What is the motivation of China's manned space program?

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by Lust4Life

Your argument seems to be, lets not bother with the Wright brothers, or Bi planes, or propeller driven aircraft, but instead lets wait until we invent Concorde and 747s completely out of the blue.

Exactly, I find it hard to imagine that if China's continues a manned space program for 50 years that the US could instantly catch up in 50 years time when asteroid mining becomes economically viable.

Although to be fair private enterprise in the US is doing more than I realised when I made the OP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14089297

Seems there are five credible manned space efforts underway in the US from private enterprise. Wouldn't that seem to entirely kill the argument that there is no economic reasons for having a manned space presence since five private companies are doing it?

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Exactly, I find it hard to imagine that if China's continues a manned space program for 50 years that the US could instantly catch up in 50 years time when asteroid mining becomes economically viable.

Although to be fair private enterprise in the US is doing more than I realised when I made the OP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14089297

Seems there are five credible manned space efforts underway in the US from private enterprise. Wouldn't that seem to entirely kill the argument that there is no economic reasons for having a manned space presence since five private companies are doing it?

Those are meant to service the ISS -- IOW, they're hoping for government contracts. It all comes down to tax dollars.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by coremelt

No money in space? There is unlimited renewable energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

Plus countless trillions of minerals and rare metals:
"At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mile) contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals."
"Economic analyses generally show that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs.[8] However, based on known terrestrial reserves and growing consumption in developing countries, there is speculation that key elements needed for modern industry, including antimony, zinc, tin, silver, lead, indium, gold, and copper, could be exhausted on Earth within 50-60 years.[9]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

Plus there is strategic strong points. Mass driver on the moon = unlimited ballistic munitions projection. Destructive power of Nuclear bomb, no fallout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

So, I guess you're right, there is no economic or strategic reasons for going into space, why would you bother?

Regarding strategic considerations, see post #66. For the rest, of course there's wealth in space, the question is whether it can be profitable to go get it, considering the costs. We won't be thinking of mining the asteroids until Antarctica is played out.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Those are meant to service the ISS -- IOW, they're hoping for government contracts. It all comes down to tax dollars.

Yes except as I understand it, both SpaceX (Elon Musk) and Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) are investing significantly more funding into their research than the short term funding provided by NASA.

In other words two of the most successful internet entrepreneurs see economic advantage in being in space long term and are spending large chunks of the fortunes they made on Ebay and Amazon to pursue that.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Regarding strategic considerations, see post #66. .

Irrelevant, thats talking about rocket based Nuclear delivery from orbit or the moon being a dud. A mass driver on the moon launching tungsten rods to targets at orbital velocities is a very real strategic weapon. So is Kinetic Bombardment from Orbit ("rods from god")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment.

A 1000 kilo tungsten rod at mach 9 is enough to mess up anyones day!

Note the Outer Space Treaty bans Nuclear Weapons in space, it does not ban conventional weapons.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Irrelevant, thats talking about rocket based Nuclear delivery from orbit or the moon being a dud. A mass driver on the moon launching tungsten rods to targets at orbital velocities is a very real strategic weapon. So is Kinetic Bombardment from Orbit ("rods from god")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment.

A 1000 kilo tungsten rod at mach 9 is enough to mess up anyones day!

Note the Outer Space Treaty bans Nuclear Weapons in space, it does not ban conventional weapons.

Nuclear or conventional, makes no difference. Compared to surface silos and submarines, space-based weapons facilities -- Lunar or orbital -- are easy for any enemy with comparable technology to find and destroy. And then there's the time it takes to get anything here from Lunar orbit, etc.

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Nuclear or conventional, makes no difference. Compared to surface silos and submarines, space-based weapons facilities -- Lunar or orbital -- are easy for any enemy with comparable technology to find and destroy. And then there's the time it takes to get anything here from Lunar orbit, etc.

Thats a very broad dismissal you're making. The USAF as of 2003 publicly acknowledged “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons.
Are you really confident to say there is zero, absolutely zilch, strategic advantage in maintaining a manned space program, and won't be in the next 25 years?

[user_hostile]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Note the Outer Space Treaty bans Nuclear Weapons in space

<nitpick> The Outer Space Treaty bans orbiting nuclear weapons </nitpick>

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by coremelt

Thats a very broad dismissal you're making. The USAF as of 2003 publicly acknowledged “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons.
Are you really confident to say there is zero, absolutely zilch, strategic advantage in maintaining a manned space program, and won't be in the next 25 years?

There is if anybody else does it, of course; countermeasures in kind will be necessary. I.e., they put up their orbiting rod bundles, we develop ways to disintegrate them harmlessly, and so on. I just don't see any point in starting it, because there's no pressing unmet military need here -- we can already wreak plenty of destruction on each other with Earth-based weapons. The Star Wars/SDI dream of using orbital technology to defend the surface from Earth-based weapons -- well, that never could have worked, could it? IOW, we've already got destructive capacity hard to improve on. What's the advantage of adding hyperexpensive space weapons to the arsenal?

[coremelt]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

What's the advantage of adding hyperexpensive space weapons to the arsenal?

"rods from god" are potentially deep penetrating bunker busters far beyond any capability from any earth based conventional weapon and with no radioactive fallout. It's also very hard to detect the launch and very hard to detect them in flight.

So "disintegrating them harmlessly" is not real practical.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Lumpy

Yeh, but once you get away from Fe/Ni, the "paydirt" gets a lot skimpier.

The FE/Ni (and Co) is paydirt enough, apparently, at current prices (which of course wouldn't stay current prices when a literal mountain of Invar is orbited somewhere).

