China official says film 'The Martian' shows Americans want space cooperation

[Skroe]

Like Star Trek says, "Space, the final frontier" Everyone should work together on this next endeavor in human evolution. Stop with all the wars and pointless conflicts and move on to more important things.

Ever wonder why China is never mentioned in Star Trek? Why the major Earth cities are Paris, San Francisco, Kyoto, Geneva, Sao Paulo, and not Beijing and Moscow? Ever wonder why the Federation, which is based on Western democracy, has no Eastern influences? Why Federation crews are typically staffed by people who come from the US (every captain except Picard), Latin America, parts of Africa (Geordi Laforge) and Western Europe, and never continental East Asia, the Middle East and rarely Russia (Worf)? In the fiction... beyond it being an American show that is.

It's because most of the 600 Million People who died during World War III and the Eugenics Wars before it, were mostly in in the Asian mainland. Khan was Indian. Encounter at Farpoint's trial, it turns out from subsequent books, was based on places where Civilization devolved in Asia (and not in North America or Europe, since Paris survived and Zefram Cochrane's Montana didn't reflect that level of barbarism). Even the near-final draft of the First Contact script had the US's World War III Adversary be 'China' rather than 'ECON' in the shooting version (ECON aka Eastern Coalition, in the books, being China+Russia+India+Pakistan+Kazakhstan+Iran and some states left over from Khan's Eugenics Wars empire). I turns out, ECON is actually the real world SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was created years after First Contact) made serious.

United Earth in Star Trek Enterprise, that lead to the Federation, represents the triumph of Western civilization on the back of a genocide that killed a tenth the world's population and disproportionately effected the most highly populated regions in the world.

It may seem like a Utopian future, but it was founded on some pretty dark grounds. Star Trek represents a future where, on Earth, the West basically wiped out the East using Nuclear Weapons, on the other side of the Eugenics Wars which killed millions before World War III.

[Macaquerie]

See, Skroe, I kind of agree with your reasoning... But I also think that in such an endeavor as space exploration and colonization, the cooperation of all able nations is necessary. Generally, I will be the last person to promote cooperation with such states as Russia, China, Iran, etc. However, why not cooperate on pre-agreed terms, hence avoiding the mentioned problem of extortion? Sign contract on how each nation is going to contribute and how much the costs will be, then go through with it. If a nation isn't delivering as promised, then it should pay the monetary compensation and be out of the program.

Now, with Russia specifically, the problem is unreliability. They have been consistently failing their promises and agreements, so what they can be trusted with to do is under question. China, however, has been pretty good at following through international contracts, and although it, indeed, is quite behind NASA and ESA in these matters, it is catching up quickly. I'm not suggesting wide cooperation, but some mutual project could be done, I think.

That's sort of been a problem with space exploration ever since humanity began attempting it. The scientists just want to share knowledge and cooperate but the governments are only willing to fund these programs if they serve the greater interest of nationalistic dick waving, which of course rules out any kind of cooperation with rival nations. Certainly if we were the ones that were decades behind China technologically, they would have no interest in cooperating with us either.

[Stormdash]

China wants to save Matt Damon

Has anyone explained to them how dangerous and costly a habit that can be?

[Deleted]

nevermind the James Webb Space Telescope.

A bit derailment, why use a Ariane 5 to launch James Webb Space Telescope? Have Ariane 5 som particularly benefits over US rockets for this misson? Or its a joint NASA/ESA thing and ESA contribute the rocket.

[Mormolyce]

The only social program China has ever had is the "One-Child Policy."

I feel like you're underselling the "tank treads for students" policy.

[Skroe]

A bit derailment, why use a Ariane 5 to launch James Webb Space Telescope? Have Ariane 5 som particularly benefits over US rockets for this misson? Or its a joint NASA/ESA thing and ESA contribute the rocket.

It's a join ESA+NASA mission, with NASA in the lead on it and the ESA paying some costs and providing a rocket.

Any mission to space must include launch price, which can be substantial.

For the US, the JWST, if it was just a US program, would probably be launched on a Delta IV Heavy, due to it's reliability and payload capacity. The Delta IV is reserved for the most important missions. It's also hugely expensive, especially compared to the cheaper Atlas IV, which has less launch capacity and although it has a near-perfect launch rate, is considered a 'riskier' rocket.

