Reaction to China's Space White Paper
Will China shame the US back to strong space program?, editorial, Youngstown Vindicator
“Indeed China cites the effect on national pride as well worth the cost of its massive investment. Its space program already has made major breakthroughs in a relatively short time, and it is on track to replace the U.S. as the leader in space-station development. Will we care? To be sure, much has changed in the U.S. since the launch of Mercury I, not the least of which is decreasing awe over 60 years of almost routinized manned space travel. One thing that has not changed, however, is that fierce competitiveness and drive for achievement that energized millions of American schoolchildren of the ’60s.”
Beijing’s space odyssey, editorial, Washington Times
“Today, America lacks that type of visionary leadership. If the United States somehow does reach Mars sometime in the 2030s, it will not be because of anything Mr. Obama has done. The way things are going, our astronauts on the red planet will be greeted by a Chinese welcoming party.”
China Releases White Paper – China’s Space Activities in 2011, SpaceRef
“Outer space is the common wealth of mankind. Exploration, development and utilization of outer space are an unremitting pursuit of mankind. Space activities around the world have been flourishing. Leading space-faring countries have formulated or modified their development strategies, plans and goals in this sphere. The position and role of space activities are becoming increasingly salient for each active country’s overall development strategy, and their influence on human civilization and social progress is increasing.”
Earlier posts
A quote from the Washington Times? Really? According to Wikipedia, it was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. In July 2010 international leaders of the Unification Church issued a letter protesting the direction the Times was taking and urging closer ties between it and the church.In August 2010, a deal was made to sell the Times to a group more closely related to the church.
Do you think they have an unbiased view of anything?
The fact that the ruling oligarchy in China is intent on economically and technologically dominating both the heavens and the Earth is no surprise.
Offhand, I would say that the Youngstown Vindicator article was written by someone with very little actual knowledge of the space programs, US or Chinese. 20 minutes with Google! could have given you a similar collection of half-truths and errors.
“much has changed in the U.S. since the launch of Mercury I” — is this a reference to the first planet mercury flyby or the failed Mercury-Redstone 1 mission? Either way, it’s not the significant milestone that this sentence needed.
“SpaceX — will attempt the first-ever commercial cargo run to the International Space Station” — Don’t ATV and HTV count? They were paid for by government money (like the upcoming SpaceX flight), but they were built by commercial companies.
This article shows once again that the internet’s biggest strength is also is biggest weakness — anyone can print anything without any sort of review or validation. Unfortunately, this adds to the mass of misinformation and outright nonsense that our televisions provide.
Steve
> Don’t ATV and HTV count? They were paid for by government money (like the upcoming SpaceX flight), but they were built by commercial companies.
The difference is the amount of money put up by the government vs. private investors (or the company itself). A commercial company fully paid by the government as a contractor becomes an agent for the government.
IMHO, if COTS or CCDev money for development gets too large, then there is no difference between these organizations as private companies and the traditional contractors. The private companies need to be kept hungry so they hustle to collect additional investors and customers.
CadetOne,
I see what you’re saying. I was thinking of it more in terms of who spec’d, designed and built the vehicles. If the commercial company does most of that, then I see it as almost off the shelf. But rethinking it in view of your comments, I guess the fact that the space agencies asked for something that didn’t exist to be built, and put up money, makes it a “purchased product” (a contract item) rather than off the shelf.
Steve
There is a significant difference in that under an SAA only the general goals are specified and the manufacturer has a lot of freedom, while under a contract a very detailed design has to be presented to NASA at periodic design reviews and changes made in response to NASA assessments.
Steve
ISSEU As just left a post for you in the old white paper china. Our spaceships were not intended to be one ship fits all. MODULAR!
thanks
you know we should be building spaceships right now not SLS and Orion so we can give the chinese exploration rides with all their money the same way the russians are taking us for a ride.
Any second thoughts on letting the chinese join us on ISS????
“A sense of fierce competitiveness with the then Soviet Union also energized those children and most all Americans. After all, the Soviets, through their launch of Sputnik I in 1957, essentially shamed the United States into its massive, multi-trillion-dollar goal-oriented journey into outer space. “
Multi-trillion????
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs (plus theSkylab space station) only cost $26.2 billion. In today’s dollars, according to the Augustine Commission, that would be about $139 billion. By comparison, the Space Shuttle/ISS program has cost America $208 billion and will still cost the US $3 billion a year even without the shuttle.
