Now China is sending a man into space. Why?

International Herald Tribune ^ | October 10, 2003 | Joan Johnson-Freese, U.S. Naval War College

[bonesmccoy]

Jim Oberg's column on MSNBC is fascinating.

He points out the solar panels on the orbital module.

He makes a good point.

Usually the Russian orbital modules do not have solar panels.

The existance of the solar panels suggests that the orbital module is meant to stay in LEO for a longer period of autonomous activity.

It suggests that it can be outfitted with systems that consume minimal amounts of energy, but could use being man tended.

Materials science comes to mind.

Also, recon.

[Willie Green]

I think we need to walk alone for national security. Leaving our labs and university research open to the world has left us vulnerable. I say our R&D (paid for by the U.S.) needs to stay with us and used to our advantage.

I agree.
Unfortunately, the Administration's current policies encourage offshoring of critical R&D functions along with the manufacturing infrastructure.

Presidential Technology Panel Warns of Impending Disaster
U.S. Officials Misread Economic Warfare
The Administration's Manufacturing Plan Looks Bogus

[TonyM]

The Chinese have an unfair advantage. They can three men in a beer can.

[hopespringseternal]

No. D-T is D-H3 (H3 is tritium. Or did you mean D-He3?).

Yeah, I dropped the "e".

I don't want to get into D-T vs D-He3, since smarter people than me disagree on the subect. But I will say that even large amounts of He3 would not suddenly solve the fusion problem.

We didn't have practical gasoline engines a century ago either, but that doesn't make the oil of Saudi Arabia now worth any less.

Not today, but it did at the time. Given the promises politicians have heard concerning fusion for the last fifty years, it is now just background noise for them.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The existance of the solar panels suggests that the orbital module is meant to stay in LEO for a longer period of autonomous activity. It suggests that it can be outfitted with systems that consume minimal amounts of energy, but could use being man tended. Materials science comes to mind. Also, recon.

China's man in space ***As China uses its cheap labor to become the world's manufacturing center, it generates huge amounts of foreign exchange that enable it to finance both military modernization and space adventures. Chinese officials claim the Shenzhou program is "purely for peaceful purposes," but the orbital module already is being used to gather electronic intelligence (ELINT).

The first manned flight is expected to be in space for only 90 minutes. But after separation, the orbital module; with its own propulsion system for autonomous flight; will stay in space for up to eight months. The orbital modules of Shenzhou 3 and 4 had an ELINT capability that included three antennas aimed at Earth to determine the source of ultra-high frequency emissions, plus other antennas designed to detect and locate radar transmissions. The Soviets used similar transmissions to monitor movements of U.S. Navy ships.

It may be true that China's astronauts will not engage in military activities, at least initially, but the orbital module they leave behind is loaded with equipment that will autonomously conduct surveillance from space. Data are downloaded electronically when the spacecraft is over China. The Shenzhou 3 and 4 orbital modules were China's first ELINT satellites. They have enabled Beijing to track U.S. naval movements since March 2002.***

[Quix]

THANKS FOR THE GOOD PIC AND LINK. Will try to check it out when I have more time.

[CorpRatt]

Were you aware that China, while technically on the grow, are just now doing what the United States and before them the Soviet Union did 30+ years ago.

Also, their population is so large that if external trade were cut off, or even minor damage to their transportation infrastucture would result in people going hungry within days and starvation for some areas within a week.

Now in Industrial Espionage, Global Economics and even the Internet China can and is a threat. But then again so is Japan and every other country in that region.

China is not a threat at present. 30 years from now when they have a space fleet and can claim large chunks of lunar real estate or even whole planets... that is another story.

Instead of another arms race... lets go to space ! Let them pay for a ticket ... ;)

"Delta Spacelines Flt 3244 Departing Launchway 23 for Lunar Orbit and Stops at Mars and Jupiter "

byarst

[Cincinatus' Wife]

How nice for the Chinese to leap ahead with the assistance of our R&D. They are a threat. They are communists. It is not going to take them anywhere near 30 years to cause us grief. And all the while NASA is pouring money into looking for bugs on Mars. Good grief. It's time NASA was given a mission that tied it to national security. The Moon is where we need to be and from where future space exploration will evolve. The Chinese know this and they are the tortise working toward that goal.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A US-China space race could mean trouble***How then, do the military aspects of China's space program intersect with US national security interests?

First, China views US intentions in space with great suspicion. Washington's declaration that it intends to maintain overwhelming space superiority above all other nations (and perhaps militarize space in the process) does not sit well with the Chinese.

Second, Beijing perceives the proposed US antimissile defense plan, which will be supported by an array of space systems, as a strategic menace to China. Any conceivable missile defense system would threaten to blunt China's modest arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons and thereby erode its delicate deterrent posture vis-a-vis the United States.

Third, China will increasingly need military space capabilities if it is to improve its ability to coerce Taiwan in a conflict and counter US intervention to defend the island in a future crisis or conflict.

Above all, China enjoys the resources and boasts the political will to invest in space over the long term. As such, even if China does not pose a credible threat to the United States, perceptions that the Chinese may eventually challenge US space supremacy could spur Washington to view Beijing as a future rival in space.

In other words, Chinese apprehensions of US space dominance might easily be reciprocated.***

[CorpRatt]

The Chinese bought old technology from the Russians who as the Soviet Union stole it from the United States who in turn stole it from the Germans who stole it from the British ....

