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Chinese space program (Shenzhou, Tiangong-2, Long March 5 and more)


Frogbull

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"Children are hungry" is in many ways a good argument as to why not to spend money on something... assuming that money is instead spent on helping people who are starving. I get a bit annoyed when it's used for countries like the US, though, who spend actually very little on space, which does have a lot of scientific value to bring, and have massive military budgets and a million useless things. There are always going to be some people in poverty, taking funding away from research is not the way to fix it, and unless you are a third world country where poverty is a major problem, cutting everything until people are not in poverty is just going to mean nothing new ever gets done.

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"Children are hungry" is in many ways a good argument as to why not to spend money on something... assuming that money is instead spent on helping people who are starving. I get a bit annoyed when it's used for countries like the US, though, who spend actually very little on space, which does have a lot of scientific value to bring, and have massive military budgets and a million useless things. There are always going to be some people in poverty, taking funding away from research is not the way to fix it, and unless you are a third world country where poverty is a major problem, cutting everything until people are not in poverty is just going to mean nothing new ever gets done.

Yes ... it is... the problem is Brazil is not a poor country anymore, only that our priorities are not in the scientic area (We've spent about 14-15 billion dollars on stadiums, can you imagine?). We actually have a decent economy today... Children are spending more time at school and hunger problems are almost extinct.

If we spent as little as 500million dollars on our space agency, we would have a running Satellite Launch vehicle (VLS-1 Veículor Lançador de Satélites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLS-1 ) and some left overs to start our manned program (maybe a partneship with China).

Instead, our very "smart" Politicians spent money on "Circus" stuff...

Edited by Necandi Brasil
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Yes ... it is... the problem is Brazil is not a poor country anymore, only that our priorities are not in the scientic area (We've spent about 14-15 billion dollars on stadiums, can you imagine?). We actually have a decent economy today... Children are spending more time at school and hunger problems are almost extinct.

If we spent as little as 500million dollars on our space agency, we would have a running Satellite Launch vehicle (VLS-1 Veículor Lançador de Satélites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLS-1 ) and some left overs to start our manned program (maybe a partneship with China).

Instead, our very "smart" Politicians spent money on "Circus" stuff...

I'm certainly not gonna get involved in the Brazilian political situation right now, with regards the World Cup preparations and the protests going on now... Hopefully that will get solved one way or the other :)

But, I did want to comment on the "left overs" to start a manned program. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) did a study for starting a manned program. It was estimated that to put an Indian in space, on board an Indian launcher, would cost ~$2 billion. I did not hear over what kind of time period they were talking, but, according to the wiki (Indian_space_program#Human_spaceflight_programme), are looking at 7 years.

Apparently, this does not fit with what the government is trying to do in space, which is to use space assets to improve the life of the Indian populace (through telecoms, weather forecasting and so on), nor would it improve Indian space science programs (which are already served by Chandrayaan etc).

And considering Brazil has yet to get to LEO, looking to fund a manned program at this stage, seems a little optimistic, to say the least. Not that it wouldn't be welcomed, I'm sure it would, just a bit early, considering the technology & funding currently available.

Edit: hmm Well, this is puzzling. Either the wiki is out of date, or the BBC reported it wrong, but, the wiki is suggesting the Indians were approving the manned program in 2009, with a possible launch in 2016. However, the times are slipping, and it may not happen before 2020. We will see. The more the merrier anyway!

Edited by tek_604
BBC or wiki correct? I don't know, now I'm confused :P
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I'm certainly not gonna get involved in the Brazilian political situation right now, with regards the World Cup preparations and the protests going on now... Hopefully that will get solved one way or the other :)

But, I did want to comment on the "left overs" to start a manned program. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) did a study for starting a manned program. It was estimated that to put an Indian in space, on board an Indian launcher, would cost ~$2 billion. I did not hear over what kind of time period they were talking, but, according to the wiki (Indian_space_program#Human_spaceflight_programme), are looking at 7 years.

Apparently, this does not fit with what the government is trying to do in space, which is to use space assets to improve the life of the Indian populace (through telecoms, weather forecasting and so on), nor would it improve Indian space science programs (which are already served by Chandrayaan etc).

And considering Brazil has yet to get to LEO, looking to fund a manned program at this stage, seems a little optimistic, to say the least. Not that it wouldn't be welcomed, I'm sure it would, just a bit early, considering the technology & funding currently available.

Edit: hmm Well, this is puzzling. Either the wiki is out of date, or the BBC reported it wrong, but, the wiki is suggesting the Indians were approving the manned program in 2009, with a possible launch in 2016. However, the times are slipping, and it may not happen before 2020. We will see. The more the merrier anyway!

"a little optimistic" is exactly the words I was looking for, lol.

Anyway, the more manned space programs competing the better. I wasn't born in the 60's so I missed the entire space race :( , I was hoping to see a race to asteroids, or even mars. It's all about the three "drivers" that Neil de Grasse always talks about...

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Hey guys! Yesterday I had a bit of a learning fever that is perfectly suited for this thread, so I'm going to trust you all to come up with some links to satisfy my curiosity and perhaps stimulate a few others'.

The thing is, I started a wiki search to see if there were more news about Tiangong 2 and 3, and as usual I ended up looking up rockets. And there is still very little information about Long March 5 (and 6 and 7), even though one of those with a <20mT payload is supposed to lift Tiangong 2 in just two years. So does anybody have some solid info on these rockets? Like payloads and engines, and how far along they are development. Any test flights soon? I know the Chinese space program is a bit secretive, but it's really hard to hide a rocket test, and there's really no point when you are using liquid engines not intended for ICBMs.

Also, why three families of rockets? Is there some competition between manufacturers, they can't decide on payloads, or what? Thanks for the multitude of links you will provide me in advance! :)

Rune. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but he died wiser.

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The next one goes up on long march 7. It's definitely very far in development, multiple complete first stages have been built and tested and and all engines are considered flight-qualified. First flight is planned for late 2014, major delaying factor is apparently construction of the new launch site. CZ-5 isn't doing as well, they hit setbacks with the hydrogen tankage, but they still think they can get a first flight in 2015.

It's not three families, they're actually all connected; CZ-7 cores are used as boosters for CZ-5, CZ-6 cores are used as boosters for the other two, and they use a common set of rocket engines.

Edited by Kryten
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  • 1 month later...
Ignoring any politics and any patriotic boasting I'm proud of them, it took a lot of people working very hard to get them to this point and no matter what there was definitely danger doing this.

I agree. It's quite an accomplishment. Independently, they've established a space program with goals and they are progressing. It may seem small compared to grandiose accomplishments like landing on the Moon or building the ISS, but these are pretty big steps and rapid progress for a nation that didn't have a space program to speak of until recently. I don't see why some people feel a need to make it a political issue; I simply admire the accomplishment.

I actually just picked up and built a Tiangong-1 model today. I have had a fondness for little space labs ever since Skylab when I was a kid. I came across this thread because I was thinking of building one in the game.

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  • 1 year later...
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