China invites other countries to Tiangong station

[czokletmuss]

"China is willing to provide training and open the Chinese space station to foreign astronauts, senior space flight officials said. "We would like to train astronauts from other countries and organizations that have such a demand, and we would be glad to provide trips to foreign astronauts," said Yang Liwei, deputy director of China Manned Space Agency. "We will also welcome foreign astronauts who have received our training to work in our future space station." Yang, China's first astronaut, who went into space in 2003, said many countries submitted proposals to the Chinese government during the development of the space station, hoping China would help train their astronauts and then send them to the station to conduct scientific experiments. "The effect of including foreign participants in our space programs is not only that these nations can send their people to outer space, but also that we will enable them to develop their own space projects." Yang made the remarks during the five-day United Nations/China Workshop on Human Space Technology, which opened in Beijing on Monday."

source: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2013/09/now-you-can-fly.html (China Daily)

Imagine the situation when after ISS deorbitation the only targets left in LEO are new Russian station and modular and bigger version of Tiangong. Unfortunately, it's quite possible to happen - there are no real plans regarding the new space station in NASA as far as I know. I'm afraid that after SLS cancellation there will be big problems with funding a new space station even if such idea gains political support. I wish that for example Exploration Gateway Platform or similar ideas (like Skylab-2 made from SLS fuel tank) will be realizied. Besides, the Tiangong open to foreign astronauts kinda mess up the Bigelow's plans, doesn't it?

[Motokid600]

SpaceX's space launch system was canceled? And why deorbit the space station? Why not just keep it up there and build off of it? Then take apart older, obsolete modules and deorbit them?

It seems like a massive waste. But either way Americans are not going to like the idea of the Chinese and Russians orbiting above their heads ( as if anyone actually looks up anymore ). There is fuel for another space race here. The right things have to fall into place.

...I hope Seth McFarlene and Niel DeGrasse Tyson do a good job with COSMOS 2014. People NEED TO GET INVOLVED. And they won't have a choice America WILL watch this show. It's airing primetime on Fox lol. America should be the head of the spear when it comes to space, but we are not and that SHOULD bother people.

That being said..GO CHINA. The more humans get involved in space the better.

Edit- Does SLS stand for Saturn Launch System?

Edited September 24, 2013 by Motokid600

[czokletmuss]

Edit- Does SLS stand for Saturn Launch System?

It's Senate, err, Space Launch System (http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html#.UkHiXRBinqI) and it's the refurbished remnants of the Constellation program. Which probably will be canceled since it'll cost too much for NASA to afford it - if you're interested, I recommend this article about the costs of the SLS http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2330/1

And no, SpaceX continues to operate but where will it transport the crew and cargo when ISS is destroyed? And it won't be up there idefinitely with $3.2 billion of taxpayers money every year. Not that this is my money but still Currently there are no real plans what to do after ISS deorbitation in NASA - with giants like SLS/MPCV and JWST there is simply not enough money. And I really doubt that NASA will get more anytime soon - I would rather expect cuts or status quo.

Edited September 24, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Mr Shifty]

Interesting thing about NASA budget is that budgeting for NASA is historically very high right now (disregarding the anomalous Apollo years):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

[lajoswinkler]

Well maybe if USA stops spending so much on we know what, things would be better. Now we can only say "oh how the mighty have fallen", but without the mocking part. I'd really like USA to be #1 in space.

China's space program reminds me of Klingons getting hands on warp technology. Socially undeveloped grabbing advanced stuff - to have more chest thumping fuel.

[czokletmuss]

Interesting thing about NASA budget is that budgeting for NASA is historically very high right now (disregarding the anomalous Apollo years):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

Nominally, yes. But if you include inflation and projects-gigant like JWST (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Reported_cost_and_schedule_issues) it doesn't look that good at all.

Edited September 24, 2013 by czokletmuss

[LaydeeDem]

Well maybe if USA stops spending so much on we know what, things would be better. Now we can only say "oh how the mighty have fallen", but without the mocking part. I'd really like USA to be #1 in space.

China's space program reminds me of Klingons getting hands on warp technology. Socially undeveloped grabbing advanced stuff - to have more chest thumping fuel.

Did you seriously just call China undeveloped? lol...

Anyways, this is good news, seeing as NASA wants to stick to chasing asteroids instead of better plans like Skylab 2.

[lajoswinkler]

Did you seriously just call China undeveloped? lol...

Anyways, this is good news, seeing as NASA wants to stick to chasing asteroids instead of better plans like Skylab 2.