Using an Ariane 5 is a good compromise because it's extremely reliable (like the Delta IV) and economical compared to it. And Europe is paying for it, not the US, which is great when $8.9 billion has been spent on the JWST. Unrelated, but maybe a factor is that the Delta IV Heavy production queue is pretty big at the moment, due to NRO launching big satellites and NASA launching a few missions over the next few years. THe order would have been placed years ago in any event. Ariane 5 just makes sense.

[May90]

That's sort of been a problem with space exploration ever since humanity began attempting it. The scientists just want to share knowledge and cooperate but the governments are only willing to fund these programs if they serve the greater interest of nationalistic dick waving, which of course rules out any kind of cooperation with rival nations. Certainly if we were the ones that were decades behind China technologically, they would have no interest in cooperating with us either.

Well, honestly, I think there is logic behind it. Suppose, we contact some tribe that still utilizes Stone Age technology. Any sensible cooperation with them will require us to go down to their level, otherwise they won't be able to contribute to any projects. In this sense, cooperation with Russia, let alone China, right now means that NASA/ESA will have to work with outdated tech, rather than using the advantages of modern science and technology for a more efficient approach.

That's why, I think, hybrid approach is best: cooperate where you can with positive output, while pursuing more intricate projects by yourself or in cooperation with those at your level already.

[Macaquerie]

Ever wonder why China is never mentioned in Star Trek? Why the major Earth cities are Paris, San Francisco, Kyoto, Geneva, Sao Paulo, and not Beijing and Moscow? Ever wonder why the Federation, which is based on Western democracy, has no Eastern influences? Why Federation crews are typically staffed by people who come from the US (every captain except Picard), Latin America, parts of Africa (Geordi Laforge) and Western Europe, and never continental East Asia, the Middle East and rarely Russia (Worf)? In the fiction... beyond it being an American show that is.

It's because most of the 600 Million People who died during World War III and the Eugenics Wars before it, were mostly in in the Asian mainland. Khan was Indian. Encounter at Farpoint's trial, it turns out from subsequent books, was based on places where Civilization devolved in Asia (and not in North America or Europe, since Paris survived and Zefram Cochrane's Montana didn't reflect that level of barbarism). Even the near-final draft of the First Contact script had the US's World War III Adversary be 'China' rather than 'ECON' in the shooting version (ECON aka Eastern Coalition, in the books, being China+Russia+India+Pakistan+Kazakhstan+Iran and some states left over from Khan's Eugenics Wars empire). I turns out, ECON is actually the real world SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was created years after First Contact) made serious.

United Earth in Star Trek Enterprise, that lead to the Federation, represents the triumph of Western civilization on the back of a genocide that killed a tenth the world's population and disproportionately effected the most highly populated regions in the world.

It may seem like a Utopian future, but it was founded on some pretty dark grounds. Star Trek represents a future where, on Earth, the West basically wiped out the East using Nuclear Weapons, on the other side of the Eugenics Wars which killed millions before World War III.

Honestly Star Trek sort of represents the worst manifestation of that utopian futuristic ideal, with this vision of global harmony and cooperation, but only with the countries that we think are cool and interesting, and not the unwashed masses of humanity in the poor countries that we'd rather just pretend didn't exist at all.

Well, honestly, I think there is logic behind it. Suppose, we contact some tribe that still utilizes Stone Age technology. Any sensible cooperation with them will require us to go down to their level, otherwise they won't be able to contribute to any projects. In this sense, cooperation with Russia, let alone China, right now means that NASA/ESA will have to work with outdated tech, rather than using the advantages of modern science and technology for a more efficient approach.

That's why, I think, hybrid approach is best: cooperate where you can with positive output, while pursuing more intricate projects by yourself or in cooperation with those at your level already.

From a practical perspective, we are already getting all of the benefits of any potential cooperation without having to give anything up. China lags far behind in many areas but its one valuable resource is that it produces a lot of bright and talented people, nearly all of whom would pack their bags and move to the US if they had the opportunity. So essentially we are able to snap up all of their best people while leaving their space program to languish with outdated technology and subpar scientists who wanted to leave but aren't good enough to hack it elsewhere.

[Skroe]

See, Skroe, I kind of agree with your reasoning... But I also think that in such an endeavor as space exploration and colonization, the cooperation of all able nations is necessary. Generally, I will be the last person to promote cooperation with such states as Russia, China, Iran, etc. However, why not cooperate on pre-agreed terms, hence avoiding the mentioned problem of extortion? Sign contract on how each nation is going to contribute and how much the costs will be, then go through with it. If a nation isn't delivering as promised, then it should pay the monetary compensation and be out of the program.

