Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - China Joins the Spacefaring Nations Club

Episode Date: October 20, 2003

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This is Planetary Radio. Welcome back to your space show of shows. I'm Matt Kaplan. First there were cosmonauts. Soon after came astronauts. Now, 42 years later, make room for the taikonauts. China has succeeded in becoming the third nation to put a human in space. We'll talk about this achievement with international space expert James Oberg. And we'll hear from a JPL scientist with personal reasons to be proud of two space programs. Bruce Betts is up to the usual monkey business in What's Up, and we'll begin as usual with Emily. She's taking note of the

changing seasons, but not just here on Earth. I'll be right back. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, Is the Earth the only planet that has seasons? Earth's seasons are caused because its rotational axis is tilted. As a result of the Earth's tilt, sometimes the South Pole is bathed in sunlight 24 hours a day, while the North Pole experiences darkness.

And sometimes it's the other way around. Summer and winter result from this changing amount of sunlight that the middle and high latitudes of Earth receive over the course of a year. The Earth is not the only planet in the solar system that has an axial tilt. Mars' axial tilt is nearly the same as Earth's, so Mars has seasonal variations in sunlight much like Earth's. However, Mars' seasons are much more extreme than Earth's for two main reasons. First, Mars' orbit around the Sun is much more elliptical than Earth's, which means that at some times of the year it is much closer to the Sun than at other times. In

fact, Mars is closest to the Sun when it is mid-summer in the southern hemisphere, so Mars' southern summer is very hot, while its southern winter is long and cold. Also, unlike Mars, the Earth's seasonal swings in temperature are moderated by its oceans. Just as climates near the oceans are more temperate than inland desert climates, a planet with oceans has more moderate temperatures than a planet without them. How did the Earth and Mars end up with such tilted axes in the first place? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. Dr. Jonathan Jiang joined JPL's Microwave Atmospheric Science team in 1999. He's currently a JPL scientist. He was born and educated in China, in the People's Republic of China,

and still has very close ties there, including a lot of family. So, Jonathan, I guess last week was quite exciting for you and your family. Oh, yes, that's right. My brother was in Beijing and watching the live television coverage all night with my brother's family. Your family is quite a bunch of space enthusiasts, and apparently you have been since very early childhood. My father was an electrical engineer, so he built a homemade radio. One night, I can clearly remember, it's one of my earliest memories, and I woke up at night time.

My father was sitting in the dark, was still listening to the radio. I heard a lot of noise, but in between the noise, there are some talkings which I could not understand. And second morning, I asked my father, what are you doing? You know, with the radio, is the radio broken? My father said, no, it's not broken. American just landed on the moon. And at that time, I don't even know what American is. Now, not too much later, you were in the first grade,

and you remember listening to a song coming from China's first satellite. Yeah, yeah. I can clearly remember, I think, one night, our whole family was listening to Radio Beijing, I think. Official broadcast, China put a satellite onto space. And so here's the song from the satellite. onto space, and here's the song from the satellite. So the whole family, my grandfather, my grandmother, and my father, my mother was listening to the song.

So it's a very familiar song. It's red. Of course, yes. Yeah. Now how about, though, among your friends at school and your parents' friends? I mean, was there a great interest? I think my family is a little bit typical. In my class, only my father had a telescope. So on a weekend, a lot of friends go to my home, you know, just to see the telescope. Now, as we bring it up to today,

as we said, you've been on the phone with your family that is in China. Right. What have they said about the reaction in China? Apparently, it has been extremely enthusiastic. Right, right. I think in China, typically in Beijing, I think everybody is watching on the TVs. Shenzhou Fire was launched sometime in the morning on October 15 in China. But I think even after the night, everybody still turn on the TV to watch the news, and even at midnight, I think people are very excited.

Before the landing of Shenzhou 5, I think there are not many people on the street. Every people at home, at the bar, watch TV. And times have changed a lot from when you were four and saw your father at his homemade radio. Pretty much everybody has a TV now. Right, right. Oh, yeah. So there is a tremendous feeling, apparently, not just of fascination with what's happening in space, but I guess of patriotism in China? Yeah. I think most people, especially those young people, are very proud.

Together we can do something good, you know, we can do something great. You've talked about, both when you were a child and I think even in this most recent mission, the feeling of an international effort that the mission had. And in fact, there was something that happened during this mission last week.

