Chinese Manned Space Launch (live thread as situation develops)

MSNBC/AP ^ | 10-14-03 | AP

[struwwelpeter]

Check out post #70.

[Calpernia]

0400 GMT (12:00 a.m. EDT)

According to the Xinhua news agency China's first words from space were "I feel good". The nation's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, radioed the words to mission control 34 minutes after lifting off aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.

Yang is expected to return to Earth, landing near Siziwang, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the Inner Mongolian capital Hohhot, after a 14-orbit, 21-hour flight.


0700 GMT (3:00 a.m. EDT)

The Xinhua news agency reports that China's first space traveller, Yang Liwei, has taken a rest and eaten a traditional Chinese meal of diced chicken with rice cooked with "nuts dates and other delicacies." A drink of "medicinal herbs and tonics" is also on the astronaut's menu. The agency reports that he will take another three-hour break on the spacecraft's 9th and 10th orbits.

The Shenzhou 5 spacecraft is equipped with a sleeping bag attached to the wall of its orbital module compartment.


0820 GMT (4:20 a.m. EDT)

Recovery teams are searching a vast area downrange of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center looking for a "black box" that recorded telemetry that could not be transmitted to Earth during the launch of Shenzhou 5 aboard a Long March 2F rocket, according to the Xinhua news agency. An 800 kilometer swathe from the Badain Jaran Desert in Inner Mongolia to Yulin Prefecture in Shanxi Province in north China will be searched for the recorder and other debris from rocket. The so-called black box was housed in the first stage of the launcher.

Meanwhile, Xinhua also reports that three recovery ships, Beihai No.102, De Kun and De Yi, have been ordered to return to port following the successful launch. The news agency said the vessels would have been used should the Shenzhou-5 have made an emergency splashdown in the ocean due to a malfunction during launch. The report did not disclose where the ships were stationed.


1020 GMT (6:20 a.m. EDT)

China's President Hu Jintao has hailed the success of the Shenzhou 5 launch as "an honor for our great motherland, an indicator for the initial victory of the country's first manned space flight and for a historic step taken by the Chinese people in their endeavour to surmount the peak of the world's science and technology."

The president, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, witnessed Wednesday's launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

"The Party and the people will never forget those who have set up this outstanding merit in the space industry for the motherland,the people and the nation." said Hu.


1100 GMT (7:00 a.m. EDT)

Yang Liwei, on his sixth orbit of Earth aboard Shenzhou-5, has spoken with China's defence minister Cao Gangchuan.

Liwei, a 38-year-old lieutenant colonel in the People's Liberation Army, could be seen aboard the capsule on screens at the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center during the conversation.

"On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, the State Council and the Central Military Commission. I would like to send my warmest regards to you and show my gratitude for your great contribution to our nation's space mission," Cao said.

"I will strive to complete my tasks well and ensure the full success of the mission," Yang told Cao.

Yang also offered greetings to people around the world, according to Chinese media reports.


1255 GMT (8:55 a.m. EDT)

Within the last hour, China's Yang Liwei has called his family in Beijing from his orbiting Shenzhou spacecraft, according to Chinese media reports.


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2003
1350 GMT (9:50 a.m. EDT)

The Chinese media has published accounts of Yang Liwei's conversation with his family earlier today.

"I'm feeling very good in space, and it looks extremely splendid around here," he told his wife Zhang Yumei, who also works in the Chinese space program.

Speaking with his eight-year-old son, he said: "I caught the sight of our beautiful home [the Earth] and recorded all what I've seen here."

The astronaut also displayed the five-star national flag of China and a United Nations flag during a television broadcast from space that appeared on the front screens in mission control.


SOURCE: http://spaceflightnow.com/shenzhou/status.html

[A. Pole]

Communist leaders hope the history-making launch will boost China’s standing abroad and, more important, help the party’s image among a populace weary of corruption and other abuses.

That strategy didn't work for the Soviets, and it won't work for the Chicoms, either.

Why? It did help Soviets. The difference is that Chinese Communists are more succesfull in the economical policy.

[Calpernia]

New info thread here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1001364/posts

[King Prout]

looks like debased sanskrit - used for religious/symbolic writing in Japan and China since at least 1000AD.

[King Prout]

NASA has been FUBAR since JFK decided to shoot for the Moon.
That one irrelevant program killed several lines of promising research whic, if they had gone ahead in a rational sequence, would have us as a permanent presence on the Moon and Mars by now.

[theDentist]

yeah. Landing a man on the moon was irrelevant. Oops! Time for your medication.

[Moonman62]

Why? It did help Soviets. The difference is that Chinese Communists are more succesfull in the economical policy.

Internationally, it did help the Soviets in the short term. Domestically, the threat of the gulag was far more motivational.

Economically, the Chinese have a dual system. That allowed them to make enough money to buy their space program from the Russians.

[A. Pole]

Government programs are not a good way of sustaining a manned presence in space, but private enterprise can do this and ultimately leave China's space efforts in the dust.

But government programs are indispensable for long term development. Which corporation can spend money on R&D to wait 50 years for the profits?

[Brett66]

But government programs are indispensable for long term development

How has NASA demonstrated long term development of space? They abandoned the moon. They abandoned a superior heavy lift rocket in favor of an inefficient space truck that never delivered on a fraction of the promises made. They turned what should have been a quick and simple construction in LEO into an international, political mess that's over ten times it's original projected cost that will never be fully completed.

Small, incremental improvements over a period of time can provide enormous improvements over the long term. Instead of chucking previous developments in pursuit of the holy grail of advanced technology, numerous small improvements on existing, proven systems will advance the state of the art. This is well suited to business investment.

[A. Pole]

Small, incremental improvements over a period of time can provide enormous improvements over the long term.

Only in the areas where the "small, incremental improvements" can yield a profit. That is why the biological evolution could not create the wheel - only final, complete form of the wheel is useful.

[My2Cents]

Yea, me too. When Mercury launches started, I was in gradeschool. I used to get up way before dawn to watch the coverage (Walter Cronkite), and I watched every launch. Now launches are so "mundane" (or so the public preceives them) that there's hardly any coverage at all, unless there's a spectacular failure. I've petitioned my cable company to pick up "NASA TV" but so far, no luck.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

GOD Speed... JOHN GLENN,

Communist China's 1st real Man in Space..!!!

The CLINTONS' No. 1 ChinaGate Hero

[Bobby777]

pretty wild ... what are your thoughts on the accuracy? ...

[bonesmccoy]

great to have the profits from walMart translate to bombs from Beijing.

[Calpernia]

PING!!!!!!!