I think this is a historic event for an Asian country to send a maned space craft tailing USA and Russia. I think it proves couple of things about China compared to India. (1) That China is a leader and wants to be a leader unlike India who probably would like to follow in a Hobo Diok attitude. (2) It proves how focused and determined China can be doing it all by itself without even knowing English like India. (3) It has defeinitely given China the high prestige in the world which no longer can be ognored simply as a Communist country. (4) It has proved that China is technlogically superior to India. Or does it? I think it does. It will be interesting to see what different excuses we Indian wiould now like to come up with ( along with Olympic Gold Medal and Nobel Prize) for not doing it. No offense to Indians!!! Rajen Barua
----- Original Message ----- From: "Saurav Pathak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "D Deka" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Rajen Barua" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 11:37 AM Subject: Re: [Assam] BBC E-mail: China hails space hero > > > > D Deka said on AssamNet: > > + > + Where there is a will, there is a way. The will depends on priorities. > > one motivation i can think of is the size of one's rival. china > considers usa as its strategic adversary, whereas for india, it has > always been pakistan. china had decided to send a man into space > back in 1958, according to the reports. so this is just a > demonstration of their tenacity. they simply followed through with > what they had planned about 50 years ago. the chinese needs are very > likely military. > > > + You asked why India and Japan couldn't. You didn't include many other > + technologically advanced countries like U.K., Germany and France in > + your question. So success in space flight is not about technological > + achievement but more about where one wants to spend the money. Japan > + and India are also pursuing space technology as you well know. > > the europeans have concentrated on satellite launches not because they > have decided to spend the money on them, but because they have > decided to *earn* money by occupying that niche. india is poised to > give it competition and has created a corporation to market its > services via antrix.org. that is definitely the way to go, which i > think will happen after india builds its own credible cryogenic > engine for the gslv. but the program seems to have slacked somewhat in > the last few years. > > > + The desire of the non-western nations to gain experience in space > + flights is driven by the need to keep access to the space frontier. > + Some day there will be material gain from trips to other planets and > + moons. The likes of China, India and Japan do not want the western > + nations to have monopoly of this frontier. > > this used to be the attitude during the cold war, but not any > longer, mainly because of the cost. the next frontier is setting up of > the international space station. if at all there has to be any > material gain, a space station is the bare minimum. but that itself > is so costly that a single country cannot possibly bear the costs. > over the years, the iss has morphed from an exclusive american station > called freedom to an international project (india is not > participating). anything beyond iss will be possible only with > even more international participation. > > saurav > _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
