China's Space Program News Thread

[Richard Santos]

The bottom line is that Chinese together with Greek and Latin are the kind of root languages that are so well developed in their early age more than two thousands years ago that there is nothing new can be invented nor any new thing that can not be properly described with new compound word based on root word from them. The only reason for transliteration is the laziness and linguistic deficiency of the "inventor".

greek and latin become the root language of science and engineering terms for 2 reasons, neither has anything to do with their being well particularly developed.

1. For historic reasons latin was the ecclesiastical language of the catholic church, which covered all of western europe. So it became the lingua franca of educates classes in western europe. later the west rediscovered classical greek culture and intellectual achievements, and fairly worshiped the intellectual accomplishments of the greeks, so classical greek then also became a languages of the learned.

2. classical latin and classic greek are no longer spoken as vernacular languages. they are in effect dead languages. dead languages have a good trait useful for precise definitions. that trait is meanings of words are not changing due to it’s vernacular usage is changing. if you pick a latin word today, it won’t mean something slightly different tomorrow just because how people use it in daily lives are gradually changing.

Most Greek and latin word roots can be traced to roots in common proto-IndoEuropean language that is the ancester’s of almost all modern languages spoken in Europe. linguistically there is nothing particular about roots in Latin abd Greek.

modern chinese is not a dead language. that actually makes it less suitable to use as basis for technical and scientific use, because meanings of words and phrases can gradually change as the living language evolves.

 

[Xizor]

greek and latin become the root language of science and engineering terms for 2 reasons, neither has anything to do with their being well particularly developed.

1. For historic reasons latin was the ecclesiastical language of the catholic church, which covered all of western europe. So it became the lingua franca of educates classes in western europe. later the west rediscovered classical greek culture and intellectual achievements, and fairly worshiped the intellectual accomplishments of the greeks, so classical greek then also became a languages of the learned.

2. classical latin and classic greek are no longer spoken as vernacular languages. they are in effect dead languages. dead languages have a good trait useful for precise definitions. that trait is meanings of words are not changing due to it’s vernacular usage is changing. if you pick a latin word today, it won’t mean something slightly different tomorrow just because how people use it in daily lives are gradually changing.

Most Greek and latin word roots can be traced to roots in common proto-IndoEuropean language that is the ancester’s of almost all modern languages spoken in Europe. linguistically there is nothing particular about roots in Latin abd Greek.

modern chinese is not a dead language. that actually makes it less suitable to use as basis for technical and scientific use, because meanings of words and phrases can gradually change as the living language evolves.

Yes. Both are Indo European language. There is a precursor language that predates both. So, Latin, Greek, Persian and Sankrit all have an ancestor.
Chinese seems to have an ancestor too (proto-Chinese).

However, not all European languages are of Indo-European origin. Uralic Language groups seem to be different from Indo-European languages ( also called Finno Uralic). These now exists on the northern fringes of Europe close to Artic circle.

 

[Richard Santos]

yes, that’s true. there are a few other language families in europe, as well as some isolated languages like basque that belong to no other language family. but they represent a small minority of speakers in Europe. Europe is dominated by three branches of IndoEuropean Language family

 

[Sincho]

Western European tongues are derived from 2 main roots Latin and Germanic. Languages such as Italian , Spanish, Portuguese and French are from Latin roots; they are collectively known as Romance languages. English is actually a Germanic tongue but has been heavily influenced by Latin and has many words derived from Latin.

Chinese has more than 50,000 characters , a well educated person may know as many as 8000 characters. But actually only 3000 to 4000 are common in daily use, with knowledge of 2000 to 3000 characters you can read the newspaper. The bulk of Chinese characters from classical Chinese are obscure and obsolete and can be used in scientific terminology. Therefore Chinese has its own built-in dead language 'Latin' from classical Chinese. For example, many of the obscure characters have been used to name the elements in the periodic table.

 

[by78]

Mars Rover Remote Command and Support Center.

Although the rover has autonomous capabilities, for safety and planning purposes, the rover beams detailed ground images to the command center, which then examines them in order to propose possible routes. Proposed routes are then entered into simulation software for further verification. If there are too many rocks and other obstacles in the path, a physical verification is conducted with a duplicate rover at a Mars terrain simulation facility. After the routes are decided, instructions are beamed to the rover for execution.

