US and China space activity

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Gravity_Ray

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I was not a big fan of China's politics. I have done much business in China though and know quite a few Chinese businessmen. They are anything but communists, as a bunch they are very diverse and usually have a strong capitalistic spirit about them. I have enjoyed doing business with all of them that I have had dealings with. So personally I like them.

In the past however, I have worried about U.S. doing Space Flight cooperation with the Chinese space program (especially human space flight).

One reason is that the Chinese are incredible copiers. They can take your technology and make it their own very quickly and they don’t care too much about patents (well they care if they have to do business outside of China), but even then.

The second reason is that China is not an entirely stable country. It is actually about 40 or so countries tied together and could split apart if conditions are right. This is dangerous when you think about the technology that can be taken from space flight and applied to non-civilian space applications (military).

But lately I have been thinking about US / China relations in the field of Space Flight. Their advances in the field of Space technology cannot be denied. They are on their way to build a space station, and have very impressive plans to go to the Moon. For them its not so much about what they will do once there, but just the prestige of being the second country to do that.

So my question to you guys is: What do you think about cooperation with the Chinese in space?

Obviously there are several Republican senators that are extremely against the idea (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1010/26boldenchina/). But are they being realistic about the future? Right now it doesn’t appear that NOT doing business with the Chinese has slowed them down at all since their space technology comes from Russia not the US. Wouldn’t this be a good way to engage them further and get into a more stable relationship with an obvious super power?
 
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neuvik

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If they want to put up funds for modules or scientific experiments, satellites etc welcome aboard. Although, they have been routinely hacking national laboratories so maybe a boycott is more prudent... Till then they are just failed communist state where the “more equal than others” oppress and steal from the people and provides a picture of what our country will look like after a few more years of hope and change. Plus I think NASA busy fulfilling the dear leaders proclamation to make muslims feel more appreciated.
 
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High_Evolutionary

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"So my question to you guys is: What do you think about cooperation with the Chinese in space?"

I believe it should be done in doses and on an experimental scale like Neuvik mentioned. Actually considering the huge amount of money the U.S. is in debt to China , I can not see how the chinese would be in any hurry to work with us. They seem to have the know how(to an extent), and I wonder why considering how well there GNP is doing why they(China) hasn't doubled if not tripled there space exploration(military) budget. As for the republican senators, please are they actually trying win votes over by suggesting we would lose more american jobs to China. You must be kidding me. :)
 
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Booban

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Gravity_Ray":2mw2a7ze said:
The second reason is that China is not an entirely stable country. It is actually about 40 or so countries tied together and could split apart if conditions are right. This is dangerous when you think about the technology that can be taken from space flight and applied to non-civilian space applications (military).

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about with regards to China. This is never mentioned by people who claim they know what they are talking about. Chinese don't like each other and they don't even speak the same language. This makes China unpredictable, made worse because of it's size which means it is dangerous.

China hasn't really advanced space technology, or any technology, as you said yourself they are great copiers. With their Russian tech they've reached their limit. All they want to do is copy US tech, you'd have to be stupid (naive if we're being polite) to believe otherwise. But western powers have already shown incredible stupidity (sorry, naivety) by thinking they can play nice with China. Good sportsmanship is a western concept. Chinese are interested in winning. I'm sure you've noticed this in your business dealings.

Now I don't hold this against them. Japan copied Americans, and Americans copied the British (stole whole factory plans). But you don't have to be stupid about it and give it to them like the Russians did for short sighted financial gain. Like the US recently did by selling one of the worlds most advanced automobile companies, Volvo, to China.

The Chinese have never ever tried to earn any trust to be granted MFN status, WTO membership and instead been rubbing it in by holding 10 US airmen hostage in Hainan, deny safe refuge for a US warship in a storm and all manner of support to crazy renegade states like N. Korea and Iran. When will people realize that China has returned absolutely ZERO favor for western help in carrying it out of the bicycle stricken poverty is was in so few years ago.

Now some would think it may actually be a good idea for space co operation with China in space because then they could waste all their money down the black hole of space instead of military and economic dominance on earth. But the Chinese will not go into space to do silly things like planting flags and flipping rocks on the moon or pointless rendezvous with large pebbles in space. They will go there to make money.
 
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frodo1008

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The Chinese are going to send monetary printing presses into space???
 
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vulture4

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The only reason the ISS was finally funded was to provide a catalyst for trust and cooperation between the US and Russia. And it has worked quite well. When you work day after day with Russians, and realize they are really no different from us, you see how silly it is for us to destroy each other over our imagined differences. Now tensions are rising with China. Inviting China to join the ISS would not only help the US and China understand each other but would also help to defuse tensions between China and Japan, which could rapidly escalate to nuclear confrontation within the next three or four years. If that's not what you want, you better start thinking of international trust and cooperation as a goal rather than American dominance.

As to whether Chinese are stupid people who cheat by stealing our technology, get real. In the US colleges are boosting tuition, which keeps out the poor kids. Politicians say we need people with less education for low-wage service jobs. Ninty percent of high school students in Shanghai go on to college!!!. . If some of them have to work in factories, so what? They will have the knowledge to improve the product and the manufacturing process. I work with Chinese, and most of them get ahead by studying and working hard, like anyone else. American CEOs, on the other hand, are short-sighted and greedy. They see the chance for quick profits by outsourcing and don't care that their workers are unemployed. Do you seriously think HP, GM and Walmart are afraid China will steal their ideas? What a laugh, says my Chinese friend, don't you know HP is virtually a Chinese company already? US manufacturers see their future in China both for manufacturing and for customers. Walmart is becoming China's largest store. GM is making more profits there than they are here. American companies are not losing out, they're emigrating. it's America that's losing. China is already the world's largest manufacturer of products made of steel, aluminum, and copper. Within 20 years it may well be the world's biggest economy. The idea that China wants to race us to the moon is absurd. They are launching only one mission a year. The purpose of thei human spaceflight program is to build national pride and showcase their commercial space capability.