Yes, yes. Okay, when I watch TV here, I think the CNN, they said the astronauts are following the Chinese flag. And I called my father uh... td i'd hear i think the cnn and they said that the astronaut all forward the uh... chinese flag and i called my father uh... and home learned so my my my brother pick up the phone and they all yes we thought that

and so he said so uh... did you see a after that if he are for the review and track uh... united nations back and i said no i didn't see that it's a whole dot that's the most important moment, and everybody's touched by that, the astronauts showing that. And I can

recall, I don't think a U.S. astronaut or even a Russian astronaut on orbit follow a United Nations flag. And, you know, just want to say hello to all the people around the world. My brother in Beijing is especially moved by that. He said it gives people the feeling that mission, that success,

not only for China, it's for humanity, for people all over the world. It tells me that space exploration is not for one nation. It's for the entire humanity. I think this is what Carl Sagan's dream, I think. Jonathan, that's a lovely thought, and it's a wonderful place for us to end. We're pretty much out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

We've been talking to Dr. Jonathan Jiang of JPL, where he works as part of the Microwave Atmospheric Science team. We'll be back in just a moment with James Oberg to talk about this Chinese space vehicle. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets.

We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS.

That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, planetarysociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. It's been an even busier week than usual for James Oberg. This consultant and author of at least ten books and more than a thousand articles is often looked to for his expertise regarding the Soviet and Russian space programs. Now, though, the questions are about China.

How innovative is their approach? What else will they be capable of in the next few years? Could their success signal the birth of another space race? I got to ask these questions in a conversation we had just a couple of days after the safe landing of the Chinese taikonaut. James Oberg, they did it. The Chinese successfully became the third, only the third, spacefaring country in the history of this planet and the universe, at least as far as we know it.

How did they do it? Did they actually create a new spacecraft, or was this just a souped-up Soyuz? Well, it superficially looks like a design that the Russians or the Soviets had chosen, but their design looks like an early study for Apollo. Basically, when you're building a manned spacecraft for orbital flight, you string three modules in one sequence. Look, it's pretty standard. Apollo command module, service module, and lunar module in front, Soyuz, and other designs. So it's not nearly as similar as the outer hull looks.

The second thing you do, though, is you study everyone else's work. Make sure you don't have to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I wish NASA paid more attention to outside accomplishments than just sticking to their own resources. into outside accomplishments, instead of just sticking to their own resources. The Chinese did see how the entry module worked, and they had all the aerodynamic tests of that. That's why, in many ways, the Russian shuttle Boron looked like our shuttle.

It's, in many ways, why our X-38 crew rescue vehicle looks like almost identical to a Russian prototype shuttle. Once the vehicle's been flown through the atmosphere, you don't have to spend months and months of expensive computer time modeling it and flight testing it, because the basic shape has been validated by flight. But the rest of that hardware, we can go over it piece by piece. It's homegrown, home-developed, home-tested,

and has created a spacecraft, a very capable spacecraft, probably at least as capable once it's tested out as the Soyuz is now, and probably as capable as the vehicle that NASA is now thinking of building in the future for some kind of crew return vehicle or crew transfer vehicle to supplement the space shuttle. So this is not a 40 years behind vehicle. This is a vehicle that is right up there in capabilities with the kind of orbital capsules that the Soviets have and the Russians have and NASA would like us to have. Well, taking into account our reasonably sophisticated audience, let's do some of that.

Let's talk a little bit more in detail. I have heard that, in particular, the avionics, the electronics in the spacecraft that the Chinese installed are quite advanced over what the Russians and prior to them the Soviets used. Well, of course, the Soviets and the Russians over the more than 30-year history of the Soyuz have gone through many generations, major generations and mods between them of the electronics. They're now in a vehicle called the TMA, and only the third flight of that TMA occurring is just because it's now in progress, in fact.

And so it's hard to say which electronics is more advanced. They're both modern electronics. I see. But look, for example, at one of the striking features on the outside view of the Shenzhou, which is the solar panels. Not only does it have solar panels on the orbital module as well, which is a remarkable addition of capabilities, but the panels even on the service module are articulated.

They can rotate to track the sun. This is a feature that the Russian design has never had on the Soyuz, primarily because it would always turn toward the Sun if it needed lots of power and was only being used in recent years, in recent decades, in fact, as a ferry boat between Earth and a space station. On the Russian space stations, they did have solar panels, bigger ones, that were articulated that would track the Sun because the stations were in other orientation so that they were pointed, for example, at an astronomical object or at a surface object or area,

or just inertially stable to do microgravity experiments. That was on the Russian space stations. Since the arrays on the Shenzhou are designed to perform like the Russian arrays on their space stations, then we have an implication of this design. And the implication is that the Shenzhou itself, both the vehicle with the crew on board and the orbital module, they intend to carry out experiments and activities very much like those carry out on the Russian space stations.

