I will not go to bed by the light of a communist moon - LBJ

[el Guapo]

China has just placed a man in orbit around the earth. What is next? Could they develop shag carpeting, jumbo jets and 8-track tape decks? Maybe touch-tone phones are next. What I'm saying is this: BFD. China had access to all of our technology because they make it for us. Yes they are our Wal-Mart, Happy Meal, $59 Surround Sound System, Radio-Shack stocking be - General Tao’s Chicken - hatches. I’m surprised Bangladesh doesn’t have people in orbit yet. Can anyone tell me if Kalifornia is planning to put a man on the moon by the end of this decade?

The technology is there and has been since 1964. I’m surprised Yamaha doesn’t sell the L.E.O. Suzuki Katana in malls. If they weren’t afraid of lawyers Disney would be shooting rich people to Disney Fiji from Cape Canaveral. The POS shuttle we had fall out of sky back earlier this summer was older than my car and still more advanced than the Yu-Gi-Oh can you shot into space. Heck your num-nut cousins in North Korea, a country that feeds most of its citizens straw all winter, has got missiles that will hit Alaska. Hello Kitty they have nukes. That is like the Crips in East St. Louis building an H-bomb. All you got is Chinese John Glenn. We have been tearing down John Glenn Elementary Schools across this nation for the last decade.

Back on topic: China you went into orbit when a 3 Gig P5 chipset and support circuitry can be squeezed into something the size of a gay man’s wallet. I’m sorry China you did it while the rest of your nation can’t read what they want because you’re a bunch of Commies. And they can’t come and go when they please because you’re a bunch of Commies. BTW your rocket looked like something Madonna would have leaning up against the wall in the corner of her “latex room.”

Oh, and you did all of this impressive Buck Rogers shit on a 30-minute tape delay. China, if you want to impress anyone other than Viet Nam you could try losing the paranoia and launch the next rocket with a nothing more than a commodore 64 and do it live! Then do it with the lowest bidder.

China: Try moving that technology juggernaut of yours on to developing a democratic society and a scheme for voting. Master that and we’ll send a team of observers from Florida so that we too could master the art of counting.

[Wannaplan?]

Originally posted by el Guapo
China you went into orbit when a 3 Gig P5 chipset and support circuitry can be squeezed into something the size of a gay man’s wallet.

Yikes! I had no idea. I thought they were still using technology from the 1970s:

[The Irish One]

I love little professor

[mendelman]

It has always perplexed me that after 40-50 years of human access to outerspace, there has only been about two countries that have done anything about it.

And by the way, I am still waiting on the 1960's vision of 1980.B-)

[Richmond Jake]

**Big Yawner**

[Duke Of Dystopia]

The scary thing to this, is that they may have the guts that we seem to have lost. Our shuttle disasters happen when we make NASA operate on a shoe string budget. Space flight is slow in coming because it is political and the politicians are to OLD to understand the resource base that exists in space.

The liberal side of the country whines about funding NASA while we have even "1" homeless person and old people need drugs. (Here is the reverse article to EG's NPR funding discusion).

All the while, the chinese as well as the russians could get back on track. ALL spaceflight is military in origin. A 3 foot cube of steel droped on an aircraft carrier from space is a deal. If we don't get with it, we will be about as important as the french.

[ilikefish0]

We shoud share our technology with them--it might set them back a couple of decades. Seriously. The shuttle is from the late 70's and has about as much computing power as the Apple II sitting in your basement. If the Chinese were to cop this, the playing field would be leveled.

PS-Didn't NASA cancel plans for the next generation shuttle replacement. I read a couple of aricles about the lockheed design, but then it kinda dsappeared.

[Cirrus]

^
Yes, but now there's a scaled-down version in development. Smaller, more of a shuttle and less of a cargo barge.

NASAs next "big goal" after Alpha is complete is getting people on Mars. The technology to do it available off the shelf today, and it would cost less than sending a person to the moon did in 69. The only thing that isn't there yet is the political will.

Oh, and nuclear engines. We could be roaming the Solar System more quickly if the public would allow NASA the use of nuclear engines, but anytime that word is mentioned the picketers show up and scream about how unsafe it is. Of course, the odds are better every last one of them will be killed in a car crash on the way home than a nuclear spacecraft will scatter radioactive debris throughout the atmosphere, but apparantly the facts don't matter.

[Chet]

Great, develop a space faring rocket just in time to be made obsolete by the SPACE ELEVATOR!