What does all this mean to NASA? It means NASA needs to forget about sending a few civil servants to the moon, Mars, or an asteroid. We'd have to borrow the money from China. It means NASA needs to begin executing an industrial policy that will develop US manufacturing technologies and export industries. We need to stop bashing NASA for helping "commercial" space and tell them to start helping all US industry compete, not as a sideline, but as job 1. Wait a minute, that was why the organization we now call NASA was originally created - because the US civil aeronautics industry was already falling behind - in 1915!
 
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Booban

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Yeah, working together builds trust, but whose working day after day with the Russians? Send world leaders up there, sure, I'm all for that. But nobody cares what the astronauts think. Russian and US co operation has not worked out well at all, only in space it has. Here on earth Putin was busy turning Russia into an autocracy, flying bombers to the coast, supporting Venuzuela and invading Georgia and threatening Ukraine, building new nukes, and all at the same time accepting massive western aid money dismantling their nuclear waste.

Westerners just won't get it, they think they can talk about building international trust when the other side is looking for dominance. They won't stop until it is them that is inviting you aboard their space station.

Vulture4 paints a bleak picture of today's situation, in other words, belly up now because Chinese hegemony is already here. He may be right, but only if western powers continue to let it happen.

And btw, I didn't call the Chinese stupid. I'm calling westerners kow towing stupid.
 
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Skyskimmer

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You guys got some wierd views of the chinese, sure they want dominance, no doubt they are much like americans were in the 1950's overly proud naive to the world, even seeing a bunch of chinese youth gettings their first cars is very much the way our grandparents were in the 1950's. To act like they have some evil desire, is very paranoid and very unrealistic. There a mirror image of our own culture anything you don't like about them can be said about the west. Of course they're behind us in experience, but don't kid yourself thinking they were any different than we were. Sure there copiers, and americans, prior to 1950 relied entirely, on importing europeans (Einstein, enrico fermi, Von brown, and the list goes on.) Don't get me wrong they have differernt views on bussiness( capitalist are seen as evil out of the nature of the bussiness, in their culture bussiness men are at the bottom instead of the top in the west/.)
 
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JonClarke

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There is a great deal to admire about China, including their space program, better collaboration and cooperation can only be for the good.
 
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frodo1008

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My thinking also, JonClarke.

I really don't give a hoot just who gets humanity off of this spaceship Earth and out into the greater solar system. Be it NASA, for profit private enterprise, or even other countries than the US, and this includes the Chinese.

However, I also must admit to being patriotic enough to prefer that it be the US! :D :D :D
 
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vulture4

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Skyskimmer":vwr301vc said:
Don't get me wrong they have differernt views on bussiness( capitalist are seen as evil out of the nature of the bussiness, in their culture bussiness men are at the bottom instead of the top in the west/.)

Maybe under Mao, but not since Deng. Now it is glorious to be rich. Although the state has a significant ownership share in some businesses, China today operates by pure capitalism. It is Communist in name only. I see major benefits to bringing China into the ISS program; indeed this is the purpose, in reality, for which the ISS program was finally actually funded during the Clinton administration after Reagan declared he would do it and then did not invest the needed funds. The idea that somehow keeping our "advanced technology" out of Chinese hands would protect us economically has no basis. The technologies on the ISS are not critical militarily or economically.
 
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Skyskimmer

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vulture4":1nlz4jxe said:
Skyskimmer":1nlz4jxe said:
Don't get me wrong they have differernt views on bussiness( capitalist are seen as evil out of the nature of the bussiness, in their culture bussiness men are at the bottom instead of the top in the west/.)

Maybe under Mao, but not since Deng. Now it is glorious to be rich. Although the state has a significant ownership share in some businesses, China today operates by pure capitalism. It is Communist in name only. I see major benefits to bringing China into the ISS program; indeed this is the purpose, in reality, for which the ISS program was finally actually funded during the Clinton administration after Reagan declared he would do it and then did not invest the needed funds. The idea that somehow keeping our "advanced technology" out of Chinese hands would protect us economically has no basis. The technologies on the ISS are not critical militarily or economically.
I'm not talking about capitalism in the political sense I mean shope keepers, bussiness men etc. They don't work on values of trust and friendship. They work on distrust, manipulation, all for me, a real dog eat dog game. It's not bad it's just much more honest than how westerners look at bussiness. I like the chinese way of doing things as there's no pretending, it's all about working hard, and playing hard for every dolalr you earn. In my mind it's more John smith like than anything you will see in a bussiness class at a western university.
 
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vulture4

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In my mind it's more John smith like than anything you will see in a bussiness class at a western university.

Perhaps you mean Adam Smith?

The problem is that China is on track to become the world's largest economy. To continue to shut them out of the ISS is unrealistic. We need their investment to keep it flying. If we don't move to a collaborative effort now, in a couple of decades we may be begging China to let us join their program.
 
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