And the hardware is what tells us these intentions, as well as their spokesmen. They say the same thing. So you have both experts saying that, their spokesmen saying it, and the hardware telling us that. You know, the hardware can't lie. Is there anything else that you would take note of which says that they really know what they're doing with this vehicle? Another thing to point out would be their propulsion system. They have, their propulsion system is completely unlike the propulsion system on the Soyuz. They have four nozzles in the back, but they don't have a feature that the Soyuz has because the Soyuz parks up in the space station for six months.

So for the Soyuz, because of the long-term flight, things like windows, the engine nozzles have to be protected with covers during the long coast to prevent thermal damage, dust erosion, and impact of micrometeorites and space debris so that a Soyuz has covers that hinge down over delicate instruments and glass, for example, for long flights. The Shenzhou does not have those features, which again tells you that it is not currently going to be doing any long-duration flights. Now, sooner or later they will, and then they will put this equipment on, and when we see that equipment, perhaps in advance, because they are releasing pictures in advance, we'll have more clues.

Does this modular configuration of the Shenzhou indicate to you that they will be coming up with other kinds of modules? For example, I mean, you were the one who made the comparison to Apollo, and they certainly have been talking about the moon. Could they attach a lander to this? The Shenzhou is designed for Earth orbital flight. Once we see features on it that suggest farther out flight, we'll have more clues. But all the talk about Chinese astronauts to the moon

is just some boasting of some of the press people and some museum people. Their own plans are quite clear that they will be flying this in low Earth orbit for at least the next 10 years, and they'll be flying small unmanned vehicles to the moon, both an orbiter and shortly after that a rover, a remote-controlled rover that would be put in positions of great scientific interest. And they very specifically talk about the Aiken Basin area, the lunar south pole. Where we are told the ice is.

Well, we'll go find out. In fact, we were talking about out. Someone will find out. We were talking about that just last week, as a matter of fact, as we talked about the Lunar Prospector mission on this program. Turn to the boosters, the Long March series. I don't know whether they actually get ignored by the regular press because it seems like all the magic is taking place in the Shenzhou. But I take it that these have become pretty advanced and very reliable rockets.

The Long March is a series of launch vehicles derived from an ICBM, a Dong Feng, which is an ICBM. They have a couple dozen of those with thermonuclear warheads on them. But because this booster is derived from a military missile, it has a lot of vestigial characteristics that came from its ancestry. One of the main features of it is that it has room temperature propellants. It does not use cryogenics. Really? I had not read that.

And there are two things that this leads to. One is that you saw the vehicle on the launch pad before the liftoff. There were no white streamers heading off from the vehicle of venting liquid oxygen, creating ice crystals, creating these white vents that we see from our vehicles. The second thing is when it lifts off, there's a great burst of red flame in the flame trench, which is the mixture ratio result for the fuel.

It uses an unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, UDMH, and a nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidizer. And these are reasonably powerful propellants, but they're also easier to handle. Not that the Chinese don't use cryogenics. In fact, they're with only a third country to use liquid hydrogen as a propellant. They did it before the Russians ever did it. So they can use it for upper stages.

The second thing about this rocket is it's transported to their three inland landing sites by train. And this puts a severe diameter constraint on it. You're looking at a rocket there that has many, many long sections stretched out vertically and also have been parallel staging. And they're all of the size that fit through railway tunnels. That is another constraint on this booster, one that they would like to overcome in the next booster they're building, which will be about twice the power of this one.

Our guest on Planetary Radio is James Oberg, long-time noted expert on international space programs, particularly the Soviet and Russian programs, and obviously now picking up a great deal of expertise about the new guys in town, the Chinese. Although we can't really say they're entirely new since they've been putting satellites in orbit for a long time. They have been doing that. In fact, they've also been recovering satellites in orbit for a long time. They had a recoverable program that way back in 1975.

long time they had a recoverable program that way back to 1975 so that was a capsule mercury mercury capsule size which they would put uh film uh biological samples and various things they developed they planned in the early 80s to actually convert that into a manned vehicle and actually recruited astronauts and began developing the manned version of it quickly realized that they could only put people in orbit for a couple days. They couldn't maneuver, couldn't do more than one person, and would only basically be doing a stunt at great expense. Quickly, it would turn out that it was just a stunt. But they had the design work done.

