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China selects only two astronauts for new mission so they can extend time to 30 days in space | South China Morning Post

That's two significant major launches before the end of this year.

China is aiming for a permanently manned space station in 2022.

And they've arrived at the station. It's another exciting milestone for the Chinese space program.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... e-station/

You can just imagine it can't you - they get to the door & find the crew already there saying "Look, my order with Just Eat was a joke - don't you get it"?

Today China has a mapping mission in Mars orbit and a quarter-ton Mars Rover on the ground, powered up and communicating home. That's a great step forward.

The new orbital station has been started, they have put rovers on the moon and brought back rock samples. All since this thread started with one cosmonaut. That's fast progress. I hope we see a permanent moon base at some stage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57122914

spot wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:41 amChina is aiming for a permanently manned space station in 2022.

China's Tiangong, its first long-term Space Station following the Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 prototype test vehicles, opened its first laboratory module ("Wentian") for kitting out a couple of weeks ago, I've been watching for stories but the Western media appears to have ignored it.

When the Shenzhou-14 taikonauts opened the hatch door of Wentian on July 25, the first lab module of China's space station was shown to the world.

It is the first time the Chinese taikonauts had entered the lab module in orbit. They will conduct in-orbit work such as the attitude control of the combination of the space station, small mechanical arm crawling and test the complex of big and small arms. They will also use the airlock cabin and the small mechanical arm of Wentian to carry out extravehicular activities.

As an important part of the national space laboratory, Wentian is able to support space science experiments of single or multi-disciplines. It is an "all-rounder" that integrates platform functions and tests payload functions.

http://www.stdaily.com/English/News/202 ... d861.shtml

A further laboratory module, "Mengtian", is due to arrive for installation in October. The current crew of three have been aboard for a third of their half-year rotation. International astronauts expect to fly to Tiangong "in the near future". And their Mars rover Zhurong is still functioning, a year beyond its design life.

All this modular part naming is very reminiscent of Leica.

For some reason, our media is not seeing fit to cover the Chinese space activity, just now. We are much more excited by the antics of The Donald, and his Rethuglican Cronies.
The only mention of China has been how their nose is out of joint over Rep. Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

Space.com has quite a bit of info on China Space programs, though.

I'm not sure Beijing's nose was out of joint at all, the US visit was a publicity gift.

Back around 1949, the Nationalist party was collapsing militarily and withdrew to a Chinese Province, Taiwan. The Nationalists and the Communists both agreed that Taiwan was a province of China, just as for example Hong Kong was. Hong Kong had been leased to the UK (under duress) for 150 years and was duly handed back in 1997.

The Nationalist government on Taiwan in 1949 claimed to be the authentic government of all China. The Communist government in Beijing made the same claim.

Nothing has changed between then and now except in 1971 the United Nations switched recognition from the Nationalist to the Communist government, which is why Beijing now has a permanent seat on the Security Council.

Does the Nationalist government on Taiwan still claim to be the authentic government of all China? I'm not sure. If anyone has a statement either way by the Nationalist government on Taiwan I'd be interested to see it. Have they abandoned their claim? I'd be quite surprised.

I'd call it a frozen civil war, like the frozen Korean civil war, and I'd say the common denominator is the US keeping the two sides from reaching a diplomatic agreement. I suggest unification in both cases would be beneficial to both countries, but not in the interest of the World's self-appointed Policeman.

One of the great attractions of another Trump Presidency is that he might put his constipated country back on the crapper, get it to push hard and see what he can shift.

Well, Taiwan still seems to refer to themselves as Republic of China - Taiwan
That does put a bump in the road to reunification with the Mainland.

It is interesting that the major industry of Taiwan is chip manufacturing, and the major source of raw materials for said chips tends to be in China and Mongolia.
The "Revolution" has been over for decades, yet there are still millions of hold-outs wanting to keep schisms alive just to have someone to hate. (Not just in China and Taiwan, of course.)

aside: When I was very young, my parents were friends with Chinese who had once fought with Chiang and the ROC. They owned a restaurant in DC.
I visited with them in the mid 70s and they were hoping to return to China some day.
Finally, in 2008, the sons returned to Guangzhou with their families, the ashes of their parents.
I've lost track of them since.

For those not watching closely, the contest for who would put the first Methane/Oxygen powered launch into low earth orbit was finally resolved this week.

Not SpaceX. Not Blue Origin.

A private Chinese company has launched the world’s first methane-liquid oxygen space rocket into orbit, China’s state media reported.

The Zhuque-2 carrier rocket blasted off at 9am local time (01:00 GMT) on Wednesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and “completed the flight mission according to the procedure”, state media reported.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/1 ... ace-rocket

I'm not sure many people were expecting that. My money is on the first permanently-staffed sub-surface moonbase being Chinese too.

I would hate to see the Moon become an international battleground. I truly hope that we establish a viable global government of some sort before anyone actually gets too comfortable on the Moon.

LarsMac wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 10:06 am I would hate to see the Moon become an international battleground. I truly hope that we establish a viable global government of some sort before anyone actually gets too comfortable on the Moon.

Space is, and always should be, above petty nationalism.

Bryn Mawr wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 2:58 am

LarsMac wrote: ↑Mon Jul 17, 2023 10:06 am I would hate to see the Moon become an international battleground. I truly hope that we establish a viable global government of some sort before anyone actually gets too comfortable on the Moon.

Space is, and always should be, above petty nationalism.

I do hope you're keeping an eye on the swivel-eyed tossers and their toys discussed repeatedly at https://breakingdefense.com/category/space. The mere fact that these paranoid delusionists aren't all on welfare is the greatest threat to world peace bar none.

"Breaking Defense" An interesting name.

Now is a good time to note who signed, and who did not sign the "Moon Treaty"
Spoiler: Neither USA, nor China are on that list of signers.

The Indian soft-lander has done three of the six orbit-raising maneuvres needed to get into Lunar orbit, the current prediction for the landing date is August 23. Will SpaceX have their Starship splashdown near Hawaii before then? It's close-run.