Congratulations to China and SpaceX!

I just wanted to highlight two big achievements in spaceflight that happened over the past few days.

First, was China's third manned space flight and first space walk. The 68-hour orbital flight aboard the Shenzhou VII spacecraft carried three taikonauts Zhai Zhigang, Li Boming, and Jing Haipeng. This was China's first space mission to carry a three-person crew. Commander Zhai Zhigang performed the approximately 20 minute spacewalk on September 27 and is shown waving the Chinese flag in the video below.



With ambitious plans to build a space station and go to the Moon, China is well on its way to making great strides in its manned spaceflight program. This has sparked some speculation of a new space race for valuable lunar resources. Who will be first to make it back to the Moon? China, the US, or a private company?

Speaking of private companies... The second big news in space this week was the successful launch to orbit of the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket from its launch site in Kwajalein on September 28. This was the first private rocket to orbit the earth and is an important stepping stone to the upcoming Falcon 9 launch in early 2009. SpaceX is vying for the $278 million NASA COTS Award to provide a commercial cargo and crew launch service to the ISS. Click the image below to watch a video of the Falcon 1 launch.


SpaceX co-founder and CEO Elon Musk released this initial statement about SpaceX's achievement:

Wow, this is a great day for SpaceX and the culmination of an enormous amount of work by a great team. The data shows we achieved a super precise orbit insertion — middle of the bullseye — and then went on to coast and restart the second stage, which was icing on the cake.

Comments

Nischal Shetty said…
The 'contact me' 'about me' and 'cv' links are perfectly placed! Great work :)
01 October, 2008 19:43
Anonymous said…
i came across your blog via linkedin. great job Brian! here people in China are really excited about Shenzhou VII :)
03 October, 2008 00:44
BrianShiro said…
Nischal, thanks for the compliment and your post that helped me get my static pages going.

Han Li, it's good to hear from you. Thanks for your comment.
03 October, 2008 20:54
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Insider tips on NASA's astronaut selection

Image
While NASA wraps up interviewing the second group of finalists to determine its 2013 class of ASCANs, the head of the NASA Astronaut Selection Office Duane Ross gave an illuminating presentation at JSC last Thursday about the selection process.  He covered questions ranging from academic degrees to interview questions, medical screening, and Russian language requirements. Pete Dimmick was among those present in the audience. Here are his notes from the event, reprinted with permission: Today I attended a lecture by Duane Ross and his protege, Anne Roemer. Duane has been the head of the astronaut selection process for 37 years and I had a few minutes to speak with them after the lecture was over. Here is what I found out about becoming an astronaut. I won't discuss so much the published requirements, rather I'll be focusing more on the insider things. There have been 257 NASA astronauts over the years and an applicant has a 0.6% chance of being selected. Of those no
READ MORE >>

Space Studies Showdown: ISU vs. UND

Image
--> Please note that this comparison from 2008 is no longer currently applicable to the current programs offered by ISU and UND. An updated post comparing programs in 2014 is coming very soon! I've been getting a lot of questions lately about the similarities and differences between the International Space University (ISU) and University of North Dakota (UND) space studies masters programs. As someone who has been a student in both universities (ISU SSP '05 and UND MS '10), I am in a good position to compare them. Note that although I was accepted into the ISU masters program, I decided to only attend their Summer Session Program (SSP) instead, so my firsthand ISU perspective is from the SSP rather than the masters. Over a year has passed since I blogged about my decision to join the UND Space Studies distance program. At the halfway point, I can report that I am overall quite happy with it so far. Before getting started, I'd like to thank the folks at
READ MORE >>

Interesting Astronaut Statistics

Image
In my continuing quest to become an astronaut, I wanted to figure out what the "typical" astronaut's background is like, so I mined the NASA astronaut bios for information. I was interested in the educational, military, selection age, and spaceflight histories of the astronauts, so I focused on that information. I think the plots below speak for themselves, but if you'd like the raw data or have questions, please feel free to ask. Note that I only compiled information on NASA's 126 active and management astronauts. I didn't include the Payload Specialists, former, or international astronauts, although I might go back later and add them to the analysis. I learned that only 36% of astronauts have earned doctorate degrees, but most of the astronauts selected with only a masters or bachelors had extensive NASA and/or military experience. The typical astronaut has one bachelors and one masters degree, although some do have more than one of either type of de
READ MORE >>