Now, with Russia specifically, the problem is unreliability. They have been consistently failing their promises and agreements, so what they can be trusted with to do is under question. China, however, has been pretty good at following through international contracts, and although it, indeed, is quite behind NASA and ESA in these matters, it is catching up quickly. I'm not suggesting wide cooperation, but some mutual project could be done, I think.

If you have the political opinion that space should be used for the benefit of all countries, I mean, I respect that. You're free to have that of course. There are many people who share that.

I just can't possibly agree with it. Not when you look at the history of colonization of North and South America. Not when you look at the history of Russia and China cheating on agreements (and the US does sometimes as well, to be fair, when it suits us). The ISS has been a cluster fuck and a living example of how not to cooperate in many ways. I mean even Russia's contributions, have been canceled (the Russian Science Power Platform) or delayed by years (the Russian science module). Any mutual agreement would see the US and ESa largely fulfilling and Russia in particular failing to live up to it's obligations. Disentangling a country from a project is nearly impossible, as we see with the US trying to rid itself of the Russian RD-180 engine. Inertia is a powerful force in politics and organizations.

As far as China catching up, well, they're not. The only thing that makes China at all special is they've decided to do it. That's it. The ESA has toyed with making launch vehicles, space shuttles, even space stations, for decades. But never did it because it decides it is more economical for them to partner with the US. China didn't, but that leads to infrequent launches, vehicles heavily derived from Russian designs, and mostly repurposed ballistic missile technology turned into Rockets.

The fact is, in 2018, China will be using mostly the same rockets and vehicles it's had since 2010, Russia will be using the same rockets and vehicles it's had since the 1960s, and the US and ESA will have Orion, SLS, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy (both of which can land), Dragon V2, ATV if needed, Cyngus, Dreamchaser, Boeing's Starliner... with the BE-4 vulcan in the pipeline and the Ariane 6. It's basically unfair.

We don't need China's rockets, which are smaller and worse. We don't need China's vehicles, which are modified soviet designs and small, and have limited capability (you can't go beyond LEO with a Chinese capsule). We don't need China's money, which is a fraction of what the US and ESA spend on space. We don't need China's sattelites, which are antiques. We don't need CHina's non-exist deep space network. We don't need China's expertise landing on planets, because it has none. We don't need china's deep space engines or ion propulsion technology, because it doesn't have it. We don't need china's space nuclear fission reactor, because that doesn't exist.

China offers absolutely nothing in space. Just look at Russia in the ISS. What have they brought to the table up to this point? The ISS's service module - which the US has a backup of in storage if ever needed, Crew rotation via Soyuz, which will be obsolete once DragonV2 and Starliner flies, and Progress logistics. The price of Soyuz/Progress make them logistically important, although the ATV/Cyngus/Dragon are much larger than Progress. Since 2001, it's played next to no role in building the ISS, and it's future building plans are deeply in doubt. In a world where the US/ESA have access to commercial services and heavy lift government services, Russia brings nothing. So what would China bring? Nothing.

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Honestly Star Trek sort of represents the worst manifestation of that utopian futuristic ideal, with this vision of global harmony and cooperation, but only with the countries that we think are cool and interesting, and not the unwashed masses of humanity in the poor countries that we'd rather just pretend didn't exist at all.

And not just pretended didn't exist... basically killed them off.

I just always find it amusing people romanticize Star Trek's utopian future and ignore the incredibly racist (if you think about it) inplications of that future.

Basically the United States and Europe, for the most part, won World War III by killing the competition, an Asiatic alliance illiberal states. Liberal Democracy won and the US and EU went to form the nucleus of United Earth. World peace was established because the competition was incinerated in a nuclear war. United Earth then went on to become the only party trusted by the Andorians, Vulcans and Tellerites, so it became the nexus of the Federation. Which then in turn over the course of the 23rd century became the dominant power of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, to the point that the alliance during the Dominion War was refered to as the 'Federation Alliance". This Federation was about three times the size of the Klingon Empire and five times the size of the Romulan Empire.

All because the United States and Europe nuked Asian peoples off the face of the earth. The victor didn't just inherit the earth, but a good chunk of the Alpha and Beta quadrants.

So basically Star Trek's future is Vladmir Putin's and Xi Jinping's nightmare taken to the tenth power. World Peace is easy, when you massacre 600 million people who disagree with you.