China celebrates first lunar pictures
A nation 'standing tall'
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China is celebrating the first pictures of the Moon beamed back by its Chang'e 1 spacecraft. The country's leaders hailed the mission as a success, but downplayed reports of plans to put a man on the Moon by 2020.
China's first pics of the moon. Credit: Xinhaunet
"There are no plans at the moment to send anyone on to the Moon. I've heard of foreign reports which say China will put a man on the moon by 2020, but I don't know of such a plan," said Sun Laiyan, head of the China National Space Administration.
"Please don't give us any more pressure. But I'm confident one day we'll put an astronaut on the Moon," he told a news conference.
State television showed the Chang'e 1 satellite celebrating the occasion by broadcasting the revolutionary anthem "The East is Red", Reuters reports, as the Premier Wen Jiabao visited mission control.
Wen said the mission had made a nation's 1,000 year old dream, a reality. "The Chinese people have the will, confidence, and ability to constantly compose fine new chapters as we scale the peaks of modern science and technology," he told a news conference. "The Chinese nation is fully able to stand tall among the world's ranks of advanced nations." ®
COMMENTS
@ Adrian Esdaile re: Buran
Sorry, bro' but the only difference between the USSR 'Buran' system and the USA's 'STS' system was the kind of 'strap-on' boosters used (USSR used liquid-fueled; USA used segmented solid-fueled). The Buran orbiter itself was a damn' near 100% aerodynamic knock-off of the USA's 'STS' Shuttle.
Buran also closely mimicked the USA Shuttle in terms of hugely optmistic development schedules and cost overruns.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm
Said it before, I'll say it again
The Merkins have outsourced astronautics to China, just like everything else.
The purpose of this mission is to do the surveying to work out ...
... where best to place a USA flag and Lunar Lander remnant to match where the moon landings were alleged to happen.
They're intending to write past history by placing the evidence to prove it happened, that's what.
@Shad
Shad, you really need to take a trip abroad sometime - your remarks show a combination of fear, gullibility and paranoia that I'm surprised to find on El Reg.
"China may not be bombing other countries, but given that they have no respect for us, or for anybody not "them" its only a matter of time before they do."
In all my visits to China I have never met a Chinese citizen who expresses such ignorance and paranoia as Shad does in this post. If anything the Chinese have too much respect for the West to the detriment of their own culture.
"China may not be bombing other nations, but they are flooding our economies with incredibly low quality products and taking jobs from us."
Now that shows that you have swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker:
Think hard... do really believe that any country can "flood" the economy of another?
It is mostly Western companies, not Chinese, who pursue a relentless drive towards cutting costs in production, quality control, wages etc. It is Western companies who force suppliers/manufacturers into unhealthy price competition.
How many 100% Chinese brands can you name who dominate a UK or US market? How many 100% US or UK brands can you name who dominate a market with Chinese made goods? And you blame the Chinese?!
As for your last comment:
"China is ten times the threat to our way of life than Russia ever was. And we, in our greed for cheap disposable goods, are letting them do it."
Fortunately most people realize that a country is easier to control/coerce/govern if the population has clearly identified enemies to fear.
We now have Islamist extemists held up as the ideological enemy, and China as the economic enemy.
Before that we had Communism as the ideological enemy and Japan as the economic enemy.
Before that we had Fascism and Germany...
Note that I am not saying that the above threats were not real, just that they are not always as real as they are made out to be - and are always useful to someone.
As a mind reprogramming experiment, try believing (wholeheartedly!) for a couple of days that China (or Islam...) may not be the threat most western media portray it to be. Maybe the real danger lies elsewhere, or within...
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