DocM Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 China has a mission plan to be on the moon by 2025. NASA only plans on an Apollo 8 style flyby by then, and commercial flights may beat them to that - perhaps as soon ss 2017 (a Soyuz + hab flight.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted November 18, 2011 Author Share Posted November 18, 2011 Shenzhou 8 has returned to Earth after performing 2 automated dockings with Tiangong 1. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-11/17/c_131253643.htm Shenzhou 9 (unmanned) flies early in 2012 and Shenzhou 10 (manned) will fly after, also in 2012, for their first manned docking mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted November 18, 2011 Author Share Posted November 18, 2011 Post-touchdown pic of Shenzhou 8's crew return module. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nukenorman Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I think Chinas space program in the future will be bigger and more powerful then Russia or USA. They are growing so fast and will have the worlds largest economy with no debt. It is said China will have the most spending cash for projects like these. Russia has alot of experience but in time I think China will catch up. Americas space program is finished. usa can send still send some unmanned probes to space but they don't have any shuttles and are not capable of sending humans to space at this point in time. You dont really have a space program if your not even capable of sending a human into space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted November 18, 2011 Author Share Posted November 18, 2011 Hate to burst your bubble, but they're still at the Gemini (US)/Almaz (Russia) stage of development. Shenzhou and Tiangong are great designs, but they have a long way to go. China's admitted they can't compete with SpaceX's launch costs and they don't have a medium-heavy launcher - the Long March 3B tops out at 6,000 kg to low Earth orbit and the Long March 5-504 (25,000 kg - same as Shuttle) is years off as the Long March 5 launch facilities won't be ready until at least 2014. Even then the first few years will be confined to smaller versions than the 5-504. By comparison; Falcon 9 (10,450 kg, reportedly up to 16,000 kg in the next block) is flying now, and Falcon Heavy (53,000+ kg) is scheduled to be ready in early 2013. If it can avoid cancellation by whim of the bureaucrats, the NASA Space Launch System will loft 70,000 kg in 2017-2020 and 130,000 kg a few years later. Improvements to Atlas V will put it in the 30,000 - 40,000 kg class. Otherwise; China's economy is also a matter for concern as they're also facing an internal real estate bubble - they built several entire cities that now stand vacant, and this is causing their inflation rate to explode. That and there are going to be heavy pressures for them to properly value the Yuan, which would put their products into a lower state of competitiveness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 yeah, wouldn't count on China's economy as some kind of ironclad wonder...they're heavily dependent on consumption in other markets. but that's besides the point, they are active in space and are promoting it for all of humanity. i find nothing to fault here, i don't care if the technology for now isn't new or innovative, at least they're active, and i do believe they will stick to their plan of manned moon missions by the early 2020's if not sooner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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