Yes. China is a socially poorly developed country. Technologically not so, but it's still way below Western societies. If you don't believe me, ask hundreds of people in prison camps, or people working in large cities unknown to the Western people, contaminated with heavy metals and poisonous air. After all, they're responsible for out "green technology" at steep, but still very cheap prices relative to the realistic prices in the case it was really green.

The whole country is nothing but a huge dragon made out of paper.

[Rockhem]

If china shut down the US would be no more, so many of our products come from china and we don't have the infrastructure to make it ourselves. And prison camps? nope that is North Korea not China. And contaminated with heavy metals and poisonous air? (ok i will give you that one). But most western countries think that not the same as the U.S= poorly developed.

They aren't poorly developed, just different. China practically owns the US and if it shut down today, by next week the US would be no more.

[Albert VDS]

China practically owns the US and if it shut down today, by next week the US would be no more.

Everyone owns everyone in one way or an other; import, export, neighboring countries, etc.

It's a domino effect if one falls.

What lajoswinkler is getting at is that China doesn't care too much for human rights.

[czokletmuss]

Human rights topic and how USA or China treat them isn't really the topic of this thread so let's not start political offtopic. Let's just focus on space, not Tibet or Guantanamo, okay?

[lajoswinkler]

I was actually pointing out towards both the economic and social development. We aren't talking about politics. This is about economy.

China is not a developed country. It is currently in a transitional state. There's massive production with great disregard against the human resources and the nature. (and yes, there are prison camps, but let's not get into that)

It's a large country with extremely uneven distribution of wealth. One can not judge a huge country by looking at its capital city with huge buildings and shiny lights.

There are lots of people in poorly developed cities ("small town" in China has like half a million of people, get it?) that we've never even heard of. It's huge country largerly unknown to outsiders.

China's current success lies in mass production without caring for environment. They make everything. Everytime someone needs a product, China will step in and make tons of it for low price.

The whole country is like a hive, where an individual means nothing. There's lots of people. Expendable people. More than a billion of them. Nobody cares if someone can't work in a factory for a low wage. If he kills himself, he will be replaced. And they do kill themselves. The stress is huge. Some companies have started to install safety nets below factory windows just to avoid people commiting suicide on the premises because that's expensive. If they kill themselves at home, nobody gives a ****.

The average quality of life and wealth is much lower than in the West and no amount of media propaganda can change that fact. If you've noticed, in the last few years we have an avalanche of Chinese press coverage of firefighters rescuing kittens from trees and similar stuff. What a load of hooey.

Their space program is actually a copy of Soviet program. As most stuff, they copied that, too. Copied, bought, copied, copied, copied.

Edited September 25, 2013 by lajoswinkler

[LaydeeDem]

What exactly are you trying to get at? I thought this thread was about the Tiangong space station?

Edited September 25, 2013 by Nutt007

[Mr Shifty]

Nominally, yes. But if you include inflation and projects-gigant like JWST (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Reported_cost_and_schedule_issues) it doesn't look that good at all.

Those figures on the wikipedia page are in constant 2007 dollars, i.e. adjusted for inflation. My point was that NASA is pretty heavily funded right now, contrary to popular perception. It's probably true that funds could be prioritized better, but NASA does not have complete control over that. And if you look at the 2013 budget presentation, you'll see that JWST consumes less than 5% of NASA's budget. (Contrast with the ISS, which consumes something like 20%.)

China practically owns the US and if it shut down today, by next week the US would be no more.

China currently owns about 7.6% of outstanding US government bonds. It's the largest foreign holder of bonds (Japan holds very slightly less), but hardly a majority partner. Most US bonds (about 66%) are held by US government accounts and private US interests. It would be more accurate to say that all those Chinese holdings (>15% of Chinese GDP) tie the performance of the Chinese economy very tightly to decisions made by US economic policy makers. In other words, the US has far more power to wreck the Chinese economy than vice versa. (The US also has an economy that is twice the size of China's even though it has less than 1/3 as many people.) Think of it this way: the Chinese have traded (continue to trade) a bunch of real, tangible goods to the US in exchange for a bunch of pieces of paper. Who got the better end of the deal?

Their space program is actually a copy of Soviet program. As most stuff, they copied that, too. Copied, bought, copied, copied, copied.

Who cares? The Orbital Sciences Antares rocket that just last week launched the most recent commercial payload to the ISS used re-furbished NK-33 engines from the abandoned Russian N-1 program. One person's borrow or steal is another's collaboration. No competent engineer designs from scratch when there's a perfectly good working model extant. And China has been launching satellites using their own Long March rocket family since 1970, jump-started probably by Chinese-Soviet cooperation in the early 60's, but completed after the Sino-Soviet split in 1963.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Mr Shifty

[lajoswinkler]

What exactly are you trying to get at? I thought this thread was about the Tiangong space station?