Its gonna happen in our lifetime I predict

[Chet]

Originally posted by Cirrus
Oh, and nuclear engines. We could be roaming the Solar System more quickly if the public would allow NASA the use of nuclear engines, but anytime that word is mentioned the picketers show up and scream about how unsafe it is. Of course, the odds are better every last one of them will be killed in a car crash on the way home than a nuclear spacecraft will scatter radioactive debris throughout the atmosphere, but apparantly the facts don't matter.

Dont need them Ion propulsion has already been tested and is viable, and its speeds far exceed any fuel driven device in existence

check it out (old article but its become real)

[SkeLeton]

I hope this event will wake the sleeping giant...It's time to go back to the moon, before them Chinese get there... You were able to beat the russians, I hope you'll be able to beat the chinese. A moon base should be the next step... and later missions to Mars.

[The Irish One]

The future for US space program is the militarization of space, moe specificly missle launch detection and that's that.! It's happening today, it has been going on for a while. If you live between 45LAT and 45LAT on the map your ICBM will not get off the ground and for the region of north east china there is a special satelite set aside.

Go to the third hour of this video titled American Foreign Policy Council Forum on Missile Defenses & American Security - Part 2 -it's long and boring but that's education.


http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.a...=james+woolsey

[Duke Of Dystopia]

OK, I thought this belonged in here too!



EDIT - no it didn't. Clean it up and remove the personal attacks.

[El Feo]

So BFD, China is doing with all its resources for national glory what well-heeled western hobbyists are doing in their backyards for the f-ing hell of it. Despite our collective aversions to all things "X," I hope you'll follow this link. This is just Rutan's entry - there are plenty more viable teams where this one came from.

[ilikefish0]

Originally posted by Chet
Great, develop a space faring rocket just in time to be made obsolete by the SPACE ELEVATOR!

Its gonna happen in our lifetime I predict

Right. And monkey might fly out of my butt! (good movie) How feasible is this elevator though? In KSR's Mars trilogy, mentioned in your article, the cable falls due to terrorists and causes great destruction in the path of its fall. Could have disastrous consequences if it actually happened on earth.
Good books, though.

[Duke Of Dystopia]

The international space station can now order out for chinese food

[SkeLeton]

Looking it at the bright side... at least it isn't France.. 'cause they'd surrender to the aliens

[BiteMeElmo]

I like the idea of a space elevator - we could build thousands of them, and then invent a way to propel earth out of orbit and through space. With all the space elevators hanging off it, we would become a giant spinning space-mace, taking out inferior planets in our path. This is the only way to ensure mankind's dominance in the galaxy.

[Duke Of Dystopia]

Originally posted by BiteMeElmo
...With all the space elevators hanging off it, we would become a giant spinning space-mace,..

That would be a flail, and we are already a small planet by current standards, meaing we would show no other planet how bad we are. but it would be neat to watch the flails thrash away at something and smash!

[SkeLeton]

Hey, why don't we race the Chinese on their way to the moon and make a Cyburbia space project? We'll do a rocket outta scrap materials found in junkyards, and see if we can beat the chinese... and later found a well planned colony on the moon?

Oh wait... that sounds contradictive with the title quote...

[Rumpy Tunanator]

-Hey China just really wants to colonize the moon so they have more room to make the cheeap junk that they sell to everybody in the U.S.
-Its really sad when just about everything you buy nowadays is made in china, and its expecially insulting when you buy an American Flag and it says "Made in China"

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Well looks like manufacturing is going to hell here (in U.S.).

"The Chinese pay people $1 an hour, and I pay people $26 an hour," said Jack Davis, the president of a small manufacturing firm in Akron, who has launched a personal battle for trade sanctions against the Chinese. "Nobody in manufacturing can compete with that kind of difference in wage rates."

Full story
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...20/1048832.asp

[BKM]

That's OK, Rumpytuna. Don't you know we are all going to be lawyers and computer software moguls?

But wait, Indian engineers can do the same work for $10,000 per year.

I guess we can all make movies.

But wait, Canadian and Mexican moviemaking is much cheaper than made-in-California movies.

I guess we can all be members of "the Creative Class"

But wait, with $500 Billion deficits, the government grants and subsisidies for the arts are soon going bye bye. And, most of the non-arts creative class work can be done by those same (often better-educated) Chinese and Indian engineers.

I guess we can all join the army and gleefully participate in the Grand Vision of the Chickenhawk Cabal to extend the glories of Western Civilization to the Chinese and the Muslim Horde!

But wait, a strong military requires a strong economic base. Since current policies and the realities of unregulated capitalism mean that the American economy will stagnate-how will the grand adventure be supported? Especially since the Chinese and Europeans are LOANING US money at the rate of $1.5 billion per day to support our lifestyle.

[Rumpy Tunanator]

-Well I guess I could always whore out my cat and sell head cheese out of the back of a van.