No one else knows this yet, but it’s Space Week here at TheVine! Just as the NASA is sending up the Space Shuttle Endeavour to complete its
final mission later this week… which is BTW to upload (GET IT?) gear to the space station and to commemorate the royal wedding… China pulls-off over the covers of its very own space station—the Tiangong.
I had NFI
Oh China, that big, resources-consuming-only-to-spit-them-back-at-us-in-the-form-of-cheap-homewares country that we ALL rely on for just about everything. What can they not do?
They make their own Rolls Royce Phantoms (do Chinese rappers ride in Geelys instead of Phantoms?).
They can make their own bullet trains that go faster than anyone else’s.
And now they’re going to make their own International Space Station (ISS)… ‘cept it’s not International—it’s all theirs!
Imagine if they did this in the 80s; Regan would have scored a bigger ‘Star Wars’ budget for sure.
The $100bn station will serve as a science laboratory to further China’s research efforts. But according to Space.com, they’ve also extended an invite to the world’s scientists saying “[they] will adhere to the policy of opening up to the outside world, Scientists of all countries are welcome to participate in space science experimental research on China's space station." According to the Guardian.co.uk, China also has its sights set on a lunar landing by 2025 so the space station should play a pivotal role in that effort.
The first stage, Tiangong-1, is due to be launched the later this year with further modules to go up over the next few years. Interestingly, the docking system aboard Tiangong will be compatible with that of the ISS, which undoubtedly means inter-station piss-ups during the 2014 World Cup. The Tiangong name means
heavenly palace, but it is expected that the Chinese public will be invited to give the station its official name.
Regardless of its scientific premise, a successfully deployed space station is China’s way of showing the world that it's a BOSS.