China reports successful space flight

[jdobbin]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3IMG-...9Er7j9BdFRKRIpA

China's leading Xinhua news agency reported the successful flight of the Shenzhou VII hours before the nation's third-ever manned space mission had even lifted off.

On Thursday morning, Xinhua posted a story on its website saying the Shenzhou capsule had been successfully tracked flying over the Pacific Ocean even though the rocket and its three astronauts had not yet been launched.

"There was a technical problem. We dealt with it after we had found it," a editor at the agency told AFP when asked about the story Friday.

The story, dated September 27, was written from one of the numerous tracking ships that China's space programme dispatches around the world to track space flights.

It described in a vivid, blow-by-blow account how the tracking ship was receiving signals from the space craft.

"Changjiang Number One has acquired the target," a tracker was quoted as saying.

How much you want to bet that the Chinese spacewalk is done in a studio outside Beijing. Probably make for a better quality picture than actually filming in space.

[myata]

BBC: Space congress

Steve MacLean, president of the Canadian space agency ... congratulates China on its Shenzhou spacewalk.

No matter how reported, China's making real strides in space exploration.

[Riverwind]

No matter how reported, China's making real strides in space exploration.

I find it amazing that people eat up the Chinese government propoganda. China is doing stuff that everyone else was able to do 40 years ago. They may be using more up to date technology which was purchased and/or stolen from the western governments/corporations that developed it but they are not doing anything new.

[myata]

I find it amazing that people eat up the Chinese government propoganda. China is doing stuff that everyone else was able to do 40 years ago.

Everybody like ... Europe? Or Canada? Or .... who else, exactly?? Why being so broadly general??

[Riverwind]

Everybody like ... Europe? Or Canada? Or .... who else, exactly?? Why being so broadly general??

Any country that puts satellites in space has the technology to put a person in space if they wanted to spend the money. There are numerous commerical ventures that are close to offering human space flights but there problem is cost - not technology.

In short, China is doing nothing special and pretending they are doing something special simply means you are choosing to become a cog in the communist propaganda machine.

[myata]

Any country that puts satellites in space has the technology to put a person in space if they wanted to spend the money. There are numerous commerical ventures that are close to offering human space flights but there problem is cost - not technology.

One more time and in English please: list the countries that executed a manned space flight, on their own carrier, and a spacewalk. Thank you.

[Riverwind]

One more time and in English please: list the countries that executed a manned space flight, on their own carrier, and a spacewalk. Thank you.

You are missing the point. Most adults can ride a bike if they choose to but most do not. Does that mean we should applaud an adult for the "achievement" of riding a bike? I don't think so. If you so keen on helping the Communist depots stay in power why don't you provide evidence that China has actually done something new that no one else has done before? Edited September 29, 2008 by Riverwind

[myata]

You are missing the point. Most adults can ride a bike if they choose to but most do not. Does that mean we should applaud an adult for the "achievement" of riding a bike?

If you never rode one, you may find it to be a greater challenge than you think (and want to applaud yourself for the achievement, etc).

Anyways, the statement is factually incorrect, as out of some 200 countries, only 3 (three) has ever executed a manned space flight with a walk in the open space.

"Could have", "did not choose to" does not matter a bit (no, milligram, nanobyte, etc) because without making the first step one's bound to remain in one spot only: i.e. on their bum on the coach. Nobody can be a real space power without manned space flight; China can do manned space flight; = China is a space power; one of the 3, so far. Europe may be joining hopefully soon, with their ATV carrier. Which will bring the number to 4. Still a respectable position to aspire to. Welcome to reality.

[Riverwind]

---

Edited September 29, 2008 by Riverwind

[Riverwind]

Anyways, the statement is factually incorrect, as out of some 200 countries, only 3 (three) has ever executed a manned space flight with a walk in the open space.

So what? My point is manned space flight in not an interesting achievement at this point in history.