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

China plans to carry out near-Earth asteroid sampling and return mission as well as the orbiting probe work of the main belt comet around 2025. And the sampling and return work of the Mars mission will also be carried out by around 2030, Xu Hongliang, the spokesperson of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said at a press briefing in Beijing on Saturday.

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[weig2000]

greek and latin become the root language of science and engineering terms for 2 reasons, neither has anything to do with their being well particularly developed.

1. For historic reasons latin was the ecclesiastical language of the catholic church, which covered all of western europe. So it became the lingua franca of educates classes in western europe. later the west rediscovered classical greek culture and intellectual achievements, and fairly worshiped the intellectual accomplishments of the greeks, so classical greek then also became a languages of the learned.

2. classical latin and classic greek are no longer spoken as vernacular languages. they are in effect dead languages. dead languages have a good trait useful for precise definitions. that trait is meanings of words are not changing due to it’s vernacular usage is changing. if you pick a latin word today, it won’t mean something slightly different tomorrow just because how people use it in daily lives are gradually changing.

Most Greek and latin word roots can be traced to roots in common proto-IndoEuropean language that is the ancester’s of almost all modern languages spoken in Europe. linguistically there is nothing particular about roots in Latin abd Greek.

modern chinese is not a dead language. that actually makes it less suitable to use as basis for technical and scientific use, because meanings of words and phrases can gradually change as the living language evolves.

Very good points.

Western European tongues are derived from 2 main roots Latin and Germanic. Languages such as Italian , Spanish, Portuguese and French are from Latin roots; they are collectively known as Romance languages. English is actually a Germanic tongue but has been heavily influenced by Latin and has many words derived from Latin.

Chinese has more than 50,000 characters , a well educated person may know as many as 8000 characters. But actually only 3000 to 4000 are common in daily use, with knowledge of 2000 to 3000 characters you can read the newspaper. The bulk of Chinese characters from classical Chinese are obscure and obsolete and can be used in scientific terminology. Therefore Chinese has its own built-in dead language 'Latin' from classical Chinese. For example, many of the obscure characters have been used to name the elements in the periodic table.

That is so true. There have been teams of Chinese scientists giving official Chinese terms to science and technology terminologies. This has been particularly the case with traditional fields of science such as physics and chemistry. In the past, a lot of Chinese scientists or professors were also very well versed in classic Chinese. One such well known professor was Professor Wang Zhuxi (

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). He used to be a physics professor at Peking University. He had given Chinese names of many physics terms. The inspirations were usually from classic Chinese. He even published a Chinese dictionary.

Unfortunately, because of the rapid emerging and developments of many new fields of science and engineering and the younger generation of scientists who are much less familiar with classic Chinese, the transliterations become more common and people just create Chinese names of new technical terms rather casually. I used to hear a physics professor lament about the lack of elegance and consideration of many Chinese translations of computer science terms.

Sorry about the off topic. This is very interesting.

 

[Richard Santos]

Orbiter of a moon of Jupiter.

Found some literature. Apparently two different mission profiles are under consideration. One would orbit either Ganymede or Callisto, the other would orbit Io. That is strange because Europa is skipped. Europe is between Io and Ganymede, and it is the most interesting of Jupiter’s moons, because it has an liquid water Ocean at a relatively shallow depth below the ice crust, and unlike Ganymede and Callisto, the liquid water Ocean apparently communicate with the surface frequently and extensively. It is often said that Europa has the highest probability of having life and an ecosystem beneath its icy crust.

I wonder why Europa was not being considered for orbiting by China.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Found some literature. Apparently two different mission profiles are under consideration. One would orbit either Ganymede or Callisto, the other would orbit Io. That is strange because Europa is skipped. Europe is between Io and Ganymede, and it is the most interesting of Jupiter’s moons, because it has an liquid water Ocean at a relatively shallow depth below the ice crust, and unlike Ganymede and Callisto, the liquid water Ocean apparently communicate with the surface frequently and extensively. It is often said that Europa has the highest probability of having life and an ecosystem beneath its icy crust.

I wonder why Europa was not being considered for orbiting by China.

Europa’s orbit is apparently very close to Jupiter, which emits a very large magnetic field. Chances of a successful mission would drop.

 

[escobar]

New launch pad under construction at TaiYuan satellite launch center for CZ-6A.
View attachment 73261

Another new launch complex under construction at Jiuquan for CZ-8.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1404009776988647428