As NASA slashes budgets, China achieves orbital milestone (+video)

CS Monitor ^ | 06/18/2012 | Michael Martina, Reuters, Ben Blanchard

[markman46]

considering that the Shenzhou is based on the 70’s trash can, and the US is in a 5yr downtime while a new spacecraft is built and commerical is coming what do you want

[George Varnum]

Bingo!

Obviously China is not so obsessed with the glorification of Islam as NASA had been forced to be.

Kinda makes a difference, don’t ya think?

I wonder how much of NASAs budget is now being dedicated to the advancement of the American and global Jihad in stead of the advancement of human civilization?

If NASA puts anything else up during this regime it will likely be an orbiting Mosque. If the current regime persists for another term we may have a Mosque on the moon.

[ravager]

Those Soviet “trash can” are actually far more economical and have far better safety records then the overrated “shuttle”. The Russians have successfully launched far more number of rockets in space then US.

[ravager]

NASA is just a useless government employment program. Other countries are doing a lot more with just shoe string budget.

[Moonman62]

Those Soviet “trash can” are actually far more economical and have far better safety records then the overrated “shuttle”.

No argument there. The Shuttle was a poorly designed, extremely expensive astronaut killer. Even though I will admit it had inspirational value, as did the "blank check" programs of the 1960's. The Russian rockets are cheap, but that doesn't stop Russia from charging us a fortune per astronaut.

I believe the Spacex system will be cheaper than the Russian rockets if all goes as planned.

[ravager]

“, but that doesn't stop Russia from charging us a fortune per astronaut.”

Its supply an demand. How many space programs are out there that can ferry astronauts on a regular basis?

“Spacex system will be cheaper than the Russian rockets if all goes as planned.”

Highly doubt it will be cheaper.

[ravager]

US and Russia lost their perspective on real “space exploration”. Both US and Russia got pre-occupied with tossing bigger and more expensive toys into space. US had their “skylab”, “shuttle”, “hubble”, “ISS” and Russians had their “Salyut” and “Mir”. All of the were a big waste of money. Each of those programs were all about spending billions of dollars maintaining expensive, poorly designed and accident prone giant contraptions in space that had very little commercial/scientific value.

It only gave India and China ample time to play catch up. Both India and China stayed out of the whole ISS nonsense and are aiming for REAL exploration of space starting with the Moon.

[markman46]

true!, the shuttle was going to be retired anyway, really was not needed anymore as the ISS was finished construction.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

We need to stop ignoring China.

China is about to become a very big pest.

The sooner we wake up to that new fact, the quicker we can begin moving in response.