One thing they had done with these capsules, and this is the first one that I don't know how much of this has moved on to the current Shenzhou, is their ablative heat shield material? The ablative material on the early recoverable satellites was a resin-impregnated oak. It was wood, which, as it turned out, when you think about it, wood is a strong pound-for-pound. It's steel. It's just less dense.

And very light. And light, but impregnated and carbonized. I don't know what the material is on the Shenzhou heat shield. I'm trying to find out. I'll let you know when I do. Thank you. We'll check back. We're going to run out of time in a couple of minutes here. There is at least a couple of other questions about other significance of this.

There's been a lot of speculation about the Chinese interest in a military presence in space. Do you think the Shenzhou and manned spacecraft, just as a concept, play a role in that for the Chinese interest in a military presence in space. Do you think the Shenzhou and manned spacecraft, just as a concept, play a role in that for the Chinese? I think they do play a role in their military activity as well, and for primarily the reason that there is no split between civil and military space in China. They're managed, and they share.

They're not compartmentalized one from the other. For Shenzhou, the kind of applications that we've been suspecting, based upon actual pictures of hardware flown on the earlier unmanned Shenzhou vehicles, are observational systems such as earth photography and also electronic eavesdropping. There were antenna arrays on some of the earlier Shenzhou's that looked very much like what is called in the DOD an ELINT, electronic intelligence systems. You would expect, actually, that the Chinese would prefer that because they can't afford to deploy dozens and dozens of specialized unmanned satellites in their constellations.

They are much more limited. But to have a manned system, which can, on different missions, carry different arrays of instruments, it could function the same way. on different missions carry different arrays of instruments, it could function the same way. And this does not alarm me because most observational work in space, even military observational work, is a very stabilizing force in terms of preventing one side from thinking it's being about to be surprised or caught by surprise by the other.

Are we looking at maybe the incentive for another space race, even if it's not on the scale of what we saw in the 60s? I don't think we're talking about a race anymore, but we're talking about a fairly complex field of players. In any kind of activity, human activity here on Earth or in space, if there's a limited number of people with very habitual relationships between them, they can get pretty petrified pretty quickly.

This new capability that the Chinese are bringing is upsetting, already has upset, and will keep upsetting old arrangements and old alliances, and I'm very enthusiastic about it. They have capabilities that could supplement, provide emergency support. Sounds like you're in a mood to congratulate the Chinese on this accomplishment. Congratulations are certainly worth it. Only three countries now have done this. They have shown by doing it, by the way, that it is not easy.

We never thought it was. It reminds us that it's also you can't get away with being careless. They've been very careful, and that should inspire not to race, but to stick and return to the original principles of spaceflight so that we all can enhance our chances of success. We are out of time for this segment, but I do want folks to know that on your website, which, do I have it right, jamesoberg.com?

My name, jamesoberg.com, yes. You have a whole new section on the Chinese space program and what's happening with the Shenzhou 5 vehicle, and we will put that link up on the Planetary Society website as well. Again, jamesoburg.com. Thank you, and look forward to more interchanges here. James Oberg, thanks again for joining us on Planetary Radio. Very good. I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A.

What caused the axial tilts of the planets? Each planet's axial tilt is probably evidence of some of the earliest events in the planet's formation. Originally, each protoplanet would have been spinning with the same axis as the Sun. But as planetary formation proceeded and the protoplanets orbiting the Sun became larger as they swept up dust and rocks, bigger and bigger collisions took place between these objects. Near the end of their formation, collisions between protoplanets

of nearly the same size were probably common. For example, it is thought that a glancing collision took place between the proto-Earth and another body the size of Mars, resulting in the formation of the Moon. This glancing blow could also have knocked the Earth's rotational axis over to its present tilt of 23.5 degrees. Other bodies in the solar system experienced even bigger collisions. It is thought that a giant ancient collision tipped Uranus' rotational axis over sideways, giving it the most extreme seasons in the solar system. And Venus' axis was actually tipped completely upside down,

causing that planet to rotate backwards. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now, here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. And now, here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, rejoins us. And this is a get-well-soon version of What's Up. Bruce, because you're feeling a little under the weather?

