![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Date set for China's first manned launch!
Oct. 8th, 2003 02:04 pmChina has set October 15th for their first manned launch.
If all goes well, China will become the third nation to launch a man into space, following Russia and the US.
If their lunar program goes as most analysts seem to think it will, then within 15 years it will become the second nation to land a human on the moon.
One interesting thing about the Chinese rockets is that they have an orbital module which is separate from the descent module. The orbiter will stay up after the crew leaves, and is able to be maneuvered from earth. While there is much speculation about what will be done with these orbiters, most analysts seem to think that they will continue ongoing experiments before being plunged into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. But I am reminded of an old plan, never implemented by NASA, to give the shuttle tanks just a bit more boost to put them into a stable orbit, then eventually tie them together to be used to build a space station. I wonder if China hasn't revived this plan, and is thinking of doing something similar with their orbiters. Once they're up there, it seems such a waste to just burn them up again, when they've already done the hard part by getting them into stable orbit.
If all goes well, China will become the third nation to launch a man into space, following Russia and the US.
If their lunar program goes as most analysts seem to think it will, then within 15 years it will become the second nation to land a human on the moon.
One interesting thing about the Chinese rockets is that they have an orbital module which is separate from the descent module. The orbiter will stay up after the crew leaves, and is able to be maneuvered from earth. While there is much speculation about what will be done with these orbiters, most analysts seem to think that they will continue ongoing experiments before being plunged into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. But I am reminded of an old plan, never implemented by NASA, to give the shuttle tanks just a bit more boost to put them into a stable orbit, then eventually tie them together to be used to build a space station. I wonder if China hasn't revived this plan, and is thinking of doing something similar with their orbiters. Once they're up there, it seems such a waste to just burn them up again, when they've already done the hard part by getting them into stable orbit.
