CNN reporting to the point you need to check a fucking (real) history book before you can believe anything they say.

Case in point: "China is steadily catching up in space". The United States no longer has a working civilian space program, so anytime anyone puts a man in space they are "catching up". D'oh.

[regnaD kciN]

1. "Race to moon"...?

Hate to break the news to them, but that "race" ended forty-three years ago.

[Zanzoobar]

3. Reminds me of the old Cold War joke about the race between the Russian and American.

The American won.

American papers reported it as, "American wins race". Russian papers reported it as, Russian takes 2nd place, American finishes next to last."

[bananas]

5. Space Adventures will get to the moon in 2017, long before China

They'll be using a Soyuz capsule: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12281954

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Not exactly

We won the first stage of the race, but then we abandoned the effort.

Now the race is to establish a permanent presence there. It's a new race for even bigger stakes.

[leveymg]

2. CNN can't cover anything any more complicated than a tornado.

Some CNN talking head shows are okay, but their "news" coverage, particularly international, is pure propaganda hell all-the-time. CNN=Ministry of Truth. "We have always been in a space race with East Asia."

[spin]

4. Sadly it looks like we might be passing the torch to others ...

but in order to journey to the stars, someone has to lead.

Of course all the nations in our world have to find a way to live together in peace before we will achieve that goal. I feel it's a test. Developing the technology to journey to the stars also means that the civilization has the technology to destroy itself. Without the aggressive and warlike nature our civilization has here on the planet earth we would have never achieved the advances we have achieved in the time frame we have existed. Unfortunately we easily can burn bright for a short period and then explode and disappear.

Other far more advanced civilizations might well be observing and will view our failure as interesting but not surprising. They may well decide to just watch and wait without interfering with our outcome.

I feel that in order to achieve the ability to travel to near stars we will have to develop a functional world government and move away from nation states. Currently the chances of being able to do this are slim.

But then, I have often been accused as being a pessimist.

[bananas]

7. Actually, steady progress is being made, and we are still leading

Slow but steady progress is being made on the Orion capsule, heavy lift, commercial crew, and commercial sub-orbital.
We're the only country talking about sending people to Mars and the asteroids,
and we are developing the capability to do it.
Bush screwed things up so badly - mostly because of the money he squandered on unnecessary wars, and the screwy economic policies that further wrecked the economy.

[spin]

8. I agree that Bush the Younger screwed up by launching unneccessary wars ...

and the money he wasted and his failures during his term in office led to the Great Recession which will inhibit our ability to finance a visit the moon or Mars.

Personally I feel that we should first establish a base on the Moon before we journey to Mars. The lessons we learn from such a program would be vital to a Mars mission. Another positive might be the resources that we might find on the Moon such as helium-3.

helium-3

Lab experiments suggest that future fusion reactors could use helium-3 gathered from the moon.

Thursday, August 23, 2007
By Mark Williams


Hot gases: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Fusion Technology Institute are testing this fusion reactor, shown with a view of the grid in which interial electrostatic confinement takes place.
Fusion Technology Institute-University of Wisconsin-Madison

At the 21st century's start, few would have predicted that by 2007, a second race for the moon would be under way. Yet the signs are that this is now the case. Furthermore, in today's moon race, unlike the one that took place between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing.

Even more surprising is that one reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3--purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth--from the moon's surface. NASA's Vision for Space Exploration has U.S. astronauts scheduled to be back on the moon in 2020 and permanently staffing a base there by 2024. While the U.S. space agency has neither announced nor denied any desire to mine helium-3, it has nevertheless placed advocates of mining He3 in influential positions. For its part, Russia claims that the aim of any lunar program of its own--for what it's worth, the rocket corporation Energia recently started blustering, Soviet-style, that it will build a permanent moon base by 2015-2020--will be extracting He3.

The Chinese, too, apparently believe that helium-3 from the moon can enable fusion plants on Earth. This fall, the People's Republic expects to orbit a satellite around the moon and then land an unmanned vehicle there in 2011.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/19296/

Could the moon provide clean energy for Earth?

July 21, 2011|By Steve Almasy, CNN

Gerald Kulcinski has a big problem.

The nuclear engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin needs a rare element to fuel his research into a fusion reactor.

But the cost of the isotope -- helium-3 -- is rising faster than a rocket headed to space. A few years ago it was $1,000 a gram, this year it is $7,000 and next year, well, he assumes it will be tens of thousands of dollars.

***snip***

The thing is that there are tons of helium-3 -- on the moon. About 1 million tons, Kulcinski said, adding that we also have a pretty good idea as to where the 3He is on the moon.
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-21/tech/mining.moon.helium3_1_helium-3-nuclear-weapons-fusion-research?_s=PM:TECH