Nobody can be a real space power without manned space flight;

BS. Manned space flight is nothing but a propaganda exercise. The real benefit of space technology comes from satellites and unmanned missions - something many nations and even large companies are capable of doing. Wake me up when china puts a robot on Jupiter's moons - that would at least be something new.

Which will bring the number to 4. Still a respectable position to aspire to. Welcome to reality.

Reality of what? The reality that China would spend billions on a pointless propoganda exercise while 100s of millions live in poverty? Edited September 29, 2008 by Riverwind

[GostHacked]

Riverwind

So what? My point is manned space flight in not an interesting achievement at this point in history.

Manned space flight is ALWAYS interesting, no matter who does it.

BS. Manned space flight is nothing but a propaganda exercise. The real benefit of space technology comes from satellites and unmanned missions - something many nations and even large companies are capable of doing. Wake me up when china puts a robot on Jupiter's moons - that would at least be something new.

Give it time. They have just really started their space program. It will take time for them to get to that stage. But I think the progress will be much faster. China is rich in western technology (where the hell do you think most of your manufacturing jobs where outsourced too?) It makes sense that China will use that technology to it's advantage. Anyone in their right mind would.

Reality of what? The reality that China would spend billions on a pointless propoganda exercise while 100s of millions live in poverty?

There were plenty of people living in poverty in the US and Russia when they both decided to head to space. Both of those can be considered propaganda as well. The big Space Race. But because China has the largest population on earth, by the numbers, there will be more Chinese in poverty. The ratios just might be the same. But I am guessing here.

I agree that as a species we need to spend the time and money on things that will benefit us all equally. Countries also spend a lot of money on their militaries as well. Is this a worthwhile endeavour? Sure there are always better things to spend your money on.

I saw a clip on the BBC that indicated that they think China is trying to set up the first communist political entity in space. Russia already did that years ago. We should remeber MIR. I don't think that was either Russia or China's goal when they decided to go to space.

[PoliticalCitizen]

I saw a clip on the BBC that indicated that they think China is trying to set up the first communist political entity in space. Russia already did that years ago. We should remeber MIR. I don't think that was either Russia or China's goal when they decided to go to space.

I'll tell you what China's next immediate goal is... colonization of the Moon!

They'll be multiplying on the Moon and mining it before USA or Russia even put a (another) man there.

China does nothing that doesn't benefit the People! People need raw materials to manufacture consumer goods.

Fame and glory are secondary...

[Oleg Bach]

I'll tell you what China's next immediate goal is... colonization of the Moon!

They'll be multiplying on the Moon and mining it before USA or Russia even put a (another) man there.

China does nothing that doesn't benefit the People! People need raw materials to manufacture consumer goods.

Fame and glory are secondary...

"Fame and glory are secondary?" Come now - the Olypics proved you wrong in that statement..as far as China doing everything to benefit the people...that's not true - the high archy just use the people. Step out of line and your benefit will be a missing liver and a hole in the head...China never wanted communism - it was the west the ensure that the dynasty collapsed and the people were enslaved. You say that people need raw material to manufacture consumer goods. What good does this do the average person in China when the water is cancerous due to manufacturing and the air is unbreathable? What good does it do the west when their product that is sent here is of inferiour quality and ends up in our landfill sites within a month? You seem to have a delluded socialist view of China - forced abortion anyone - real freedom --????nope! In time you will see workers in China attatched to tubes that will drip a mixture of cocaine and valium into their viens to keep them efficient.

[DogOnPorch]

Re: Canada's space achievments.

A Canadian...Jim Chamberlin (from Kamloops, BC)...was project engineer for the Mercury program, the chief designer on the Gemini program (it's his spacecraft) and chief troubleshooter for Project Apollo. He rode in the limo right behind Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins's during the ticker-tape parade upon their return. He is obviously not so well known in his country of birth...lol. He was made part of Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame none-the-less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Chamberlin

Re: The Long March Rocket.

The Chinese are playing a dangerous game by using this rocket in its manned space program. It has two major design flaws which would never be allowed in today's other modern space programs (ESA, NASA, Roskosmos).