We were commenting the unfortunate issue that NASA is losing the prime role in the space industry. The Borg-like nation of China is slowly consuming everything and I'm puzzled about the consequences of that when it comes to space.

We all know they're negative if terrestrial endeavours are considered. New technologies of power generation and transportation require ores mainly deposited in China. That's bad news for economy of other countries.

[Kryten]

The Borg-like nation of China is slowly consuming everything and I'm puzzled about the consequences of that when it comes to space.

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to how much more Mr. Superior First Worlder here consumes than the average chinese person? Ten times? Twelve? Where do you think all of those 'consumed' raw materials are going? They're being turned into useless gadgets and shipped to people like you, the drivers of demand; who then proceed to throw them away when next year's model arrives, before using said model to complain about how all of the world's problems are everybody's fault except your own. After which, incidentally, last years model is probably going to be either re-used or recycled by someone in China.

[Diche Bach]

Why do we need a space station?

Why does it matter if China/Russia have space stations and U.S. doesn't?

Not trying to be difficult, just asking seriously: so what?

One can acknowledge that space work has contributed immensely to the human condition without assuming that (at this stage) we should or must continue on the same trajectory.

Point to me a list of 5 things that LEO space stations have accomplished that are truly irreplaceable? Show me how a failure to continue to pursue those same trajectories will likely be harmful. Maybe such things exist and NASA is just really crap at the public relations side of pointing out how essential their mission is to the betterment of American, and Western and human life?

I'll speculate a bit. We're all space geeks (naturally given we are members of a space game forum!) so we are generally going to be pro-space. We are a pretty "pro-Western" bunch on here too, so it is also natural that we'd lament the 'fall' of the U.S. / West from the "leading role" in space stuff. But what if we are not being objective? What if the end of current Western LEO work is really rather inconsequential at this stage? Seems to me, the technology to put stuff into orbit and beyond more cheaply is the singlemost important thing, in terms of space work, and assuming of course that space work should take precedence over other stuff.

[lajoswinkler]

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to how much more Mr. Superior First Worlder here consumes than the average chinese person? Ten times? Twelve? Where do you think all of those 'consumed' raw materials are going? They're being turned into useless gadgets and shipped to people like you, the drivers of demand; who then proceed to throw them away when next year's model arrives, before using said model to complain about how all of the world's problems are everybody's fault except your own. After which, incidentally, last years model is probably going to be either re-used or recycled by someone in China.

I'm not an example of a Westerner you're trying to depict, but I get the gist.

Do you think that current Chinese foreign economy policy is smart in the long run? It's massive overproduction of useless stuff using nonrenewables. What good does that bring to the society? They're heavily polluting their environment (carcinogenic soot and organic chemicals, mercury and radioactive contamination from huge number of coal plants) they're creating a highly frustrated society and destroying their valuable resources. They're digging their own grave.

I don't see they're interested in something better. I don't see this is a transitional plan for them. They seem happy with ever increasing hive policy which has no sustainability in it.

[czokletmuss]

Those figures on the wikipedia page are in constant 2007 dollars, i.e. adjusted for inflation. My point was that NASA is pretty heavily funded right now, contrary to popular perception. It's probably true that funds could be prioritized better, but NASA does not have complete control over that. And if you look at the 2013 budget presentation, you'll see that JWST consumes less than 5% of NASA's budget. (Contrast with the ISS, which consumes something like 20%

Thank for the link, this is very interesting. However my point is still valid I think - when you have a big but rigid budget (SLS/MPCV + ISS + JWST + salary = not so much for anything else than PowerPoint) it's hard to overcome new challenges. And even if ISS part of the budget is released after ISS decomission it doesn't have to be used for a new station.

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to how much more Mr. Superior First Worlder here consumes than the average chinese person? Ten times? Twelve? Where do you think all of those 'consumed' raw materials are going? They're being turned into useless gadgets and shipped to people like you, the drivers of demand; who then proceed to throw them away when next year's model arrives, before using said model to complain about how all of the world's problems are everybody's fault except your own.

Avarage USA citizen consumes during the year 6.95 tonnes of oil equivalent; in China the consumption equals to 1.69 ton of oil equivalent. Which is mostly imported from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuala and Russia. And of course, the culture of consumerism is much more developed in the West than in China. But what all of this has to do with Tiangong station?

