China Launched!

[Aoidoi]

This is excellent news indeed! I hope the Taikonaut makes it back safely.

Agreed.

As others have pointed out, I hope this reinvigorates the space race. I read somewhere that China has plans to make a Moon base. If that doesn't get Europe and the USA up on their toes, nothing will. Excellent stuff!

I have yet to hear a good case for a moon base... it's not useful as a stepping stone to further exploration and I don't think there's anything up there worth setting a base up for.

As far as this achievement leading to MRV ICBMs, I thought China already had these? They ceratinly have ICBMs and have had them for a long time.

My understanding is that they had ICBMs but they were very inaccurate (like, aim for Chicago and hope it hits the US accurate) and what was given to them improved the accuracy.

Again, I'm not an expert, this is just what I've heard.

 

[xouper]

Aoidoi: I have yet to hear a good case for a moon base...

What is your opinion of the case made by O'Neill (and others), especially his point that with an appropriate infrastructure, manufacturing in space will be more economical with resources from the Moon (aluminum, oxygen, silicon, titanium, iron, glass, ceramics, etc) than to lift them out of the Earth's gravity well.

• Gerald K. O'Neill, "The Colonization of Space", Physics Today September 1974, p. 32.
  
• Gerard K. O'Neill, "The High Frontier", William Morrow and Co., NY, 1977; Anchor Books (Doubleday) 1982.
  
• O'Neill, Gerard K.; Driggers, G.; and O'Leary, B.: New Routes to Manufacturing in Space. Astronautics and Aeronautics, vol. 18, October 1980, pp. 46-51.

 

[Cleon]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: China Launched!

Blah blah soooooooo stupid blah blah blah extreme leftist blah blah check your brain at the door.

Sorry, dude, I have a personal policy of trying not to get baited into flame wars. Saves money on blood pressure meds.