Well you get the idea.

NASA should be disbanded. If the government wants to go for space they should go through a bid process.

As to the moon, yeah there is some usable real estate there.

Back to China. I'm not scared of their military but their economy makes me nervous.

Why does China scare you ?

byarst

ps We posted some stuff on Terri Schiavo the whole thing makes me sick

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Terri

She is a bright light in the darkness of corrupted power.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

China doesn't scare me, it's our leadership's seemingly lack of concern or understanding, of why exploration has always been our strong suit and what's kept our engine fine tuned. Our diminising schools, our national divisions and anemic economy need a national scientific and national goal. China sees it. Why don't we?

Carl Sagan's influence has destroyed the right stuff.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

....national scientific and national goal.

....national, scientific and social goal.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Secrecy vexes Sino-US space ties***Yet the official responses to the Oct. 16 manned launch may hold clues to the future of international cooperation with the newest member of the space club, sources say. While Russia's Vladimir Putin was immediate and effusive, the official US reaction came only when President Bush met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Bangkok days later.

………. For all its value as a new addition to the planet's hopes for seeking out new forms of life and expanding the horizons of the known - the Shenzhou program is still quite solidly embedded in the Chinese military system, experts say. Yang was sent off by a military official, and greeted upon return by a military official. Indeed, the Shenzhou V recovery took place on the anniversary of China first successful nuclear weapons test in 1964, a symbol not lost on some Chinese commentators.

In the aftermath of the US led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Chinese military has taken note of US satellite systems that coordinate attacks. Sources say it is US satellites that most concern the Chinese. As Johnson-Freese put it in a paper delivered Friday at Harvard, "The Chinese, while advocating a treaty to ban space weapons, have also made no bones about working on anti-satellite technology. Kinetic energy weapons, jammers, parasite satellites that can surreptitiously attach themselves to other satellites, and high-powered ground-based lasers [have] all been on the Chinese menu of options being pursued. The Chinese are also interested in navigation satellites, which can enhance missile targeting capabilities."***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

China in space: Military implications***Shenzhou V's two primary payloads included an electronic intelligence payload mounted on the nose. This consisted of two major components. UHF (ultra-high frequency) emission direction finding was accomplished by three Earth-pointing television-type antennas deployed on long telescoping booms. Seven horn antennas arranged in an arc supplemented these, which could detect and localize radar transmissions. This combination was designed to allow coverage of the entire Earth's surface as the module passed over it. This is an enormous leap in Chinese military surveillance given the fact that China has never flown a major ELINT (electronic intelligence) satellite. As the orbital module is likely to remain in space for nearly eight months, such a capability in effect provides China with wide-ranging satellite cover over a variety of targets such as the US carrier battle groups in the Indian and Pacific oceans and over areas of interest in India, Taiwan, Tibet etc.

The second military payload flown aboard Shenzhou is an imaging reconnaissance package. This comprises two cameras with an aperture of 500-600 millimeters. According to Mike Wade, curator of Encyclopedia Astronautica, the use of two different cameras indicates a hyper-spectral, multi-resolution, combination mapping/close-look system, giving a ground resolution of as much as 1.6 meters. From this it can be deduced that the military missions of future Chinese manned space flights are likely to be military imaging reconnaissance. If the pattern of earlier Shenzhou flights is followed, crew will be tasked to identify targets in a controlled orbit lasting six to seven days. This coincides with the duration of the next manned flight, which has been planned for six days.

The above capabilities are underscored by the assertions of the People's Daily that the spacecraft can carry out missions of reconnaissance and surveillance better and allow the military to deploy, repair and assemble military satellites that could monitor and control military forces on Earth. This raises the prospects that the future Chinese manned space station, a model of which was shown at Hannover Expo 2000, under Project 921-2, which could be deployed as early as the turn of the decade, will have multiple military missions. A future space station could enable launching and repairing of military satellites, and cue and guide future PLA precision-guided weapons such as terminally guided ballistic missiles and new land attack cruise missiles. China in addition has planned to launch four high-resolution electro-optical satellites and four cloud-penetrating radar satellites by 2006. These satellites will allow twice-daily monitoring of any target on Earth.

Two additional dimensions of the Chinese space and satellite program merit close attention. China's second space priority revolves around developing a solid-fuel, four-stage satellite-launching vehicle (SLV). On September 16, China tested an indigenously developed four-stage, solid-fuel SLV, the Kaitouzhe-1. KT-1 is based on a solid-fuel, long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile. The SLV program offers both civilian and military benefits in terms of accelerating the pace and capability to launch micro-satellites while reducing the cost of launches. KT-1 can reduce the launch time from days to just 16 hours, much faster than any liquid-fuel rocket. However, the most significant impact of this capability will be the country's ability to build, rapidly deploy and replace small communications, imaging and positioning satellites - vital elements of any modern and technologically advanced military. This technology can also be utilized to launch interceptors in the anticipated path of target satellite by using micro and nano-satellites as effective interceptors.***

[ThinkDifferent]

Carl Sagan's influence has destroyed the right stuff.

What do you mean by that?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

That the search for life is, not and never will be a mission for NASA. By focusing the agency on that as a goal, the energy and focus of NASA dwindled away. Now what is left?