OT: future of a manned space exploration.

[oleg]

Apparently, it is not all gloom and doom:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3112322.stm

Go, China, go !!

[Loser]

Yeah, the U.S. needs some competition, needs a new Space Race. Then we'll see somthing worth talking about.

[Roanon]

Yes!! I guess when Mars is official target for 5 billion chinese settlers money for the space programm would mysteriously appear out of nowhere. A lot of money.

[ September 16, 2003, 14:47: Message edited by: Roanon ]

[Baron Munchausen]

You know, there was a lot of exploration activity by the Chinese in the 15th century. They sailed to India and Africa, and there are some controversial claims that they reached the Americas from the west before Columbus found them from the east. But a new Emperor came to power and had a fit of superstition, so he shut down the expeditions and China went back to its more traditional isolationism. Soon after these strange, pale foreigners began to appear in their primitive sailing ships. Before long those foreigners were everywhere trading and staking claims. From the early 16th century it was only downhill for China.

Now it looks like we've got a deja vu on our hands. The US and Russia started the space age. But Russia has fallen on hard times and can't afford to maintain a serious space program anymore, and the US just plain isn't interested. Only Europe and Japan also have the resources to do any serious space exploration but they are also barely interested. Will this era be written up in the history books as the 'lap' by the formerly 'lapped' runner? Will China now go forward into serious space exploration and leave the so-called 'advanced' west behind?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

add asteriod mining to my fictional show...in the hopes that the average consumer realises that space exploration CAN be profitable...

[rdouglass]

As long as they don't use pirated / knock-off software to control the ship.... Of course, then where will the profit be...

[Fyron]

There is a hush hush military space program in the US that gets something like 10x the funding of NASA...

[oleg]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There is a hush hush military space program in the US that gets something like 10x the funding of NASA...

Stargate ?

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There is a hush hush military space program in the US that gets something like 10x the funding of NASA...

That's probably Aurora, the replacement for the SR71. It's reputedly a 'ramjet' or 'scramjet' and given the performance levels it must sustain to do what is claimed I can believe it would cost as much as or more than the shuttle. If it does what the rumors say it is very close to the 'orbital plane' they are talking about for a shuttle replacement.

The reason for the lack of support for the public Version might well be the existence of the secret one. Rather than make a big public commitment to this technology the intelligence/military community would certainly rather that it be kept quiet so their potential targets don't realize it is possible and start planning to defend themselves against it. Spy satellites became dramatically less useful once various enemies learned about timing their activities between their predictable passes. If they realized that a 'plane' could fly at 200,000+ feet they would know to point their radar up high enough and watch for it. Knowing it's there lets them hide their activities even if they can't shoot it down. A major advantage in surveillance could be lost.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by oleg:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There is a hush hush military space program in the US that gets something like 10x the funding of NASA...

Stargate ?

---

No, a real program.

BM, I forget what it is called, but it is a full blown agency similar to NASA, not just a single project. And all military applications of course.

[ September 16, 2003, 23:34: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]