You have to admit, it's an intriguing idea, one that would really shake the US and NASA's asses up and get us into space with a vengeance. Especially if the rumors mentioned by Jason Torchinsky in his article for the blog Flight Club.
Jason writes that China is designing a new suit for it's Taikonauts, one that would be able to void liquid from inside the suit, outside for the purpose (only hearsay now, and yeah it IS a bit far fetched and damn unlikely) of pissing on our flag and footprints.
China lacks a man rated heavy launcher but in the down and dirty moon-launch a pair of Long March 2f rockets could be used with little or no modifications. The only truly new unit that would be needed in a landing unit capable of transporting men to the surface and returning them to orbit (think Luna excursion Module - LEM).
The complete article can be read HERE
2 comments:
Sad thing is I do not think we could. NASA what happened?
Lynn
you have nailed the sentiment here right on the head. We are not much nearer a man rated rocket and politics are such that the Russians are not going to be transporting personnel in the very near future. Just reaching low Earth orbit used to be something we used to do easily (but then again, it was the Russians that got us moving towards the prize. Wow, what great days those were.) Am I sad? You betcha, plus a heavy dose of embarrassed.
I think NASA can still do the long term but it is being beat down with a big short sighted stick. What happened? NASA needed to grow a pair and just never got around to it.
Thanks for your comments Lynn...sounds like a good opener for the podcast....
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