For those who sneered that the recent Chinese space mission was only a repeat of something we did 40 years ago, try this out for size:
Now China Plans to Send Three People Into Space
BEIJING (Reuters) - Basking in glory after its first manned space launch, China has set its sights on putting three people into space for a week, the China News Service said on Tuesday.
A space official who worked on the October 15-16 voyage that made China only the third country to rocket a person into space, said preparations were under way for the next in the Shenzhou, or "Divine Ship," series, the semi-official news agency said.
The Shenzhou VI was expected to blast off within the next two years, it reported.
Of course, this could all be just so much commie propaganda, but what if it isn't? The first Mercury launch was in 1961. The first Apollo launch was in 1965. That's four years. If the Chinese get their 3-man crew up there in 2005, they will have cut the time in half. Of course, I realize that there's a more significant difference between Mercury and Apollo than the number of crew on board. Nowhere does the article say that they'll be doing any of the EVA's (space-walks) or docking maneuvers that NASA pulled off in the intervening Mercury and Gemini years.
Still, it's an interesting development. And enough to make me think twice before categorically denying that a new space race might be in the works.
Posted by Phil at October 28, 2003 10:26 AM | TrackBackDont' forget, Mercury and Appolo were built from scratch. The science and technology has been around for 40 years now. Given the resources at their disposal, which are immense, cutting the time to 1/10th would be possible with a space-race type drive. It seems to me they are being cautious.
Posted by: John at October 28, 2003 08:33 PMIn terms of the hardware they've developed for their first manned spacecraft, it would be more accurate to say they simply skipped Mercury and Gemini and went directly to Apollo... they just flew it understaffed on the first flight (as we did with Shuttle, come to think of it). Remember, they also did a significant orbital change on their very first flight -- something we had to wait for Gemini to do ourselves.
Shenzhou can not only carry three crewmen, but it is also configured for docking and EVA exercises -- and the orbital module Shenzhou V left on orbit is a perfectly good target (provided it hasn't reentered before the next flight). Don't be surprised if they do more than just "three men for a week" next time.
It's not like they're reinventing the wheel or anything -- they're just validating their copy of the hardware.
Posted by: Troy at October 30, 2003 01:15 AM1965? No. Apollo 7 with Schirra et al was launched in October 1967. You are off by two years.
Posted by: Rod at October 30, 2003 09:02 PMRod,
My bad. The old memory ain't what it used to be. Anyway, that it was 1967 only re-emphasizes my point: they're doing in a couple of years what took us six to do.
Posted by: Phil at October 31, 2003 06:31 AM