Chinese Manned Launch - Sunday

[Eric Mc]

Looks like China is preparing to launch a three man crew to dock with their space station this weekend.

There are a number of "firsts" connected with this mission -

First Chinese three man crew
First female crew member
First manned docking with their space station

The Chinese are marching on.

[nellyleelephant]

If you were to go back in time 40 years and suggest that this was a possibility, you'd been laughed out of town.

[davepoth]

nellyleelephant said:

If you were to go back in time 40 years and suggest that this was a possibility, you'd been laughed out of town.

Probably not. They had a manned space program back then, if Wikipedia is to be believed. It was cancelled after Mao Zedong's death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_space_program

[MartG]

Actually, it's today, in about 40 mins

http://spaceflightnow.com/china/shenzhou9/status.h...

[RegMolehusband]

There's a live feed here http://english.cntv.cn/live/ though it breaks up a lot for me.

[RegMolehusband]

15 minutes. The webcam into the capsule is good.

[jmorgan]

Missed it (looking at the BBC news site).

Hope they manage this. Between private enterprise and China then?

[speedtwelve]

The hatch is obscuring the instrument panel in the pic. Shenzhou has large colour flatscreen displays in front of the crew.

[Eric Mc]

Missed it then. Hope all went well.

[Eric Mc]

Following progress on various websites.

They docked with the mini-space station yesterday and all three crew transferred over. This is the first time since the demise of Mir that we have had two manned space stations in orbit at the same time.

[jmorgan]

Will they wave or bare bums out the portholes?

[speedtwelve]

jmorgan said:

Will they wave or bare bums out the portholes?

"That's no moon. It's a space station".

[Eric Mc]

speedtwelve said:

jmorgan said:

Will they wave or bare bums out the portholes?

"That's no moon. It's a space station".

Dobn't suppose they'll pass anywhere near each other. The orbital inclinations are quite different.

[scubadude]

Eric Mc said:

Dobn't suppose they'll pass anywhere near each other. The orbital inclinations are quite different.

No but they have a smokey old scooter to bring the takeaway round after the Yanks order one, if they take longer than 15minutes its free though.

[jmorgan]

speedtwelve said:

jmorgan said:

Will they wave or bare bums out the portholes?

"That's no moon. It's a space station".

[Eric Mc]

Laugh at the Chinese at your peril.

They mean business in space.

[Simpo Two]

It makes sense. The Chinese hoover all the money out of the West by selling them cheap goods, then build space rockets with the proceeds.

The only bit I don't see is who takes over when China gets fat and bankrupt like the West. Will we be back to a mediaeval subsistence society, bashing out bits of metal for 1p and selling them to the next superpower?

[jmorgan]

I wasn't laughing at the Chinese, the situation of two nations that still view each other with suspicion and the opportunities presented for a titter.


They have intent and the means.

[jmorgan]

Manual docking works then. Next step.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-1856711...

[Eric Mc]

Working well for them.