NASA Watch: Is A Human Space Flight Compromise Emerging?

[Urwumpe]

The Chinese had only 3 manned spaceflights, right? Each mission had years between them. Are they going to get anywhere soon?

They plan to dock two spacecraft together and call it a space station this year.

Their pace is so non-existing, that China does hardly count as competition. At the current rate, they will land on the Moon in 2190.

 

[Donamy]

I think China just plans to take the state of Florida, when the loans default and go to the moon from there, in about 2019.

 

[jinglesassy]

They plan to dock two spacecraft together and call it a space station this year.

Isnt that what all space stations are just docked together spacecraft? :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

Skylab and the Salyuts were not docked together spacecraft...

 

[Hielor]

Skylab and the Salyuts were not docked together spacecraft...

Fair point, they were just "spacecraft" that were given the "station" label.

 

[T.Neo]

There are also spacecraft not given the label of "station" that are made up of multiple vehicles attached to each other.

The CSM-LEM stack and the arrangement of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project come to mind. Not to mention the HST (or any other satellite) berthed to STS, even though there isn't any pressurised connection between the two.

The Gemini-Gemini and Gemini-Agena docking missions also qualify, as do several concepts for cislunar and interplanetary vehicles.

 

[Ghostrider]

A "station" should be defined by its function, not by its composition. If one could build a monolithic ring structure in orbit you could inhabit, wouldn't you call it a "station" only because it's not made up of spacecraft docked together?

 

[Ark]

A "station" should be defined by its function, not by its composition. If one could build a monolithic ring structure in orbit you could inhabit, wouldn't you call it a "station" only because it's not made up of spacecraft docked together?

My off-the-cuff criteria for what defines a space station would be:

-Occupies a more-or-less fixed orbit, not designed to deviate significantly from that orbit.
-Incapable of landing.
-Designed to be continuously manned.

It's all semantics, really.

 

[jinglesassy]

-Designed to be continuously manned.

There goes skylab