We're all space geeks (naturally given we are members of a space game forum!) so we are generally going to be pro-space. We are a pretty "pro-Western" bunch on here too, so it is also natural that we'd lament the 'fall' of the U.S. / West from the "leading role" in space stuff. But what if we are not being objective? What if the end of current Western LEO work is really rather inconsequential at this stage? Seems to me, the technology to put stuff into orbit and beyond more cheaply is the singlemost important thing, in terms of space work, and assuming of course that space work should take precedence over other stuff.

Exactly my thoughts. History shows us that everything changes - not so long ago (several centuries) China and the Far East in general was THE civilization of the world, leading in almost every aspect. Than came age of discoveries, colonialism, industrialism, capitalism and now the West dominates. It's just the way it is. Look at the USA - backward confederation on the peripheries of the civilized world transformed into the leading superpower in few centuries. World is always changing so we shouldn't be taking anything for granted. Personally I wish Chinese and Russians and every other space agency best luck. It's not a cold war, you know, and China isn't some kind of an Evil Empire - besides, a lot of people could say the same thing about USA hegemony. Remember, you can't see the borders from space - they are only in our heads

Edited September 25, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Kryten]

Right, no signs of a transitional plan.

Share of service industry's value added to GDP up from 40.3% in 2005 to 43.3% in 2010;

Share of employment in service industry up from 31.3% to 35.3% in 2010;

Share of research and development (R&D) spending out of total GDP up from 1.3% in 2005 to 2% in 2010;

Urbanization rate up from 43% in 2005 to 47% in 2010.

[in the first quarter of 2013 s]ervices accounted for a record 47.8% of GDP, overtaking industrial output at 45.9% for the first time. The figure for industry includes construction[.]

Nothing to see here.

[Diche Bach]

Exactly my thoughts. History shows us that everything changes - not so long ago (several centuries) China and the Far East in general was THE civilization of the world, leading in almost every aspect. Than came age of discoveries, colonialism, industrialism, capitalism and now the West dominates. It's just the way it is. Look at the USA - backward confederation on the peripheries of the civilized world transformed into the leading superpower in few centuries. World is always changing so we shouldn't be taking anything for granted. Personally I wish Chinese and Russians and every other space agency best luck. It's not a cold war, you know, and China isn't some kind of an Evil Empire - besides, a lot of people could say the same thing about USA hegemony. Remember, you can't see the borders from space - they are only in our heads

China has a long way to go to get near Western standards of justice, due process, equal opportunity, and freedom; and I certainly am not here to say "yah China." Don't see how them or anyone else putting more LEO space stations into orbit does anyone any real good, but especially a police state still operating on questionable ethical grounding . . . but that is for a different thread (in another forum I think).

I think you've missed my point: what I'm asking is --> Space stations? Who cares?

What exactly have the space station(s) done for me? (or any of us)?

So China puts up a space station and invites other people to come visit it; so what? Apart from a PR stunt what does this really accomplish?

Apart from taking the next step and starting to build some sort of true permanent high orbit industrial or science facility (which would necessarily be multi-national both for ethical and fiduciary reasons) I don't see the point of more 'shanty towns' in low Earth orbit. If the Chinese or Russian oligarchs manage to squeeze a few drops of public approval out of a nationalist euphoria about a space station, whatever, but in the grand scheme of things, and at this stage in human history more of what has already been done seems pretty pointless, if not wasteful.

Until we can do some real stuff in space (build a factory that can actually produce widgets more cost effectively than they can be produced on Earth; else build a lab that can achieve scientific goal X, Y or Z which either cannot be achieved on Earth or can be achieved in space far more efficiently) then all this current manned space stuff just strikes me as shuffling our feet and keeping the bureaucracies and their engineers and scientists in work.

[tom1499]

Remember, you can't see the borders from space - they are only in our heads

This. This is what we need to think. Not 'EAST IS SUPERIOR. NO WEST IS A DEVELOPING COUNTRY SO HANDICAP. BLAHBLAHBLAH.' I hate to be a hippy but: peace and love and stuff. ANNYYYWAAYY- peace unfortunately doesn't solve problems. I say go China for inviting everybody to the party! SPACE DISCO! The ISS is getting kinda old and creaky. We need to -as a Planet- do something cool. International uhh... Space Disco or something. Got to mars. Go to the Moon. do cool stuff. Fly a quadcopter in space. Launch a giant tube into upper Earth Orbit. Pressurize said tube. Spin Tube. SPACE HOUSE. -I'm blabbing again now.

[PlasmaticInc]

Tiangong one flies over my house every few nights

[WestAir]

China is offering aid to other countries interested in getting into space? Who here has Kim's number. North Korea has to get on this bargain before China changes her mind!