Not that I'm advocating asteroid mining right now, understand. I just wanted to correct the statement that there aren't metal asteroids out there.

[levdrakon]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

For the rest, of course there's wealth in space, the question is whether it can be profitable to go get it, considering the costs. We won't be thinking of mining the asteroids until Antarctica is played out.

First, you seem to feel that when large numbers of people start moving into space, that they are somehow obligated to send valuable crap back to earth for you. Why? People living in space will find it cheaper to mine, and keep what they mine for their own uses. Not everything has to come back to earth.

Antarctica? Seriously? You can't develop Antarctica. There are world-wide treaties. Please, let this Antarctica thing go. It's pretty much off the table. It's protected. Can't strip mine it. Please leave it alone.

[XT]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

First, you seem to feel that when large numbers of people start moving into space, that they are somehow obligated to send valuable crap back to earth for you. Why?

They would almost have to, if they wanted to trade with countries on Earth. Think of any colony that existed in the past on Earth. For quite a long period of time they have to be supported by the mother country. Even after they get on their feet they still don't make all of the stuff that they want, and in general they trade raw materials for manufactured goods. It would be the same with a colony on Mars or in space....they would have to be massively supported initially, and they would trade raw materials back to earth for manufactured goods that they would need until they could build up their own manufacturing capability. Even then, there would a lots of stuff that they just couldn't make that could be found on Earth, so they would most likely continue to trade long after they were up and running.

That's assuming one could find a way to make it cost effective to have such colonies or mining facilities with people on them. Not something that seems likely any time in the near future (read: not in my lifetime, unfortunately).

-XT

[littlmissrock]

Being Chinese myself and currently living in china my answer is to gain face. The entire Chinese culture is built on vanity and superfical pride.........China has a space program simply to look good, America has a space program to explore the universe.

[littlmissrock]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

How long will that growth rate be sustained?

Of course if you're in Shanghai or Beijing China doesn't seem like a poor country. But there's a vast hinterland with hundreds of millions of peasants who are still dirt poor. China has a long way before it can catch up with Mexico in per-capita GDP.

True man......true......and remember most of the people in bmws and mercedes got rich by corruption.

[littlmissrock]

Originally Posted by Sam Stone

Yeah, and the Egyptians built the pyramids. How's that Egyptian space program working out?

Organizing millions of peasants to engage in backbreaking manual labor is hardly the same as building a technologically advanced space program staffed with highly trained people and capable of dramatic innovations.

China still lags the rest of the world in car quality, and it doesn't seem to be particularly innovative. Instead, most of China's high-tech is reverse-engineered, or made in conjunction with partners from other countries.

So long as China has high levels of state interference in the economy and high levels of cronyism and corruption in its quasi-private markets, it's going to run into all kinds of problems. Growth in China is currently high because it started from such an incredibly low point and has so much low-hanging fruit to be harvested, but there are already lots of signs of gross mismanagement of assets and malinvestment of resources.

As for their space program, the Chinese have been making grandiose claims about their plans for space for several decades, and so far they don't have that much to show for it. I wish them well, but I'm highly skeptical.

The only reason china has a functioning economy is due to cheap labor........the only reason its economy is developing is because of greedy capitalistic americans taking advantage of the cheap labor........China rule the world....fat chance.........

[littlmissrock]

Originally Posted by even sven

For the record, the water in all but a handful of Chinese cities is unsafe to drink. The vast majority of Chinese people must boil their water before drinking it to avoid old fashioned infectious diseases like typhoid. Of course, this does not protect them from heavy metals, which is another story.

We are talking about a government that lacks the capacity to provide even basic government services. What they are good at is laying out massive sums of oney on prestige projects. It's too early to know the results of this method. Accomplishing your output (high speed rail, etc.) is not the sme as accomplishing results. But we do have some precedent- Africa is littered with showcase airports, luxury hotels, and five star conference centers. For the first decade after independence, it seemed like it was going to work- the capitals had everything a modern city would need and indicators were rising quickly- there was a huge jump in health and education outcomes.

In the end, that jump was merely a result of undoing some of the wrong of colonialism. It wasnt the beginning of an upward path. Corrupt, unresposive, unaccountable and vain governments soon slowed progress to a crawl.

China has a demographic boom of working age adults that it will soon reach the tail end of. It has experienced a huge infusion of cash from selling off the formerly public land in the countryside to private developers. In some muncipalities, sales of public lands account for fifty percent of city funds- and much of this is being pumped into unsustainable prestige projects under the "build it and they will come" theory. Obviously, this plan won't work forever.

Of course people support the Party in boom times. But people have very little attachement to the party itself- party membershipis prized mainly for the business opportunities it offer. You pay your hefty dues and you get the opportunity to climb the ladder. It's a cynical, practical transaction. These are fair weather friends, and the moment the economy falters, the party is going to find itself in trouble. The biggest threat is local parties, which are run like franchises. The ciy of Shanghai may well decide they don't need to listen to Beijing (and they don't. They have the money. All Beijing really has over them is the legitimacy behind the party name- which is useful currency for now.)

The party recognizes that they cannot promise double digit growth forever. Hey have been reparing for this by trying to lower economic expectations (hard sell) and building on nationalism. Imperial history and Confucionism- once reviled- are being revived in museums and education as the party rebrands itself as not a new era, but as the logical continuation of China's long political history, which had already achieved the ancient dreams of uniting China and damming the rivers, and is now going to restoreChina to her rightful place of glory and respect as the most advanced country in the world.


Hence the space program.

It sounds good, but these are not real dreams. These are the cynical calculations of a group of old men and young heirs determined to maintain power at any price. If they felt like burning China to the ground would keep them in power, they would burn China to the ground.

well said.....couldn't agree with you more.