MAIN ARTICLE: China Plans Space Station for 2010.
China expands it's plans for space with a new space station. Modules to start launching in 2010. More below the fold.
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll was the weekly tracking poll and voting weighed heavier then usual for space spending.
Star Trek: In the News. WonderCon 2009 - Star Trek Panel
Yesterday's Comments: "They already are if you consider Gov. Bobby Jindal's snarky reference to volcano monitoring. Following his logic, maybe we should stop spending money on hurricane research. How would his constituents react to that?" - Subo03
Today's Poll: Sunday's weekly poll 'So let it be written, so let it be done'
DAWN Of A NEW ERA:
Only two countries have ever built their own space stations. Russia with the Salyut and Mir Stations and the United States of America with the Skylab station. China is now planning on joining that very elite club of nations.
China Plans Space Station With Module Launch In 2010
"China will launch a space module next year and carry out the nation's first space docking in 2011 as a step towards its goal of building a space station, state media said Sunday.
The Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace-1" is scheduled for launch in late 2010 and will dock with a Shenzhou-8 spacecraft early the following year, Xinhua news agency said, citing officials with China's space programme.
"The module, named Tiangong-1, is designed to provide a 'safe room' for Chinese astronauts to live and conduct scientific research in zero gravity," the report said.
"Weighing about 8.5 tonnes, Tiangong-1 is able to perform long-term unattended operation, which will be an essential step toward building a space station."
Space programme officials have previously said China is expected to place in orbit several modules like the Tiangong and link them up to form a semi-permanent space platform.
It was not immediately clear if the Tiangong-1 would eventually serve as China's first manned space station, or whether it would be a base to test docking and space station technology."
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HEAVENLY PALACE:
The Tiangong-1 or "heavenly palace" in chinese will give China a new capability in space. The image above would be a completed station and could be just a wish list look of a station, the only image I could find on the Chinese website wouldn't translate for some reason so I could not tell if this is what the first module would look like. At only 8 tons this looks closer to something we could expect.
The image above would be a station module in front, the Shenzhou space capsule for a return to earth in the middle and the last the propulsion module.
FUTURE PLANS FOR CHINA:
There was one line in the above article right at the end that really caught my eye:
"Following the Shenzhou-8 flight, China also hopes to begin the mass production of Shenzhou spacecraft which will be used to transport astronauts to the space station, it said."
Mass production of the Shenzhou spacecraft, I do hope the Obama Administration takes note. Does America have anything to worry about? Not today, but we should keep in mind other countries have their own agendas that may eclipse our own.
POLL RESULTS:
The poll conducted yesterday was the weekly tracking poll for space spending.
Two numbers of note from the poll were the top and bottom numbers representing the extreme ends. Of those DKOS members who participated 40% wanted to see space funding return to more then four percent of the Federal Budget. The recent budget submitted by President Obama called for a 3.5 trillion dollar top end. That would mean 140 billion a year for NASA.
About the same cost as bailing out AIG. I think it would be safe to say we would have a lot more to show for our tax dollars if we spent 140 billion for space infrastructure. Human space flight recieves about 50% of the total NASA budget. If that stayed the same human space flight would recieve 70 billion a year. That would equal building one space station every year (50 billion for the ISS) and about 40 - 50 shuttle flights per year.
The second number was the bottom number which shows those that would like to see space spending cut. Only seven percent yesterday voted for cutting NASA. This number generally runs about 15-17 percent.
WEEKLY TRACKING POLL ARCHIVES:
Sat Feb 28, 2009, Sat Feb 21, 2009, Sat Feb 14, 2009, Sat Feb 07, 2009, Sat Jan 31, 2009,
Sat Jan 24, 2009, Sat Jan 17, 2009, Sun Jan 11, 2009, Sat Jan 03, 2009, Sat Dec 27, 2008
Sat Dec 20, 2008, Sat Dec 13, 2008, Sat Dec 6, 2008, Sat Nov 29, 2008, Sat Nov 22, 2008
STAR TREK: In the News.
WonderCon 2009 - Star Trek Panel
"The Star Trek Panel filled the room... of course.
J.J. Abrams, Chris Pine (James Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Robert Orci (Co-writer) & Bryan Burke (executive producer) were in attendance. The crowd went crazy as they came out.
We were treated to a new movie trailer and there were scenes in this particular trailer that have not been seen before. In fact this trailer will be the one airing with Watchmen when it hits theaters on March 6th. According to some folks sitting next to me, they were a little ruffled at what they showed in this new trailer. I won’t blow it for you because when you see this scene, you probably won’t realize what you’re seeing, but it is definitely a new Trek-verse."
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
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"23rd Century Communications A little more 'Star Trek' news.
Here's a new image of Kirk & Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise, in front of a massive viewscreen communicating with Nero (Eric Bana)." - RimJob
"Excellent! I hadn't known the details of where the Kepler mission would be looking, until I saw your graphics.
I think they're on the right track. It seems to me that if distance from the center of the galaxy is related to the age of star creation (my assumption; may be incorrect), with older stars further from the center, then we would expect to find stars with Earth-like planets in a band within certain limits of distance from the center of the galaxy.
More to the point, we would expect to find life-bearing planets in that band. And more interestingly, planets with technologically-capable civilizations that may be emitting signals we can detect (that issue waiting for subsequent missions, plus or minus SETI).
Here's me eagerly waiting for Kepler to go up and start returning data." - G2geek
"It's annoying There is a whole galaxy out there and I can't book a ticket." - LaFeminista
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TODAY'S POLL:
Sunday's poll is about China and if and how America should respond. Try to get them to join the international effort in space, a joint project, or compete.
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.