How about we have another space race?

[johnd83]

China will launch its first manned mission to an orbiting space laboratory in mid-June, according to state media reports and the country's human spaceflight agency.

A Long March 2F rocket will launch three astronauts aboard a Shenzhou 9 capsule for China's first manned space docking at the mini-space station Tiangong-1. The space lab module has been circling Earth unmanned since its launch last year.

"The Shenzhou 9 will perform our country's first manned space docking mission with the orbiting Tiangong 1 space lab module," the Xinhua news agency quoted Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's manned space program, as saying June 9.


Zhou's comments came as he accompanied the rocket set to launch the Shenzhou 9 mission to a pad at China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest region.

The mission, Zhou told Xinhua, will be a major milestone for China's space exploration program.

*more*

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47749798/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.T9PwycXu5ZQ

Our economy and technological development has stagnated as of late, and a major investment in research is needed to get us out of our stagnation. The economic prosperity 90s and earls 00s was partly due to the invention of powerful PCs and the internet, which led to economic activity. Unfortunately we only do research as a country when we are scared of someone else. This worked great during the cold war. I don't agree with the reasons, but the outcome from the research investment has been spectacular.

The result of this is that we, unfortunately, need to scare half the country into investing in science and engineering. The threat of a Red Mars should be plenty. The investment in a real space race combined with policy changes to help with the economic problems would probably be enough to get us out of this mess. But we need to scare people into the correct action, because we as Americans accomplish great things when we are scared...

[Motown_Johnny]

1. SpaceX V. China ?

I'd watch short news reports about that race.

[johnd83]

2. I am a big fan of SpaceX, however

they are not a research organization. They have done a lot of tech transfer, but I don't think they will have the capability to build first generation interplanetary craft. They can however potentially build heavy launch vehicles so we don't have to waste money on the PorkLifter.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. Agreed, but since China is nearing it's first attempt to put people into orbit

and SpaceX is nearing it's first attempt to put people into orbit it would seem that this is the only race at the moment.


I am a supporter of unmanned exploration. I don't see any reason to waste the time, money and, inevitably, lives just to have people experience things first hand instead of through a camera.

It just isn't worth it until we have much more advanced technology.

[Politicalboi]

3. We keep trying to

Legalize Marijuana, but they still say NO!

[SoutherDem]

4. We never should have stopped after Apollo

We acted as if we step on the moon and it is time to go home. I remember watching the video CBS made on the 25th anniversary of Armstrong walking on the moon. It had footage taken while they were still in orbit of people saying it was now time to use all that money for something else.

I know we had the shuttle and a large part of the ISS is ours but we should be on Mars by now, we have simply given up.

I too like what SpaceX is doing but for us to not have a heavy lift vehicle or a way to take people to the ISS ourselves is a real shame.

With one of the two political parties being Anti-Science I don't see another space race.

By the way living in Alabama I have been to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center many times. I remember while visiting there was a chart showing how much the NASA budget cost each citizen and it really was less than $1. Then there was a chart showing the economic benefit from NASA technology and it was somewhere $12 for each $1 spent, and remember all of that technology is given away to private companies. I would think the Republicans would be funding NASA right and left if for no other reason than the give a way technology.

[boppers]

8. "for us to not have a heavy lift vehicle"

We do.

We, as a species, have quite a few, coming from quite a few nations.

Nationalism doesn't work in a world where most everybody is a second or two away from communication.

[bahrbearian]

5. I would kn ow how they developed all that Technology so quickly?

Last edited Sat Jun 9, 2012, 11:16 PM - Edit history (1)

[phasma ex machina]

6. The space race was yet another fear based promotion in an era thick with fear.

Fear of atomic bombs. Fear of Communism. Fear that Vietnam was the first domino. Fear that Russia was ahead in the space race and that it was only a matter of minutes before atomic bombs rained down on America from space.

All of that ambient fear made yesteryear's space race an easy sell.

Today's mass media struggles to make America fearful of China because everybody knows that the American war machine rules. America deploys half of the world's aircraft carriers, for instance, while China still struggles to launch its very first carrier, an old Russian tub.

[boppers]

7. "The threat of a Red Mars should be plenty."

The 1960's called, they want their propaganda back.

As far as your contention: " Unfortunately we only do research as a country when we are scared of someone else.", I don't buy into this line of thinking.

What fear caused us to sequence the human genome?
To make facebook?
Twitter?

I know the Internet was built on the ashes of ARPAnet, but to compare the modern web, to closed off defense networks, stretches credibility, as the Internet was based on *transcending* closed, fear based, networks.

Oh, and FWIW. mars is already known as "the red planet".

[johnd83]

11. All of those things you list are derived technologies

They are based on basic research that was funded by programs like NASA, DARPA, and NSF. The general public is only aware of the final result, however the basic theoretical knowledge and technological development is largely invisible. The technology used for the human genome took a lot longer to develop than the sequencing itself. Basic research has been cut to the bone since the end of the cold war because the general public doesn't see us as being in a race between civilizations for the best science/technology.

"Red Planet" I guess can be seen as a pun; during the Apollo days they used to talk about a "Red Moon".

[boppers]

12. "a race between civilizations" Kind of makes my point.

There's only one civilization left: the Human one.

Nationalisitic ugliness aside, we need a bigger enemy, and we already have one. It's our damn planet, and solar system. Unless we migrate off planet, our entire species, every achievement, every word of poetry, every great thing we have made, will be extinct in a few million years.

[Cave_Johnson]

9. We are in a space race...

We just happen to be losing.

[Starry Messenger]

10. Oh noes, Commies in Space!

What could possibly go wrong fomenting galactic red-baiting and xenophobia??

[JHB]

14. I think that would actually be a useful thing

1) It's a focus for research, development, and manufacturing.
2) It's an outlet for the MIC industries that doesn't revolve around more military gear. Give them something productive to do.
3) It creates the infrastructure to do just about anything.

A lot of people rightly laughed when Newt mentioned a moonbase, but real reason it was laughable was the notion of doing it without the sort of economy to back it up like in the Apollo days. A big project like that requires "Big Government", and a system of economic rules that works against the top grabbing every last cent in order to create the prosperity needed to support it. And that's not something Newt would have been willing to do, so from him the whole thing was hot air. It doesn't have to be.

[L0oniX]

15. ...because we have so much money for this.

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. TARP was more than the entire NASA budget since its inception. We've got the

money for anything we want, we just don't have enough people that understand that.