I am a little under the weather. The doctor said take Planetary Radio and call me in the morning. Take two. They're small. Exactly. Well, what do you have for us this week? Well, up in the night sky, we've still got Mars, though, fading fast in the southeast after sunset. We've got Venus setting about an hour after the sun in the west-southwest.

So a bit challenging, but it's so bright you probably have a good chance of seeing it. And on October 26th, look for Venus next to the young crescent moon that ushers in the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. A little bit of culture for you, too. Thank you. In the morning and late night hours, Saturn's in the east-northeast, four hours

after sunset, and Jupiter in the southeast at dawn. Moving on to this week in space history, October 2019, 75, Venera 9 lands on Venus. Survived for 53 minutes in the high-pressure and temperature environment of Venus' surface. Three days later, on the 25th, Venera 10 landed and survived for 65 minutes. On to random space fact! Well done. The speed required for a spacecraft or other object

to completely escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, in other words, the escape velocity, is approximately 11 kilometers per second. That's about 7 miles per second, or about 40,000 kilometers per hour, 25,000 miles per hour. I had an album, an LP, you know, one of those plastic things that made sound, when I was a kid. And it was all these space songs. And one of them was, seven miles a second, seven miles a second.

The rocket ship will make the trip at seven miles a second. Thank you! I should have had you sing the random space fact. My apologies. Trivia! Although you basically just did. Trivia. We asked people what the largest

impact basin on the moon was. How'd we do? We did great, and so did the listeners. Lots of correct answers. I don't think we had any wrong answers this time. And I am proud to say that with the randomly chosen winning answer this week is our friend, well, we don't really know him, but Gagan Deep. Gagan Deep, who's entered several times, his first win here,

who had the correct answer, the Aitken Basin, sometimes known, I guess, Bruce, as the Southern Polar Aitken Basin. Gagan hails from India, and I guess it's Bihar, India. Congratulations, Gagan. You'll be getting this week's prize. Congratulations. Bruce, I had a question for you. We had a couple of people, actually, who wrote and said that they did have the right answer,

the South Polar Aitken Crater. But then somebody found, actually a couple of people found references also to the Mare Imbrium. But this one fellow, at least, Alan Siprich, was a little doubtful because he thought it was an astrological site. And I said that I thought the Mares were just lava flows, but you said no, actually, I guess we were both right. Both right. They're basically filled-in impact basins that have been filled in with lava, at least in most cases, the larger ones.

And the Imbrium is a very large impact structure. But the South Pole Ache and Basin, which, as it sounds like, is near the South Pole and more on the far side than the near side, is not nearly as obvious, especially as viewed from Earth as, say, the other mare, the mare-type things. Sean O'Leary provided a lot of information, said it's, let's see, almost 2,500 kilometers across, average depth of 10 kilometers, up to 13 kilometers deep in some places. And Sean, who is from Jordan, Utah, where they must see a lot of coyotes and roadrunners, says that if we ever have a rock that big headed our way, maybe Wile E. Coyote will loan us his umbrella.

I hope so. Let's all hope we have the same reincarnative properties as Wiley. Before I misuse, try to invent any more big words, let's go on to this week's question. Before Lieutenant Colonel Yang Lui, excuse any pronunciation problems,

who was the last astronaut to fly in space alone in a spacecraft. Who was the last astronaut to fly in space alone in a spacecraft? Wow. Who was that? Who was the last person to fly alone? And if you want frowning points, tell us when that happened to. But who was it? Great question.

I couldn't even. Thank you. Thank you very much. I couldn't even tell you if it was a Mercury astronaut or a Soviet astronaut. But that's a terrific question. How can people enter the contest? Oh, and one other thing. Listeners, we're talking people this time.

Humans. Thank you very much. Go to planetary.org. Follow the links to Planetary Radio. Learn how to join in the fun and frolic of competing in our trivia contest for prizes and fame. And get those entries in to us by Thursday at noon Pacific time if you

possibly can, folks. Thank you very much. Well, Bruce, we'll just leave you with more get-well wishes, and regular listeners out there, or even irregular listeners, if you want to send Bruce a get-well note, go ahead and do that to the email address on the website. We'll pass it along, although it will not help you to win a prize. But it will make me cheery.

Yes. Thank you. make me cheery. Yes. Thank you. That's so touching. All right, people, look up in the night sky and think about monkeys. Thank you, and good night. Well, there goes the director of projects for the Planetary Society, slipping on a banana peel as we close out another edition of What's Up. We're out of time.

Come on back for our Halloween week show. We promise only treats, no tricks. Have a great week.