Some detail on one area of China's continuing plans to get Chinese into space - in this news relative to their Tiangong 2 space laboratory, which is expected to launch in 2016. Their space lab will have a crew of 3 astronauts.
by Morris Jones for SpaceDaily.com
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 26, 2015
The next Chinese crewed space mission won't fly until 2016. China is expected to send a crew of three astronauts to the Tiangong 2 space laboratory, which is expected to launch in the same year.
Right now, nobody knows who will be aboard the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, which will carry these astronauts to the laboratory. The Chinese themselves probably won't even have a rough idea for at least another year.
But other questions about China's astronaut corps need to be explored. A changing of the guard must happen at some point in the next few years. New astronauts must be selected. Old ones must also be retired, even if they remain officially listed as active.
So far, China has done an impressive job of preserving its small corps of astronauts. There has been no attrition, at least not officially. We can probably say with confidence that some of China's astronauts will never fly in space again, and are secretly forbidden from doing so. Stamp this on the files for Yang Liwei, China's first man in space, Liu Yang, China's first woman, and Zhai Zhigang, China's first spacewalker.
They are national treasures who will not be risked on any more dangerous missions. It's also possible that some of China's astronauts now have slim odds of flying again, or flying at all. That's probably true for much of the original astronaut class of 1998. Any unflown members of this group who don't make it aboard Shenzhou 11 will probably retire without a mission.
More: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/More_Astronauts_for_China_999.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDnFsNTkRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDnFsNTkRM
Buzz is likely very right!! For sure, the previously direction of the people of USA toward always striving to be the best we can be has pretty much been stopped by this primarily Democratic/leftist government since the Congressional take-over in 2006. Even worse than "stopped", this current president has been leading this country BACKWARDS FOR THE PAST 6 YEARS, to the point that pretty much everything is totally screwed up. And daily we see and/or directly experience the proof of that in our own lives, involving lawless acts against people and businesses. We cannot even bring our selves to treat our friendly nations with respect, much less rise up to actually conduct a truly motivated offensive against professed enemies of this nation.
Huh ---- going "back"(?) to the moon for the USA in reality appears to not even be on a back burner, the talk about it not withstanding!!
Yes, as Somamech mentioned in anther thread, China is now performing at a level of where the USA always has been, until
we started handing off most of our manufacturing (and other) to them! Somamech's statement was, "China is the new America in a sense"....... . :o :o