China's 3rd Manned Space Mission

Given that Science & Technology is my speciality and focus of interest (not to mention my career), I thought I'd interject a little something different into our discussion.

China's 3rd Manned Space Mission
Time.com, AP

(BEIJING) — China plans to launch its third manned space mission that will feature its first-ever space walk during 2008, state media said Tuesday.

China will also send up 15 rockets and 17 satellites, Huang Qiang, secretary general of the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

He described Shenzhou 7, which will carry three astronauts into space, as a priority for this year.

China has denied any link between the manned mission and its staging of the Olympics, which start Aug. 8, although both events are a source of huge national pride.

Huang was also quoted as saying that nearly 30 new technologies would be used during the Olympics, including the Olympic torch, security system and meteorological services provided by a new satellite.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to send a human into orbit. It followed with a two-man mission in 2005. It launched a moon probe last year about one month after rival Japan blasted its own lunar orbiter into space.

Personally, I'm excited for the Chinese, and I'm keeping a close eye on their space program. As a superpower in the making, their presence in the field of space exploration will add an interesting dynamic. In the past, China has not been know so much for their innovation as their industriousness. Their ability to reverse engineer and then mass produce civil and military technologies is near legendary. However, in last decade, we see China stepping out from under the mantle of "copy-cat extraordinaire" and truly trying to innovate. The QBZ-95 assault rifle, the FC-1 "Chao Qi", the ACAC ARJ21 Xiangfeng civil airliner, so on and so forth. And while native Chinese avionics still lag behind the west in sophistication and reliability, I don't doubt that in another decade, they will be comparable.

However: China is still a fairly closed society, despite reforms. I fear that we might see ghosts of the Soviet space program, where the successes will be heralded with great fanfare and expectation, while many of the failures, specifically the ones that result in casualties, will be kept as closely guarded state secrets.... which will not only be bad for the Chinese, but for every other space faring nation (existing or emerging) that could potentially learn from their mistakes.

Also... I'm a firm believer that space exploration is one of the last bastions of genuinely altruistic scientific endeavor; The seeking out of knowledge for the sake of expanding our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Now, I've always been a supporter of a strong national defense, and that as a superpower, we have a responsibility to maintain as strong and as decisive a military as we can manage. But I can't help but be dismayed that the DoD's annual budget is somehwere in the neighborhood of $425 billion... where as NASA's clocks in at around $17.3 Billion... only around 0.6% of the $2.9 Trillian federal budget.

I'd gladly trade in 2 or 3 F-22s, or a single B-2 for a mission to Europa. : Especially since it looks like the Russians are going to beat us there! Nooooo!!!