Chinese have spacewalked

Congratulations to them, only the third such independent nation to do it. Article and TV footage here:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7637818.stm

Seanie.

Yes, great to see the chinese taking that leap forward.....wonder when it will be Irelands turn???? I suppose we won't see it in our lifetimes

Anyway a bit of competition will do no harm in the very long run...I see they went for the sphere shaped ship life the old USSR and the landing on land thingy

Declan

If any of you have Sky Digital TV there is a Chinese news channel (in English) which has been showing lots of information and interviews about this, some interesting stuff like the fact that it took about 10 hours to get into the EVA suit. I felt sorry for the guy who spent 10 hours getting into his suit only to be able to stick his head out the window Mind you, if I was given the chance I'd happily volunteer to do the same

As Declan said a bit of competition will be good for the further development of future space missions. This will certainly help keep the Chinese on track for their own space station.

They are certainly on track for a trip to the moon and be the first to get there in this century.
A red moon in orbit, that will be interesting.

All this has been done before,space walks by western "astros" bearly get a lookin on TV now. Why the big hu-ha all their technology has been copied or borrowed from others.

Kerry Stargazer wrote:Why the big hu-ha all their technology has been copied of borrowed from others.[/quote]
No if they copied their technology would be what other nations use; its not. The Chinese have developed a hell of a lot. The Long March rockets have come a long way from ICBM's for example. They should avoid the western mistakes of letting spacewalks become routine; an attitude which lead to the loss of the shuttles.

As for sky Chinese channels:
CCTV-9 Ch 510 is the main news channel and its in English! (This is probably best for the space stuff)
PCNE Chinese Ch 785 is in Chinese and has a bit of everything;