Statistics is a slippery subject. For example, one approach is to look at NASA’s budget as a percent of GDP (and not in inflation-adjusted dollars). I think it peaked in 1966 at ~0.75% of GDP, which would be roughly $105 billion per year today. I am sure NASA would be very happy with that budget.
One could (should?) also add in all the space-related money by the military (again, measured as a percent of GDP). Pretty soon, those dollars look huge.
But I’ve never seen anyone do that type of calculation (all government spending on space-related activities as a percent of GDP and then apply to today’s GDP), so I’m guessing the reporter just pulled this number out of his/her rear end or there was a typo.
Apparently few US newspapers can be bothered by the issue, thus the marginal nature of these.
Here are some better ones – with excerpted comments:
http://io9.com/5872662/chin…
“Assuming the Chinese are serious, which recent history suggests they
are, then I believe the impact could be game-changing,” – Ken Pound, Leicester University, UK
http://www.eurasiareview.co…
“While the fund crunch and lack of political support continues to cast a
shadow over the US space programme, China has no problem mobilizing
massive resources required to boost its space programme.”
“To add to the concern of the US, China matched America’s number of
launches during 2010 for the first time. And during 2011, it
accomplished more than 20 orbital missions, making it the second country
after Russia to log such a large number of space launches. “
China is clearly not in a race. It is launching only about once a year. It’s goal is to provide a source of national pride and showcase its industrial technology. Racing the US to the moon would serve no purpose for China. If they lost they would look incompetent, if they won they would irritate their biggest customer. A race would certainly serve no purpose for the US; we are deeply in debt and we want our tax cuts, so we would have to borrow the money- from China.
“It is launching only about once a year” – China had 19 launches last year.
Marc when I try to use my Ipod to make comments there is no link to login?? I did logout of my pc so it wasn’t that.
I was referring to manned launches. Virtually all the Chinese launches are for more practical purposes like spy satellites, navsats, comsats, and one or two science missions.
Currently China has an income tax (only on the wealthy) of about 45%. If we are going to keep demanding tax cuts, we simply do not have the money for moon race.
Actually, they’d be racing Japan and India to the Moon. The US already won that race. Now its time for the US to win its water rights on the lunar surface.
We agree again
Elon will need about 10 falcon heavies missions to get a drill a biglow outpost and a few humans on the moon from 2015 through 2025
Don’t wait on SLS to go to the moon because by the time they/NASA gets that porker flying you and I will both be DEAD!!!!!
DTARS
As a large centralized Socialist government, China would naturally have a ‘clear vision’ of a unified and nationalistic space program as well as the capitol to fund it. The Party Leaders want to flex the Chinese muscles and go to the moon, so the People will do it. In America, we are dealing with one of the most challanging economic periods in the last 50 years. The American people are not especially keen on funding the next big space race when there is real fear of how we are going to be able to pay our debt down and fund our retirements over the next 10 – 20 years. All the big NASA plans of the past five years have had to be re-evaluated and re-worked to reconcil with the harsher economic times. The NASA way of old just won’t cut it anymore. A bit hard to have a clear vision with so much uncertainty and change, is it not? I think we are beginning to see a clearer private sector vision and the public sector (NASA, Congress) are struggling to adjust. Or at the least, remain flexable enough to be able to co-exist and benefit from the private sector.
Steve
I was just looking at the post where you were asking about the reasons for humans to be in space.
You said
Is it settlement, resources, science, exploration, safety of the race, a psychological need, what? What is the real value of having humans in space?
My answer to your question is YES!!!!
When I compare Tinkers recoverable reusable lifter Idea to the complete throw away monster our foolish space program is wasting all my precious tax dollars on, I just get ANGRY!
When I realize the Orion people that could be building reusable spaceships are building billion dollar capsules, I just get ANGRY!
I see the Chinese will be ready to give us rides in their big reusable spaceships as well : (
Why don’t we/USA build a reusable spaceship soon?
AWAKE UP AMERICA!/CONGRESS/NASA
When I compare Tinkers recoverable reusable lifter Idea to the complete throw away monster our foolish space program is wasting all my precious tax dollars on, I just get ANGRY!
When I realize the Orion people that could be building reusable spaceships are building billion dollar capsules, I just get ANGRY!
I see the Chinese will be ready to give us rides in their big reusable spaceships as well : (
AWAKE UP AMERICA!/CONGRESS/NASA