1} The use of hypergolic fuels without a method to drain the rocket's tanks in case of a launch pad scrub. This presents some real safety problems for the crew and those near-by. The oxidizer used is nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) which is extremely corrosive. So corrosive that it can only remain in the rocket a short time before it either needs to be a] launched or b] drained of fuel. Otherwise, it will literally eat through the seals of the rocket's tanks, pumps and fuel lines. If this happens while the rocket is loaded, it BLOWS-UP! Since the Chinese have no way of draining the tanks of the Long March, they are forced to launch even if there's a problem...or let it explode.

Another problem with hypergolic fuels is that both components are extremely toxic (nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH). The Chinese have no automated system for loading the fuel so they must "hand-load" it into the Long March with hoses while crew is running about the lauch pad (dangerous). The potential for disaster is high. The Russians developed a completely automated 'load n' drain' system for their Proton rocket to reduce the danger to ground crews and allow for launch pad scrubs. The Russians still don't consider the Proton 'man-safe' even with these safety measures.

2} The Long March suffers from what is known in the rocket biz as 'The Pogo Stick Effect'. This means large amounts of up and down harmonic vibrations occur during the accent into space (caused by the rocket motors). The Titan II of the 1960s (used for Gemini) also suffered from this but apparently the Long March's 'Pogo' is much much worse. Even the most hardened test pilots are prone to motion sickness as their inner ears get roughly vibrated at high speed. The eyes are also affected causing vision to blur so much that instruments and controls become unreadable or hard to use (try flicking a switch in this condition). As one might expect, this isn't too good for safety. Combined with the Long March's high G-Force load during launch (up to 5 Gs) this makes for a very unpleasant ride into orbit. Michael Collin's book 'Carrying the Fire' describes this effect in detail during his ride on Gemini 10.

------------------------------------------

Man must explore, and this is exploration at it's greatest.

---Dave Scott, Apollo 15

Edited September 30, 2008 by DogOnPorch

[GostHacked]

The Chinese are playing a dangerous game by using this rocket in its manned space program. It has two major design flaws which would never be allowed in today's other modern space programs (ESA, NASA, Roskosmos).

In retrospect, they knew the seal on the rocket boosters of the USs shuttle was flawed, yet they launched, then boom. Even something like a piece of foam smacked a tile and that lost one more shuttle.

NASA has had it's fair share of failures. So did the USSR. Even countries and organizations trying to launch satelites in space, have things go suddenly wrong. Play with rockets, and if things go wrong, huge shit happens.

[DogOnPorch]

In retrospect, they knew the seal on the rocket boosters of the USs shuttle was flawed, yet they launched, then boom. Even something like a piece of foam smacked a tile and that lost one more shuttle.

NASA has had it's fair share of failures. So did the USSR. Even countries and organizations trying to launch satelites in space, have things go suddenly wrong. Play with rockets, and if things go wrong, huge shit happens.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is playing with explosives without safeguards of any kind. Not being able to scrub a launch while it is still on the launch pad is pure folly. How many times have you heard of US missions being delayed for some problem or another? Many if you follow the launches. NASA at least has the option of delaying the launch. Not so with the Long March. If you read up a bit re: hypergolic fuels, you'll see that they are not the same as LOX and LH2 or LOX and kerosene. If you also read up a bit on the Long March you'll find it has the dubious honor of killing over 1000 people during launch accidents. You can cheer China on all you wish in this matter...they are playing with the lives of their astronauts, their ground crews and civilians who happen to live near-by. They need to build a safer rocket for their manned space program. Period. None is in the works.

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What goes up, must come down.

---Proverb

Edited September 30, 2008 by DogOnPorch

[myata]

To cheer and to recognize achievement are two different things. Perhaps China isn't at the point where it could lead everybody else in space technology. Perhaps their technology is less than perfect and in the serious need of improvement.

