interesting stories on China discussion

i wonder if the click bait would have been reduced, if they had not put 'heartbreaking' in the headline.

 

Two fellows are soon to be launched towards the second Chinese orbiting station. Here I try to summarize the situation.

First station was orbited in 2011 and hosted 'taikonauts' twice. It is now uninhabited, and apparently non-responsive to communication, and expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry late 2017. Some bits may fall onto land somewhere.

Second station was orbited 2016 September. First launch of people to it in a day or so. They will (could) stay for a month. There are some interesting experiments planned for their stay, then they deorbit pretty much like you saw in the movie Gravity. Then some empty time, and another 'tube' to be launched first half 2017 to robot-dock with that. Followed by more bodies on board we suppose. This one will also later de-orbit, perhaps under control (unlike the first).

The third station is intended to be the 'keeper', possibly a successor to ISS which has uncertain future in 'the 20s'. Four tubes around a central union. While all these stations extend photovoltaic panels for power supply, I have seen nothing about shaded heat-rejection device (that ISS has). First and second certainly lack them.

Another ISS thing apparently lacking is avoidance of orbital debris. Probably not a big deal for Chinese 1 and 2, but if the third is really long-term inhabited it is a must. 400 km up is now not a clean place.

Anyway, local TV is now all about these two brave up-goers. I suppose they will have an interesting month.

If you care, please note that '4 on center' architecture for (future) Tiangong 3 is not obviously as expandable as is (current) ISS. If nothing else, US 'Space' Shuttle was a burly (costly) truck that provided big pieces, that Russia's lifters could not have done. Nor anyone else's.

China is building capability for low-earth orbit human work (subject here), but I'm not sure what it really means. Maybe, in the 20's, ISS and Tiangong could be 'mated' and we'd have a global outpost up there. But space is not +400 km. Not even hardly.

Those two guys made orbit with little doubt about docking success. Then they do things for about a month, and drop back in.

Launch hardware is set up for 3 people, but news says only ~60 person-days of consumable supplies could be on board. Previous stays (in the earlier space lab) were about a week so this will be a new level of spaciness for China.

I did not know until today that all human and space lab launches by China have been with the same fire stick. Long March 2F. So a bit about that. Can put 8.4 tons into low-earth orbit. does this by burning about 424 tons of liquid fuel. In the typical 8 minutes . Along the way, drops ~40 tons of tanks, engines, shrouds, etc. on sparsely populated Inner Mongolia. I don't know whether anyone there has ever received such souvenir through the roof of their yurt.

English-language media coverage was, well, OK except for one fella suggesting that higher than 9 Gs would occur during ascent. It's more like 3; typical Soyuz profile. Three Gs is still a lot though, for plain old people.

During the month among other things they will grow and harvest Romaine lettuce. Interesting choice given the non popularity of salads around here.

In this

China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission - BBC News

I noticed a mistake, or at least different from my understanding. Current space lab only allows assembling 2 things. It is the next one that will assemble 4 things.

 

chinese couple down the street from us named their daughter valentina.

 

V. Tereshkova, first female off the earth/to earth orbit. Now a member of Duma.

 

they are quite proud of russian space program. i guess china and russia have a lot in common?

 

You guess? Long periods of close cooperation punctuated by a few rough patches. From 1949-1978 most foreigners in China were Russian. This was brought home to me while at a bus station 'way out there' in Yunnan. An older local fellow came up and spoke to me in Russian. Made sense to him as I was not Chinese. Ochen priyatno and all that.

This progression of Chinese orbital stations resembles Russian Salyut series to me. Interesting* to read about those. Followed by Mir which had a 6-way central docking hub. Mir was quite the thing for 15 years. Both have been rather forgotten it seems.

*Had guns and used them

 

birds of a feather...

 

Rule #1 - Bring your own paper.
Rule #2 - Deposit used paper in bin, not in primary target area.

 

Rule #1 also applies to Japan, but you can almost always get free tissues from people handing them out as advertising.

Rule #2 depends on type of target.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Ah, nostalgia! Torn up newsprint on a string behind the door. You soon discovered that the old oil-based printer's ink wasn't indelible.

 

Sooo is that better than the two red corn cobs and one white one? Yes usage order is important for best results. Not from personal experience.

 

Sounds like some kind of masochistic fetish you got over there. Sweet corn as a crop was only receiver recently introduced over here and still not widely grown. Nevertheless, I defer to your wisdom!

 

Think 1900 ish out houses with no Sears Roebuck catalog mail delivery.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, BUT from another continent. We never had a Sears Roebuck catalogue, but newspapers aplenty.