China's Tiangong 1 space station unveiled for tiny Taikonauts
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 26th 2009 7:21AM
posted January 26th 2009 7:21AM
posted January 26th 2009 7:21AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
@Tom G
"ok, i apologise, obviously (really, obviously) i was joking when i said 99%"
It is obvious that you're an ignorant asshole.
"don't assume i am anti-China because i think they should spend money on helping the people of China and fixing the government before space missions like this"
Riiiight....since the US, Soviet Union, and Japan all had perfect governments and perfect societies before they launched their space programs. Idiot.
"My friends are Chinese (real Chinese, born in China) and they agree"
You're making this shit up. I don't see how you can have any Chinese friends since it is so obvious that you are anti-China. And yet they "agree" with your anti-China statements, right? Do you think we're stupid?
And you're saying that Chinese people born in other countries are somehow less real than Chinese born in China? Stop being lame.
"i am not American so although i did wrongly make statements about the failure of Chinese space programs, don't assume i am American >_"
No one thinks you're American when your English reads like crap.
Give Tom a break, i think u guys have made him suffer enough
Wow digoxin, i love how you managed to twist all of my comments into something that they reallly didn't mean to make me look bad (When did i say anything about Japan, US or SU? lol). Stop being so suspiciously defensive. Also yes, my friends (and my boyfriend (SHOCK SHOCK HORROR)) are Chinese, if you have a problem just let me know thanks m8, peace and happy new year! :)
Tom you ignorant fool... China has had fewer incidents than America with her space shuttles (RIP, those heroes who perished), and that 99% failure rate joke wasn't funny.
BTW digoxin, "No one thinks you're American when your English reads like crap." That was precisely why I thought he was American! :P
then your friends are just as friggin stupid. seriously.
Yeah, spend millions of dollars on a space station while millions in your own country are without electricity, cars, clean air, a full belly, or health care. Socialism rocks, man! /sarcasm
Yeah, spend 700 Billion dollars bailing out failed banks who lent money they didn't have to people who didn't have money and couldn't pay money back so then nobody could get money from banks so nobody could buy anything so nobody has a job anymore! Capitalism rocks hard!
/semi-sarcasm
Seriously, China is quite a well-managed socialist country, albeit with problems still, but it is growing extremely fast and after all, it started developing only since lately when the commies took over, and they weren't exactly colonialists back in the day, plundering other countries for resources for its own good. I'd like to see a democracy in China one day (I'm actually Chinese) but for now, the government is doing a good job (you didn't happen to miss the Olympics, I hope?)
I would like to thank our public education system for how stupid you came out. Bailing out failedbanks is capitalism? haha omg China is doing a good job? hwhhahhah
Must entertain those elites with the olympics, screw the peasants
Your comment is really ignorant, as if there were no ghetto's and everything was absolutely perfect here in the US, the richest country in the world. There is still tons of poverty here and if you weren't so blind you might have thought of it before making such an ignorant comment.
"And now we know why so many Chinese women in the US choose to date black or white guys"
I live in NYC and I don't even see it very often, so I don't know where your redneck inbred ass what come to such a conclusion, I forgot your a f'in idiot.
In terms of technology, this is equivalent to the Soviet Salyut 1-5, which were from 1971-1977 and are considered very early versions of a station. Don't expect this station to be manned permanently as it does not have a second docking port (the US station Skylab started out with a second port, although it was more for redundancy than resupply) For those worried about China taking over the US in space, this should reassure you.
@ Ron, its more like salyut 6/7 (cant remember which one it was now) with the extra module being added at the end of its like, but in this case its an expansion (going onto a MIR type station)
and to whoever said china didnt want to join. They did, but the USA said no, chine would of been very very helpful in the ISS right now, giving that the shuttles are retiring
It certainly seems like a variant of the early Salyut type stations, and no bad thing really, it's always smarter to start small and build up capability and experience slowly
I AM surprised it doesn't have more than one docking port though, given that the Shenzhou has an orbital module which can be detached and used as extra accommodation - a multi-nodal docking port like MIR would make best use of that feature
Think of the big picture here guys, there's always the possibility of stretching the module, adding extra docking ports, stretching the Shenzhou orbital module if push comes to shove - even docking a pair of Shenzhou's together like a couple of the earlier Soyuz test flights in the seventies
It's all to play for, and even though the program is relatively new it's still potentially the most flexible system yet built
That's fantastic, another space race, finally things will move forward again.
"Orbital nukes take way less time to reach a target then ones being launch from mainland."
Unless you have quite a few such orbiting weapon platforms, they won't be in range of their targets all the time. (think about the orbital mechanical issues involved in getting a shuttle or Soyuz down to a specific landing area...you can't do it at just any time) Whereas the distance from (wherever Chinese ICBMs are stationed) to Taipei, Honolulu, Seattle, etc. is always the same...
However, spending at least part of its time as a manned reconnisance satellite (as some of the Salyuts did), that's a reasonable possibility.
You want short ballistic missile flight times? Worry about the range and stealth of their subs, first.