China's latest 'sacred' manned space mission blasts off

[bananas]

Source: Reuters

A Chinese manned spacecraft blasted off with three astronauts on board on Tuesday on a 15-day mission to an experimental space lab in the latest step towards the development of a space station.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft was launched from a remote site in the Gobi desert in China's far west at 5:38 p.m. (0938 GMT) under warm, clear blue skies, in images carried live on state television.

Once in orbit, the craft will dock with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1, a trial space laboratory module, and the two male and one female astronauts will carry out various experiments and test the module's systems.

<snip>

President Xi Jinping oversaw Tuesday's launch personally, addressing the astronauts before they blasted off to wish them success, saying he was "enormously happy" to be there.

"You are the pride of the Chinese people, and this mission is both glorious and sacred," Xi said, according to state media.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/us-china-space-idUSBRE95205220130611

[hobbit709]

1. Back around 1980 Robert Heinlein suggested that any young American interested in going to space

learn Mandarin or Japanese, since we seem to have lost the will to go.

[levp]

2. Or,

learn Russian...

[Octafish]

3. The exploration of space IS sacred.

It's a path that may lead to humanity's long-term survival.

Kennedy Democrat, Baby.

No trickle-down, voodoo-economics for me; where 2013 marks the 32nd year of the rich getting richer at the expense of the middle class, the poor, and everybody else through war for profit and power.

[Gore1FL]

4. I wish them well

Their success means we'll probably get back into the game.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Yes

Humanity needs this kind of competition.

[Posteritatis]

7. As long as the game's being played at all, I'm content. (nt)

[xtraxritical]

6. Yes, after technology destroys the earth we need a place to go, lol.

[David__77]

8. Great news.

China is in a much more exploratory mood than the US of late.

Someone needs to be the driver for space exploration, and it may as well end up being China.

[Baclava]

9. I think it's great

[kentauros]

10. Their spacesuit style looks a lot like those of the 1960s.

I'm sure their technology in them is fine, just the overall visual style has that look to it

And the crowd in the last photo appears to be too close to the launch! One reason they're so far away here is for "range safety" in case something goes catastrophically wrong. A crowd that close would be consumed a fuel explosion or otherwise endangered by debris.

[Brother Buzz]

11. A telephoto lens flattens the perspective

That crowd could be a ten minute walk from from the launch pad.

As for falling debris, the smart ones got umbrellas to protect them.

[kentauros]

12. That's true about the telephoto effect.

And maybe they are using Kevlar (or the Chinese equivalent) umbrellas