Shenzhou 7 mission thread

[Moonwalker]

WOW! Who said that "Made in China" is always bad :lol:?

Not always bad as long as it is copied and pasted :lol: Just kidding.

Seriously, I have to say I'm impressed about their program. Too bad they don't fly very often.

 

[GregBurch]

Not always bad as long as it is copied and pasted :lol: Just kidding.

Seriously, I have to say I'm impressed about their program. Too bad they don't fly very often.

There are VERY good reasons why they're taking things so slowly. In the Chinese socio-political system, the downside is much steeper than the upside. In other words, the consequences of failure are far worse than the rewards of success.

 

[Belisarius]

Would you say that's any more true than it is for NASA and Roskosmos? After all, the penalties for failure are huge for all of them. And for NASA it seems the (political/PR) benefits of success are pretty small.

 

[GregBurch]

Would you say that's any more true than it is for NASA and Roskosmos? After all, the penalties for failure are huge for all of them. And for NASA it seems the (political/PR) benefits of success are pretty small.

Yes, I think there is a qualitatively larger "caution barrier." I'm tied up with work-work at the moment, but will try to share my thoughts on this in more depth a little later.


-----Posted Added-----


So ... returning to this topic with a little more time ... All of the national space programs are fairly conservative but, based on my long dealings with Chinese institutions, I would say that the Chinese program will be conservative in a different way, which may well be the main cause of the relatively slow pace of their flight program.

Especially in state-controlled institutions, as China's space program is, responsibility and decision-making tends to be much more of a "collective" enterprise than in analogous Western settings. There's a thin layer of communist ideology and practice that lends itself to this phenomenon but, much more importantly, there are deep reserves of Confucian social values that tend to push Chinese institutions in this direction. Decision-making tends to happen in very subtle stages of deniable "trial balloons" floated by proxies and through indirect suggestion, which are subject to social "testing" in various formal and informal group settings. Before any formal proposal is made, its acceptance is almost always a foregone conclusion as a result of this process. This process can be maddening and confusing to Westerners who are used to much more transparency in policy-making. It's slow and, on the surface, seems to move in "jumps," because only the most superficial and least important part of the process is visible to "outsiders" -- even "outsiders" who may hold formal positions of authority within the institution in question or in related institutions.

Much of this is driven by the function of "mian" -- or "face." Loss of face is a BIG DEAL in China, and much more effort is put into avoiding losses of status than would be put into an equivalent enterprise or institutional setting in the West. There's a "negative feedback loop" between "face" and collective decision making, because loss of face tends to be a shared phenomenon -- if the leader of one engineering group makes a mistake, the whole group loses faces, and so do other engineering groups, for instance. Once that happens, the institution will "freeze up" while scapegoats are sought and a lot of effort is put into doubletalk and misdirection to try to blunt the impact of the status loss.

All of these phenomena have analogs in Western institutional settings, but they aren't as acute. There just isn't a "native Chinese" mode of "graceful failure" or "creative destruction" in situations where traditional Confucian values take precedence. And, in the post-Mao era, Chinese state enterprises are quintessentially Confucian institutions. So far more effort is put into protecting the established social hierarchy from the negative effects of failure than tends to be devoted to analogous tasks in Western institutions. All of which tends to result in VERY slow progress with VERY low risk tolerance.

 

[Belisarius]

The logical outcome of all of this would be that they are too risk-averse to do manned spaceflight. One can easily justify satellite launches in terms of commercial and strategic logic and accept the risks involved. But what makes them go down an avenue that's being all-but-abandoned by the US and Russia? National pride? Romantic dreams? Or what?

 

[Missioncmdr]

Does anyone have a link to the full EVA video? I heard that it lasted something around 20 minutes.

EDIT: Congratualtions to China on their success.

 

[GregBurch]

The logical outcome of all of this would be that they are too risk-averse to do manned spaceflight. One can easily justify satellite launches in terms of commercial and strategic logic and accept the risks involved. But what makes them go down an avenue that's being all-but-abandoned by the US and Russia? National pride? Romantic dreams? Or what?

National pride. Rising nationalism is hugely important in China now. It's the main foundation of the CCP's legitimacy now, since there's essentially no real ideological basis for the CCP's continuing power. So even though they're risk averse, they're even more desirous of delivering the goods when it comes to big, glitzy symbols of Chinese national accomplishment, all under the bright red waiving banner of the Party. viz. the Olympics.

 

[MajorTom]

Hi MajorTom, All

Going a little back, about CZ-2F ascent talks:

Yep, I agree that the taykonauts "waving is synchronized with the periods of lighter acceleration" (if remembering well, they were a little more quiet closer to main engine cut-off moment)

...

António

Thanks for the additional analysis and suggestions Teacher!

And thank you, Greg, for the comments about the Chinese approach to decision making and how it affects their space program. It's fantastic to see a completely different culture approaching the "problem" of space. I am looking forward to seeing how things continue to develop.

