Thursday, November 08, 2007

Is China Building a Space Station?

There are mixed reports coming out of China on their plans to loft a space station by 2020. A Chinese aerospace engineer, Long Lehao, mentioned to journalists that the China National Space Administration was planning to build a "small-scale 20 tonne space workshop". But then space officials at the agency denied the report. So what's going on?


I've grown to suspect we're in the midst of a "stealth space race" with China. It will likely never eclipse the sheer dogged mania that preceded Apollo, but its bearing on the human future could be nothing less than decisive.

3 comments:

e said...

As they said in The Right Stuff, "kick the tires and light the fires!"
Let's go. let's go, let's go.

Anonymous said...

I read this somewhere else too. I don't believe it's rumor, China does intend on building and launching a space station.

The American government and people are given a choice here, continue on the way we have been, i.e., resource wars for oil funded by China no less. Or pulling ourselves back and recommitting to the future.

At the present time, I'm not too confident about the latter.

Anonymous said...

"I've grown to suspect we're in the midst of a "stealth space race" with China."

Huh. How so? You can't keep multi-hundred ton launchers and orbital capsules, let alone a space station, exactly stealthy, now can you?