This does not in any way diminish their achievement of putting a man into orbit and out into the outer space. Sure they're following in the others footsteps. The point is that in this game in particular, one cannot make a breakthrough without making these first steps. And they take decades to accomplish. China has started on the path and it deserves recognition.

[Argus]

One more time and in English please: list the countries that executed a manned space flight, on their own carrier, and a spacewalk. Thank you.

I'll give you an even smaller list.

Please list the countries who sent men into space while still getting tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid every year from Canada and many millions more in aid from other western nations.

[DogOnPorch]

To cheer and to recognize achievement are two different things. Perhaps China isn't at the point where it could lead everybody else in space technology. Perhaps their technology is less than perfect and in the serious need of improvement.

This does not in any way diminish their achievement of putting a man into orbit and out into the outer space. Sure they're following in the others footsteps. The point is that in this game in particular, one cannot make a breakthrough without making these first steps. And they take decades to accomplish. China has started on the path and it deserves recognition.

NASA had basic safety down before they started lobbing chimps into space. China seems to view that as unneeded step...sort of like emptying rocket fuels from the booster. Why would one want to do that?? Launch!

As mentioned, the Long March has the honor of being the booster to have killed the most people.

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Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

[PoliticalCitizen]

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is playing with explosives without safeguards of any kind. Not being able to scrub a launch while it is still on the launch pad is pure folly. How many times have you heard of US missions being delayed for some problem or another? Many if you follow the launches. NASA at least has the option of delaying the launch. Not so with the Long March. If you read up a bit re: hypergolic fuels, you'll see that they are not the same as LOX and LH2 or LOX and kerosene. If you also read up a bit on the Long March you'll find it has the dubious honor of killing over 1000 people during launch accidents. You can cheer China on all you wish in this matter...they are playing with the lives of their astronauts, their ground crews and civilians who happen to live near-by. They need to build a safer rocket for their manned space program. Period. None is in the works.

Don't worry, DOP, they've got lots of kosmonauts

Much cheaper to produce than safe rockets

Besides - given the USA's inability to fly independently in the near future they're way ahead of NASA

[bush_cheney2004]

As mentioned, the Long March has the honor of being the booster to have killed the most people.

Cool..and all this time I thought the Russians were the biggest screw ups when it came to launch and range safety (e.g. Plesetsk Cosmodrome north of Moscow).

[GostHacked]

Two wrongs do not make a right. This is playing with explosives without safeguards of any kind. Not being able to scrub a launch while it is still on the launch pad is pure folly. How many times have you heard of US missions being delayed for some problem or another?

Many if you follow the launches. NASA at least has the option of delaying the launch. Not so with the Long March. If you read up a bit re: hypergolic fuels, you'll see that they are not the same as LOX and LH2 or LOX and kerosene. If you also read up a bit on the Long March you'll find it has the dubious honor of killing over 1000 people during launch accidents. You can cheer China on all you wish in this matter...they are playing with the lives of their astronauts, their ground crews and civilians who happen to live near-by. They need to build a safer rocket for their manned space program. Period. None is in the works.

---------------------------------------

What goes up, must come down.

---Proverb

A rocket is one big explosive. When shit happens, it happens on a large scale. That is the price you pay for playing with the big toys. Any country who runs a space program understands that. And once you light the fires, it is balls to the wall or bust. Every NASA shuttle crew understood that. Every single Apollo astronaut understood that. All the Soyuz cosmonauts understood that. All the Chinese astronauts understand that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_rocket

