What does it mean? My thoughts, over at Popular Mechanics.
11 thoughts on “The Chinese Space Docking”
G’day,
What does it mean? That the Chinese are developing docking procedures so they will be ready to take possession when bankrupt America puts the ISS on Ebay.
ta
Ralph
Did you deliberately leave out mention of the Russian space program which has been doing automated dockings on a routine basis since the seventies? That illustrates how it isn’t really a “tribute to the intervening decades of technological development”. What it illustrates is the shameful way the US manned space program has been run for the benefit of it supply chain and their enablers in Congress instead of by contributing on commercial development of space or even just exploration for the sake of prestige. The Europeans and even the bleeping (former) communists are ahead of NASA.
I would have picked another angle: the Russians have been doing it ever since the seventies, the Europeans have done it twice now and even the Chinese appear to have caught up. SpaceX and Orbital are also making great strides in it too. It is high time NASA got its act together and started basing its plans around it.
Did you deliberately leave out mention of the Russian space program which has been doing automated dockings on a routine basis since the seventies?
No, it got edited out.
Funny. The way I used to hear it, manned docking was an example of spirit of individualism in America in that NASA placed its trust in the astronauts flying the craft to do complicated maneuvers like docking while the centrally controlled Russians didn’t trust their cosmonauts that far. To them they were just passengers.
Matula must have missed the part where the Russians paid bonus money to cosmonauts for conducting the docking manually. One more thing Matula believes that turns out to have no basis in reality.
Just watched the video, also at Popsci. This docking video is obvioulsy a fabrication. Probably filmed with little plastic models somewhere at a secret soundstage in the Mongolian desert. I could almost see the little strings holding up the model spaceship.
But serioulsy, congratulations to the Chinese. eNuff said about them.
I’m always confounded when commenters here & elsewhere lament that US supremacy in space is diminishing. What exactly are we supreme in? Other than we have been rich enough to launch the most costly rockets and payloads. Here’s my rankings:
Arianespace is the #1 commercial provider
Russia/Soviets were #1 in launch rate and reliability for Human Space Flight with Soyuz
Russia/Soviets are #1 in the highest efficiency and low cost rocket engine technology & design. USA is #2 with the the SSME. An amazingly costly design for the performance.
I rank the USA/NASA as only having #1 leadership position in the area of interplanetary navigation, robotic astronomy, and entry/descent/landing technology. Not an insignificant achievement by any means. But why then do we starve our most competitive activitites to feed the beast we are the worst at? ( SLS/BFR’s). It has been sad to see the likes of L. Garver, who recognize this, have to play the “jobs” politics and relent on endorsing the SLS.
The USA’s real contribution to our knowledge of the Solar System and our Universe has never been the BFR on the launch pad. It does amuse the mob however.
Nothing the Chinese do is divorced from their military objectives. This isn’t my opinion, it’s their declaration. We should always be cognizant of that.
So, this is Griffin clearly lying in congressional testimony.
Note that the question was not specific about 25t launchers, but just about the size category, so he was lying when he said that “we do not have anything like that”.
Lying to Congress is a crime, while lying in Congress is almost part of the job description. And lying to Congress is permitted if you’ve been invited to tell the lies the members of Congress want people to hear.
Lying to Congress is a crime,
Actually, it isn’t. Most Congressional hearings are not conducted under oath.
Congress literally invites people to lie to them.
All theater is lie with willing suspension of disbelief.
G’day,
What does it mean? That the Chinese are developing docking procedures so they will be ready to take possession when bankrupt America puts the ISS on Ebay.
ta
Ralph
Did you deliberately leave out mention of the Russian space program which has been doing automated dockings on a routine basis since the seventies? That illustrates how it isn’t really a “tribute to the intervening decades of technological development”. What it illustrates is the shameful way the US manned space program has been run for the benefit of it supply chain and their enablers in Congress instead of by contributing on commercial development of space or even just exploration for the sake of prestige. The Europeans and even the bleeping (former) communists are ahead of NASA.
I would have picked another angle: the Russians have been doing it ever since the seventies, the Europeans have done it twice now and even the Chinese appear to have caught up. SpaceX and Orbital are also making great strides in it too. It is high time NASA got its act together and started basing its plans around it.
Did you deliberately leave out mention of the Russian space program which has been doing automated dockings on a routine basis since the seventies?
No, it got edited out.
Funny. The way I used to hear it, manned docking was an example of spirit of individualism in America in that NASA placed its trust in the astronauts flying the craft to do complicated maneuvers like docking while the centrally controlled Russians didn’t trust their cosmonauts that far. To them they were just passengers.
Matula must have missed the part where the Russians paid bonus money to cosmonauts for conducting the docking manually. One more thing Matula believes that turns out to have no basis in reality.
Just watched the video, also at Popsci. This docking video is obvioulsy a fabrication. Probably filmed with little plastic models somewhere at a secret soundstage in the Mongolian desert. I could almost see the little strings holding up the model spaceship.
But serioulsy, congratulations to the Chinese. eNuff said about them.
I’m always confounded when commenters here & elsewhere lament that US supremacy in space is diminishing. What exactly are we supreme in? Other than we have been rich enough to launch the most costly rockets and payloads. Here’s my rankings:
Arianespace is the #1 commercial provider
Russia/Soviets were #1 in launch rate and reliability for Human Space Flight with Soyuz
Russia/Soviets are #1 in the highest efficiency and low cost rocket engine technology & design. USA is #2 with the the SSME. An amazingly costly design for the performance.
I rank the USA/NASA as only having #1 leadership position in the area of interplanetary navigation, robotic astronomy, and entry/descent/landing technology. Not an insignificant achievement by any means. But why then do we starve our most competitive activitites to feed the beast we are the worst at? ( SLS/BFR’s). It has been sad to see the likes of L. Garver, who recognize this, have to play the “jobs” politics and relent on endorsing the SLS.
The USA’s real contribution to our knowledge of the Solar System and our Universe has never been the BFR on the launch pad. It does amuse the mob however.
Nothing the Chinese do is divorced from their military objectives. This isn’t my opinion, it’s their declaration. We should always be cognizant of that.
So, this is Griffin clearly lying in congressional testimony.
Note that the question was not specific about 25t launchers, but just about the size category, so he was lying when he said that “we do not have anything like that”.
Lying to Congress is a crime, while lying in Congress is almost part of the job description. And lying to Congress is permitted if you’ve been invited to tell the lies the members of Congress want people to hear.
Lying to Congress is a crime,
Actually, it isn’t. Most Congressional hearings are not conducted under oath.
Congress literally invites people to lie to them.
All theater is lie with willing suspension of disbelief.