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The story behind China’s planned space station begins to emerge

The story behind China’s planned space station begins to emerge.

China first said it would build a space station in 1992. But the need for a manned outpost “has been continually contested by Chinese space professionals who, like their counterparts in the United States, question the scientific utility and expense of human space flight”, says Gregory Kulacki, China project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “That battle is effectively over now, however, and the funds for the space station seem to have been allocated, which is why more concrete details are finally beginning to emerge.”

Though I am always skeptical of comments from the Union of Concerned Scientists, in this case Kulacki makes sense. He also illustrates a further example of what I wrote in 2005, “After more than 40 years of debate, the argument is over and the supporters of manned spaceflight have won.”

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Kelly Starks

    >…the argument is over and the supporters of manned spaceflight have won.

    If we won, why is the space program being sutdown, and NewSpace reduced to asking for gov handouts?

  • Blair Ivey

    The meta-debate has been won. That doesn’t preclude resistance in specific cases.

  • yes humans must explore everywhere possible! robots shouldn’t get too jealous there will always be plenty of things only they can do and places only they can go . the government space program is being shutdown because the government is stupid and disfunctional . duh . NewSpace should be trying to get support from anywhere and everywhere, you make it sound like newspace is stuck on welfare, I like to think of it as more of a start up getting a gov grant and private investment

  • Kelly Starks

    > NewSpace should be trying to get support from anywhere and everywhere, you make it sound like newspace
    > is stuck on welfare,==

    Yes, reportedly up until a few years ago in the NewSpace conventions, companies were focused on developing new markets and getting investor money. The last couple years hope the focus has been on gov grants since the markets arn’t there, adnd the investors are drying up.

    >== I like to think of it as more of a start up getting a gov grant and private investment

    ;)
    The old rules of launguage whereif folks you don’t like get the “grants” from the gov its pork, if folks/causes you do like get it its a “investment”.

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