Early launches had a spotty record, focusing on launching of Chinese satellites. Since 1990, Long March rocket entered the international market. However, several setbacks occurred during early 1990s. On January 26, 1995, a Long March 2E rocket veered off course two seconds after take-off from Xichang space center and exploded, killing at least six on the ground. On February 15, 1996, a similar failure during the launch of Intelsat 708 using a Long March 3B rocket resulted in an unknown number of casualties. [1] The rocket veered severely off course right after clearing the launch tower and landed in a rural village. Following the disaster, foreign media were sequestered in a bunker for five hours while, some have alleged, the Chinese military attempted to 'clean up' the damage. The Chinese Xinhua News Agency eventually reported 57 deaths, but the extent of damage observed by foreign journalists whilst being whisked away from the disaster site suggested there may have been at least 200 and upwards of 500 killed.[10] In the aftermath of the explosion, U.S. satellite makers shared information which allowed the Chinese to determine that the problem was in the welds. However, this sharing of information was later deemed illegal by the United States, and U.S. satellite maker Loral Space and Communications was fined $14 million by the U.S. government in 2002, while admitting no wrong-doing.[11]

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0705/31sinosat3/

The mission marked the 100th flight of China's Long March rocket, which launched the nation's first satellite in 1970. Since 1996, variants of the launcher have completed 58 consecutive successful missions.

That is not a bad track record.

Being an astronaut or being a part of the space program is a high risk career no matter what country you are in. Those people who fly in those things know what the risks are. But they go anyways.

Argus.

I'll give you an even smaller list.

Please list the countries who sent men into space while still getting tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid every year from Canada and many millions more in aid from other western nations.

So you blame China for western countries giving money to China?? Shame on the west.

[DogOnPorch]

Gosthacked: I think you fail to understand the gravity of this situation.

Say you were launching the Shuttle and a red light comes on at someone's screen saying that you have a lose fuel line and it should be fixed before launch. The countdown stops...if the astronauts are alreay aboard, they are taken off. The hydrogen and oxygen are pumped out of the Shuttle's tanks and work begins on fixing the problem.

Now you're launching a Long March. A red light comes on saying there's a lose fuel line. However, the fuel is already loaded and can't be pumped out because the Long March doesn't have that feature. The clock is ticking because the N2O4 is already starting to corrode the fuel tanks/lines/pumps. Your only choice now is to attempt to remove the crew and get everyone out of the area...because the rocket WILL explode once a breech occurs. You may have to use the capsule eject system [Russian copy] to remove the crew...which will probably save their lives...but the 20+ Gs they will be subjected to will probably end their space flight days. Hopefully you can reattach the gantry without disturbing the rocket too much...avoiding all that ejection stuff.

There's the final option, though...and that's to go ahead with the launch...even though there's problems. If you want to avoid the destruction of your launch tower/pad...you will have to launch. Such hard choices! Perhaps investing in all that safety is for a reason. As mentioned already, the Russians have a similar rocket (the Proton) that is completely automated for fueling and unfueling...thus avoiding those hard choices. But they STILL will not rate the Proton for manned launches due to the dangers involved. Perhaps they know something the Chinese don't...or don't want to know.

BC-2004...China takes the cake for reckless launch practices. Brazil is close behind...Russia has improved much after several big disasters. There's another vid on YouTube showing a Delta rocket exploding right over the Cape...BIG explosion. Fireballs rained down all over even taking out some cars in the parking lot. Due to NASA's launch safety/range safety practices, nobody was hurt.

PC: You are correct in a way. China's space program is all about propaganda rather than anything else. "Look at us...we're a superpower, too. Take us seriously." Had that launch failed...we'd never have heard about it.

----------------------------------------

It's a Daisy.

Edited September 30, 2008 by DogOnPorch

[xul]

NASA had basic safety down before they started lobbing chimps into space. China seems to view that as unneeded step...sort of like emptying rocket fuels from the booster. Why would one want to do that?? Launch!

NASA sent chimps into space first because at that time there was not a man went into space before so scientists were not sure whether zero gaivity and other space environment were fatal to a man. But before China lanch its astronauts, there were lots of American and Russian astronauts had already been sent into space, so it is not necessary to repeat what American and Russian did fifty years ago.

As mentioned, the Long March has the honor of being the booster to have killed the most people.

---------------------------------------------

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?

I happened to work in China's space industry in 1990s. Though my job is only on designing ground vehicle not relative with rockets at all, but some my colleagues were at scenes and they told me the stories about the two events.