If I may stretch an analogy, perhaps we might say that if the USA was the "hare" of the space race (Freedom 7 to Apollo 11 in ~8 years) then China may well be the tortoise...who "wins" the race.

 

[dougkeenan]

And thank you, Greg, for the comments about the Chinese approach to decision making and how it affects their space program. It's fantastic to see a completely different culture approaching the "problem" of space. I am looking forward to seeing how things continue to develop.

Seconded - thanks for sharing your invaluable insight, Greg. Can you help explain the rush to pop an old satellite into orbital spray? Doesn't that effect their "mian" on the international stage? (Even into the future, since we all have to dodge it now. Might make an interesting add-on.)

 

[Missioncmdr]

Found a link to CCTV's coverage of the EVA here if anyone is interested:

http://www.cctv.com/english/special/Shenzhou7/05/index.shtml

 

[Belisarius]

Can you help explain the rush to pop an old satellite into orbital spray?

My guess is that they're going to shoot it down before the end of the year to show their awesome power.


-----Posted Added-----


LATEST
Shenzhou 7 scheduled to land on the Inner Mongolia steppe at about 5:40 p.m. Beijing time, 9.40 GMT, 11.40 Central European, 05.40 EDT

They should be starting deorbiting maneuvers shortly.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

I think it's interesting that they come back today already, just having made the EVA hop.

Seems for me like a mix of Voskhod 1 and 2 (three-man crew milestone and EVA milestone).

Big gap to Apollo there, if you take Shenzhou 5 in comparison to Apollo 7 (which can be both called manned test flights), S5 was only a like a Mercury/Vostok hop (OK, maybe this argument is a weak one, as this is the first manned program of China, but the Shenzhou is based on the Soyus, which is a proven design; and Apollo was after 6 Mercury and 10 Gemini flights and also one fire desaster on the pad (Apollo 1))

 

[simonpro]

I can't see why people get annoyed that the Chinese aren't taking things faster. Why should they? Taking unneeded risks is pointless as far as they are concerned. Much better to actually have a chance to analyse data between missions and figure out what worked and what didn't.

The Soviets and Americans took lots of risks with their initial space programmes, and on many occasions they only just missed severe disasters (sometimes by complete luck). The Chinese aren't going to set any new space records in the near future...so why rush?
Just look at spacex for an example of rushing things without paying proper attention to the systems engineering approach. It's a recipe for disaster.

 

[Urwumpe]

I can't see why people get annoyed that the Chinese aren't taking things faster. Why should they? Taking unneeded risks is pointless as far as they are concerned. Much better to actually have a chance to analyse data between missions and figure out what worked and what didn't.

Still, I think you also agree, that 3-4 days is a very short time for any ambitious spaceflight program. Also I don't know which other task items the Chinese had in their flight.

I am surprised that they had the EVA on the second day, western agencies wouldn't allow that because of the risk of space motion sickness.

 

[Lunar_Lander]

Yes, that was the point I was making Urwumpe, I would have had the EVA on the first day and then some days of experiments and normal flight. If they want to make lunar missions, they have to check endurance (and that's what they did on Apollo 7).

So I can only quote myself:

Seems for me like a mix of Voskhod 1 and 2 (three-man crew milestone and EVA milestone).

 

[simonpro]

Still, I think you also agree, that 3-4 days is a very short time for any ambitious spaceflight program. Also I don't know which other task items the Chinese had in their flight.

Yes, if it was me in charge I'd have scheduled a much longer flight.
However, the entire purpose of this flight was to test EVA techniques. they've done that so from their perspective there isn't really much logic in continuing the flight.

 

[Notebook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7640301.stm

China spacecraft returns to Earth

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, if it was me in charge I'd have scheduled a much longer flight.
However, the entire purpose of this flight was to test EVA techniques. they've done that so from their perspective there isn't really much logic in continuing the flight.

No, I don't see this as a real test, it was closer to a PR action, than a EVA test, IMHO. I mean, what did they test in space, what they didn't know from ground testing that way? Only very little more, right?

 

[simonpro]

Yeah, there's not that much more to learn. Particularly as they had a lot of input on trainign techniques, movement methods etc from the Russians.
Still, if it were a PR stunt at least it shows they have confidence in their system.

But what I don't understand is why they have a 2 week quarantine period. What's the point in that?

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah, there's not that much more to learn. Particularly as they had a lot of input on trainign techniques, movement methods etc from the Russians.

And USA or ESA. If I can access technical papers of NASA and ESA and read about the development of EVAs, I am sure, the Chinese had been also able to read them and draw their conclusions from it.

Nobody would today have to start at zero, if he does take spaceflight serious.

Still, if it were a PR stunt at least it shows they have confidence in their system.

true.

But what I don't understand is why they have a 2 week quarantine period. What's the point in that?

Not sure. Maybe they fear freedom to infect the country, when astronauts return from the final freedom.