Space Race Heats Up in Asia 86
SushiVSYamcha writes with a link to an article on the Seattle Times site, discussing the newly-heated Asian space race. Following Russia and the US into orbit are the nations of Japan and China, now struggling to one-up the other in a competition for scientific and national pride. The piece covers Japan's new initiative to catch up to the Chinese program, as well as some history of the competition "China launched its first manned space flight in 2003. A second mission in 2005 put two astronauts into orbit for a week, and a third manned launch is planned for next year. This year, China also plans to launch a probe that will orbit the moon. Earlier this month, the country launched a Long March 3-A rocket that sent a navigation satellite into orbit as part of its effort to build a global positioning system. The satellite is the fourth China has launched as part of the Compass navigation system, which is expected to be operational in 2008."
Re:wrong info about wrong info (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yah Because Al-Qaeda Would Take Us Seriously (Score:2, Informative)
Only knowledge can cure ignorance.
Knowledge is attained through exploration.
Bigelow announcement: $15mil for month in space (Score:3, Informative)
Bigelow Announces $15 Million For Month in Space
Robert Bigelow has announced [washingtonpost.com] a price of $15 million for a four-week trip to one of the private space stations Bigelow Aerospace [wikipedia.org] will deploy, with a price of $3 million for an additional four weeks. This drastically undercuts the Russian Space Agency's $25 million price for a week or two on the ISS. Bigelow also stated that interested countries and companies could lease an entire in-orbit research facility for $88 million/year.
Re:Not exactly (Score:5, Informative)
These statements are contradictory - the only way they are making this "work" is by buying huge amounts of U.S. government debt (and other investments, but it's primarily T-bills). Which funnels money back into the U.S. Essentially they're loaning us the money to buy their goods. So they must think we're a good credit risk, at least.
I would also be curious to know where these jobs are going. If the U.S. is being drained of jobs, how come our unemployment rate is decreasing?
The real competition will be China versus India (Score:3, Informative)
India is planning on a Moon Mission [bloggernews.net] and a Mars Mission [atimes.com] and discussing Manned Space Flight [spacedaily.com].