The first event in 1995 was then a newly designed rocket named Long March-2E, it was its third or fourth fly. It was launching an America made communication satellite for an Australian company. After lift off about a hundred seconds, the satellite exploded due to resonance or some cause between the satellite and the rocket, mainly because the distrust between America and China governments limited the technical information exchange between American and Chinese aerospace engineers. After the explosion of the satellite, the secure system of the rocket self-destructed the rocket to avoid it went into wrong orbit. Some of the fuel tank debris fell into a village and some ignorant peasant picked those poisonous fuel contained metal up their home for sale, so they were poisoned by the unburned poisonous fuel, several of them died and others in hospital for several weeks. After the event, Chinese engerineers has improved the design and CZ-2E has never failed again.

The second event in 1996 was another newly desinged rocket at that time named Long March-3B and it was its first fly. The gyroscope failed just after it blasted off several seconds. The rocket crushed several mails away from the launching pad and damaged a lot of houses and buildings nearby the scene, but only several people died in the event because most people had hided in bunkers. So-called "five hundred innocent got killed" is not truth. After the event in 1995, almost no peasants would dare to defy government's advise of hiding in safety.(In 1995, they also were demanded to hide but no one took it seriously because such thing had never happened before.)

Since these earlier failure, Chinese rockets have never failed again. This is why CPC has confidence to live program the whole process of this mission.

And though I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I don't think it is more difficult to let fuel out from a rocket fuel tank than let it in. Just making a hole on the hull and mounting a valve or something, it wil be OK. And I guarantee all of those Amerian rockets, Russian rockets, Chinese rockets, French rockets, Japanese rockets, Indian rockets, North Korean rockets, Iranian rockets....also used this way to drain the fuel if it is necessary.

And about N2O4, it was chosen by both American and Russian as rocket propellant of their liquid ICBMs just because it is safe and storable. It can be filled into a ICBM fuel tanks for several month without need of drain it out. How would we imagine if an American Titan ICBM was filled with fuel, it must blast off at once to trigger WWIII? Or American must halt to charge their Titan fuel until they find Russian nuclear missiles flying to them?

I think you confused the dangerousness of storable liquid propellant(N2o4/(CH3)2NNH2) and hydrogen/oxygen propellant. It is the hydrogen/oxygen propellant are unstorable and more dangerous. If a malfunction occured after the fuel of shuttle has been charged and it is going to be lift off, NASA must reconnect a leakage pipe to the tanks to let out the oxygen/hydrogen vapor to avoid the shuttle oxygen/hydrogen tank to be breached, and if fixing the problem needs long time, the fuel must be discharged because under the normal temperature the pressure of liquified hydrogen/oxygen is very high, and any hull of rocket can not seal it.

Edited October 12, 2008 by xul

[DogOnPorch]

You're thinking of UDMH...not N2O4. N2O4 is extremely corrosive. Corrosive to ANYTHING. Americans used hypergolic fuels for their main booster during only one of the manned programs...Project Gemini. There the oxyidizer was Aerozine 50...a slightly 'watered down' version of N2O4. They also had a method to drain the tanks as in the Gemini 6 launch abort.

As mentioned, the Russians have a similar rocket (The Proton) that has a completely automated system for loading and draining fuels for this very reason. They also will not rate it for manned launches for two reasons: 1] hypergolic fuels = poison and 2] high G-loads during accent for any potential cosmonaut.

Chinese sources were quoted saying that the launch became irreversible after the tanks were fueled.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90881/6505718.html

Basically, the Chinese use the Long March because they have it NOW. To make a safer rocket would take time and money, I suppose. The Long March 5 is supposed to have different fuels, but it is intended for heavy lift...not manned launches. Time will tell.

So-called "five hundred innocent got killed" is not truth.

Says the Communist authorities. Not to be trusted...as we have plenty of evidence to show. American eyewitnesses have a different story.

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All reactionaries are paper tigers.

---Mao Tse-Tung