New crew docks at China's first permanent space station
Source: AP
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese astronauts began Saturday their six-month mission on China’s first permanent space station, after successfully docking aboard their spacecraft.
The astronauts, two men and a woman, were seen floating around the module before speaking via a live-streamed video.
The new crew includes Wang Yaping, 41, who is the first Chinese woman to board the Tiangong space station, and is expected to become China’s first female spacewalker.
“We’ll co-operate with each other, carefully conduct maneuvers, and try to accomplish all tasks successfully in this round of exploration of the universe,” said Wang in the video.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, screen image captured at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, China, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021 shows three Chinese astronauts, from left, Ye Guangfu, Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping waving after entering the space station core module Tianhe. China's Shenzhou-13 spacecraft carrying three Chinese astronauts on Saturday docked at its space station, kicking off a record-setting six-month stay as the country moves toward completing the new orbiting outpost. Chinese characters, left, read "Platform Camera B." (Tian Dingyu/Xinhua via AP)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/space-launches-space-exploration-science-technology-business-cdfb0f2aaada83e6c34203de46e06924
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That's the way science works.
And don't even look at where the technology for the U.S.A. space program originally came from...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket
Now that China has itself become a center of technological innovation they are beginning to understand the value of formal intellectual property rights, including the fine line that exists between the promotion of technological progress and the stifling of it.
Yet, they got humanity to the moon.
The story: The President’s big brother was the one being groomed for a life in politics by The Old Man, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. The younger Joe had served as a delegate from Massachusetts at the 1940 Democratic convention. A brave, athletic and conscientious young man, he volunteered for service in the US Navy before World War II.
After completing his tour as pilot of a US Navy B-24 Liberator on anti-submarine warfare patrol from 1943-44 over the North Atlantic, flying out of an airbase in England, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. volunteered for a top-secret mission, Project APHRODITE. The objective was to knock out the NAZI V-1 buzz bombs that were killing civilians in London and other English towns.
The Navy, in cooperation (and in competition) with the Army Air Corps, worked to develop a secret weapon — a remotely piloted flying bomb. They would convert four-engine bombers into flying bombs that would be flown by remote control into the V-1 sites along the coast of France.
Joe and other pilots were needed to get the experimental versions of the 4-engine B-24 and B-17 bombers airborne. The planes had been converted from being a 10-man bomber, capable of carrying sixteen 500 pound bombs, into one giant flying bomb with a crew of two — the pilot and the bombardier-engineer.
For the time, it was state-of-the-art science, engineering, and warfare. Joe Kennedy’s plane was among a few Liberators and Flying Fortresses modified for a very early version of remote control. The ship, basically, was history’s first guided missile. The entire fuselage was filled with Torpex and gelignite, IIRC, and was to be armed by a rather elaborate, and untested, electronic arming panel.
Like something out of Buck Rogers, the Navy equipped the airplane with a primitive 2-channel remote-control pilot. One radio signal could make the plane dive and climb and another signal could make it turn left and right. A prototype video camera would also send information to the Mother Ship, where the remote pilot sat before a tiny TV monitor.
The scientists and engineers in the Mother Ship would take over and signal on two radio frequencies: One to turn the stick RIGHT or LEFT; or push the stick FORWARD or pull the stick BACK. Primitive today, they were the first remote-controlled weapon of mass destruction. The Mother Ship would follow two miles or so back and then fly it over the English Channel and guide it down into the rocket launch sites.
The technology was so primitive, human pilots were needed to get the flying bombs aloft. Once aloft, they were to turn on the radio-guidance controls and arm the flying bomb. Then, somewhere over the English countryside, they were to bail out. Sounds simple, but it was anything but.
The pilot and bombardier were to bail out at an altitude of about one thousand feet. Bailing out from the modified aircraft was extremely dangerous work. One B-17 pilot was killed and another lost an arm in the process. By the time it was Joe’s turn in the first APHRODITE B-24, there was reason for concern about a plan that looked like a suicide mission.
For the Kennedys and the future of American politics, the tragedy was that the Navy ship used a rather primitive arming panel. The regular engineer/co-pilot refused to fly and instead the Navy sent aloft the engineer who designed and installed the system.
Over the English countryside, the ship exploded, killing the two flyers and changing American political history. Joe's younger brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy then became the heir to the family's political ambitions.
John F. Kennedy made an outstanding President, living up to his brother’s promise of greatness. JFK, it should be remembered, saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
While he never lived to see the dream realized, JFK also stretched mankind’s imagination and reach to the moon. Ironically, he even used the NAZI rocket scientist who developed the V-1 to do so. The same von Braun who the allied air command sent his lost brother, Joseph, to destroy.
One of Hitler's superweapons, the V-2 was developed by Werner von Braun and his team at Peenemünde. History's first ballistic missiles were used to rain death, destruction and terror upon London. The allies were worried that if the Nazis continued developing their super-weapons, the V-2’s descendants would be delivering bombs — possibly atomic — to New York City.
# # #
Two outstanding books on the subject of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and his service in World War II:
“Aphrodite: Desperate Mission” by Jack Olsen
and
“The Lost Prince: Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy” by Hank Searls.
Regarding China:
US charges Chinese hackers with 'massive theft' from NASA, Navy and tech sector
The hacking campaign underscores a continuing threat from China, US officials say.
Erin Carson
CNET, Dec. 20, 2018 8:28 a.m. PT
The US Justice Department has charged two Chinese nationals with cybercrimes, citing the threat they pose to national security
These Chinese nationals, who the Department of Justice believes are working in association with the country's government as part of a hacking group called APT10, are accused of stealing information from at least 45 US tech companies and government agencies, including NASA, the Navy and the US Department of Energy.
"It is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cybercrime committed by China," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Thursday in a press conference.
Groups such as APT-10 use malware to access to computer networks and steal data over an extended period of time, he said.
In this case, the group stole hundreds of gigabytes of intellectual property and confidential business information, along with personally identifiable information on 100,000 members of the US Navy, officials said. The companies affected work in areas including biotech, health care, oil and gas exploration, and telecommunications and consumer electronics.
Continues…
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/us-charges-chinese-hackers-with-massive-theft-from-nasa-navy-and-tech-sector/
So, yes, it is important to know the history.
