China Selects 18 Astronaut Candidates
The Global Times reports China has chosen 18 astronaut candidates as part of its third round of selections.
The 18 stand-by astronauts include seven pilots, seven engineers and four payload specialists. The latter two are selected for the first time into China’s astronaut team in order to meet the requirements of the construction of China’s space station.
Pilots and engineers will be in charge of operating and managing the spacecraft and conducting technical experiments. The load experts will be responsible for on-orbit operation of scientific experimental payload.
Pilots are selected from active pilots serving in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Engineers are elected from engineering technicians in aerospace or related areas. Load specialists are selected from personnel in the fields of science research and application of manned space engineering.
The story does not identify the 18 candidates. China is scheduled to begin launching the first modules of a permanent space station in 2021.
22 responses to “China Selects 18 Astronaut Candidates”
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one woman 🙂
No NOW chapters in China I guess.
If America does not move forward with private space stations, China WILL be way ahead soon.
Private money is out there. What’s stopping them? Perhaps because the business case is not yet there for a private station?
Chicken/Egg.
Not chicken/egg. You have consistently advocated for using taxpayer money to help subsidize (through rent or lease) a private station as a way to stimulate the private market. I’m not opposed to that WHEN the Federal government decides that space on a private station is something they need. Privately owned stations will have to succeed or fail in the commercial market and not depend on government business to survive. It is not unreasonable in the least to demand that private enterprise at the very least create the station and demonstrate that they can maintain it before committing taxpayer dollars.
Yes. It was a real waste of tax payer money on things like COTS for spacex, bigelow BEAM which is used for storage, CCXdev for spacex.
Instead, far better to send our $ to orion, SLS, constellation, and of course, space liner, as you continue to push.
I’m not sure what “space liner” is nor do I remember ever pushing one. As for COTS and CCDEV, Congress (however grudgingly) determined that this was something they were willing to fund. BEAM is an inflatable closet. Setting up a COTS like program for a private space station is not something either NASA or Congress seems to be interested in. The Artemis program is going to suck up all the public money for the foreseeable future so private industry will just have to play by their own rules and make a real business case for private activity in LEO.
What exactly do you think that Axiom won?
Sadly, it is set-up with 1 winner (and in my book, the less one), and will not be heading in the right direction due to Bridenstine.
This is social media, the realm of opinion and your opinion is as good as mine. To your question, Axiom is going to eventually, hopefully, add a module to the ISS. What it’s for, I’m not sure. I certainly hope it is for something scientific and not a flying Budgetel.
Axiom is going to add several modules to ISS. What they’ll be for – in addition to space tourism, which is already a given – will depend upon what deals Axiom can strike and with whom between now and when its first module goes up in 2024. The same will be true of any other privately-financed and built space station.
I don’t really understand your frequently-expressed scorn for space tourism. It’s a business, after all, it’s in space and has at least a modest level of demonstrated demand. Space is about a lot more than science just as is the Earthbound economy. You sound like Bonaparte, looking down his nose at the English for being “a nation of shopkeepers.”
I am opposed not to space tourism but I am opposed to any use of taxpayer-funded resources to support it. The ISS is an international laboratory funded and maintained by the tax monies of many countries. If Axiom, Bigelow or anybody else wants to orbit their own station at their own expense, that’s fine. God love ’em. Actually, I’d like to see it because then we’d find out “if you build it, they will come” is actually true. I’m not any more opposed to that than I am to a new resort on the Vegas strip. It’s going to be a very expensive proposition and I just don’t think it’s sustainable at current costs to get to LEO and maintain a flying hotel.
I have my doubts about the long-term viability of Axiom’s proposed ISS-addition-cum-station myself.
But I think a much larger, rotating, fractional-G station has excellent prospects as a space tourist destination for the merely well-to-do and not just the super-rich. The advent of SH-Starship will make this feasible to build and operate. I expect SpaceX will either do so itself or throw in with some other party to do it. It probably wouldn’t be as lucrative as Starlink will likely be, but would still yield a lot more annual revenue than the launch business will by itself.
Elon can get his Mars project going for a few billion additional dollars, but to grow it as large as he wants to, he’s going to need decent income streams from as many cis-lunar businesses as he can gin up or partner with others to do.
Bigelow is dead. One of the biggest reasons it’s dead is that Bob B. had a tantrum and refused to even bid for the contract Axiom eventually won. Get over it.
Bridenstine is doing everything he can to make space a paying proposition for commercial interests. Your criticism of him is entirely unwarranted.
Why do I think you aren’t going to be any happier when private money actually does build a real space station than you seem to be about SpaceX now that it’s building SH-Starship with only a token amount of gov’t. money?
Because that is what you wish to believe.
I believe it because your posts make it plain that your attitude is that no private concern has any business in space under any circumstances, period. You’re not going to enjoy the next 20 years very much, I think. The 20 following that will be even “worse.”
Yes, private money is out there. Axiom has some of it. And, thus far at least, nothing seems to be stopping them. Axiom also has four Crew Dragon 2 missions booked with SpaceX. Last I heard, about 3/4 of the available seats had already been spoken for.
SpaceX and Axiom=WOOHOO!!!
Rich space tourists, at least those going to ISS. That does not make the business case for a private station. Believe me, I’d love to see it but taxpayer subsidized private stations make no sense at this point. The business case is made by showing that you can deliver a product or service profitably and sustainably. I’m still waiting to see what product or service (outside of a great view and zero-g sex) private industry can make in LEO. That’s what they will have to show to get private money and the Federal government should apply the same criteria, what can you make or do for us more economically or efficiently than we can do for ourselves?
Axiom intends to hive off its own module subset and operate it as a separate entity once ISS is decommissioned. We have, probably, eight to ten years to see how that works out, but at least the plan is there and the initial parts of said plan seem to be on schedule.
Personally, I think much larger, rotating, LEO stations make more sense, especially for tourism. Zero-G sex will have its appeal, no doubt, but I suspect fractional-G sex will prove more interesting to most people.
America is moving forward. The initial Axiom addition to ISS is slated to be in place in 2024.
The Chinese will, in any case, not be “way ahead.” Their new station will have a normative crew complement of only three and will not even be continuously occupied.