China's space station

First congratulations to China. It has to be supported by many high technologies, so it does polish the image of China Inc.

Besides the prestige, it is not a lot to be gained from the investment that US and Russia have found out. What do you gain from a journey to Mars? We have a lot to be done in planet earth like pollution, food, product safety/quality… Hope China will keep the space exploration to a minimum but never terminate it so we can all dream. Never use the station for military purpose.

Space exploration has no defined benefits. So are many pure research in many areas. We can learn from the history of the US space program.

* What are the new products invented due to the US space program? There are some but not profitable compared to the cost of the program.

Most technologies in consumer electronic products are invented in US, but Japan and now Korea take them to the market and benefit from them.

* Shuttle (a good program in concept but not practical in the start) and the space station is a waste of money and again which products are developed due to these two programs and how many obsolete/disabled satellites have been retrieved? US gambled too much on the shuttle program and abandoned the rocket vehicle.

* Our government just pretty much shuts down our space program. Remember it is the turtle who wins the race. Being a developing country, China could be the only country having a space station by 2020. Incredible?

Chinese are far behind from US/west in space exploration. However, if you consider this program is only about 10 years old (longer depending on how you determine the start date), the progress is astonishing, so we cannot say China is 50 years behind.  Another argument is that shooting down a satellite that US could not do 50 years ago.

Although US/west do not share the technologies such as the docking with China, many components such as computer chips are more advanced than 50 years ago.

We should not start a cold war in space program with China. We still decades ahead of China. However, we're cutting funds and China is moving forward. China has not say a word on the superiority in space program. Most of us know that and Chinese know that. It will take a larger rocket to life tons of space station to space.

Many space scientists lose their jobs and their desire in fund cutting and many students lose their dreams.  It is our policy keep on changing every 4 or 8 years. We've gambled too much on the shuttle and lost that's ok but not with the changing policy.

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A good link.


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The song is clearly American the Beautiful. It is not the first time that CCTV screws up.



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Resume from an unemployed NASA researcher:

Years of valuable, classified experience. PhD and considered to be the top scientist in the world. Abandoned by my country due to poor management and stupid politics. Will work for peanuts in any place in this planet and beyond. Desperate, proud, dedicated, heart-broken, patriotic but confused. Screwed by my ex company's office politics, ambitious but not practical objectives, kiss-ass leadership... Reply to my broken trailer or see me, an old man with thick glasses, carrying a sign asking for a dollar in the highway leading to the Cape's deserted launch pad.