There’s been a lot of discussion about China’s “new” aircraft carrier program. Some talk too about its new fighter.
Too little attention, I think, about where they have really invested:
China surpassed current U.S. capabilities in a race to explore resources in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans and set its sights on beating world leader Japan next year.
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The dive means that the Jiaolong—named after a mythical Chinese sea dragon—is capable of reaching 70% of the ocean floor, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, adding that the vessel was expected to attempt a dive to 7,000 meters—the maximum it is designed to withstand—in 2012.
If that dive is successful, it would allow the Jiaolong to explore 99.8% of the seabed and put it at the top of a list of just five manned submersibles capable of diving below 3,500 meters, where many rich mineral deposits are thought to reside.
Japan’s Shinkai can go down to 6,500 meters, Russia’s Mir and France’s Nautile to 6,000 meters, and the U.S.’s Alvin to 4,500 meters, although an upgraded version of the Alvin, designed to reach 6,500 meters, is scheduled to be ready by 2015.
The capability of such vessels is significant as rising prices for many industrial commodities mean there is growing interest among state-run and private mining companies in exploiting mineral resources under the oceans, which cover about 70% of the Earth’s surface.
Outer space proved a dry hole, at least in a practical sense. The ocean floor is the future.
China is getting there first.
Ah, but don’t worry. Our universities are graduating plenty of B.A.’s in business, art history, religion and women’s studies, etc. We’re way ahead of China in music video production and video game design. Let them graduate all those boring engineering and science majors.
I think it’s time that the student loan questionnaires have an additional question on them: “What’s your major?” The granting of the loan should be conditional on what the answer is. If they’re challenged on the rationale, all the banks have to answer is “We want to know the likelihood is that the borrower will be able to pay the loan back.”
+1
But we can’t go after seabed resources. That would be exploiting the Earth Mother. Nope, can’t do that.
Speaking of the former Yaryag, China announced it is refitting the ship to be a research platfform.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-07/27/c_131013222.htm
A new Glomar Explorer?
China is a signatory to the LOST (Law Of The Sea Treaty) Does anyone really think they’re going to all this trouble just to share the mined mineral goodies with the UN to parcel out to the likes of Swaziland, the Cook Islands and the EU? And, btw, where’s our David Curp to tell us what the Great White Up is doing about all of this around the Arctic Circle? It’s been a while, David..
Um, they got money – lots of it – to spend on R&D and hi-tech engineering. We are broke. me thinks that when the debt/budget deal is finally reached the idea of spending scant future funds on deep diving submersibles and deep exploration will be quietly put out to sea to be sunk.
Oh, and our feckless leader says we play by the rules.
Amazing what you can do without the burden of social programs, innit?
Actually, they’re as broke as we are. They’re just willing to let people starve rather than feed them in order to accomplish their overall objectives.
I would disagree to the tune of 1.16 trillion of our debt, a total of 3.197 trillion of foreign currency reserves as of 11 July 32011, and as owners of the largest gold producers in the world. Which at $1615 an ounce fills the coffers quite quickly.
I WOULD agree they have serious financial issues ahead, but they don’t have 535 slimeballs to deal with in solving. And when they need something and decide to look around lustfully, we might not have the assets to stand in their way.
Sad how much ground we seem to be ceding to other countries. However, given the cavalier Chinese attitude towards safety, all I can say is I wouldn’t want to ride that thing on its maiden voyage to its depth limit!
ROVs, people. It’s one area where we have an edge…and deep ocean exploration and exploitation is a really good environment for it.
Although I would point out that this isn’t like space exploration. The technology is pretty well developed, and does not take billions of dollars to get in the door. Private industry can handle it, especially if the Government (meaning the Navy) does some of the technological groundwork.
We should all be buying stock with both hands in whichever company owns Rosetta Stone language tng programs….of course with the rapidity with which China’s water table is shrinking they’re going to need to use that thing to look for H2O underneath Beijing before they hit the ocean depths, lol.
Rosetta Stone = RST . Near a five year low in stock price. And loosing money. Mmmm, no.
VX, maybe their explorer can find water in China that isn’t polluted yet. WTR (Aqua America) purifies water, and is making a profit. A Navy context is adding water to rum to make grog. I know -sacrilege!
All of these craft can in fact easily reach the sea floor today. As can the latest in Chinese military craft.
Coming back up, on the other hand…
Hmm. Sort of reminds me of something called the “Trieste.”
I don’t really see how we can say they’re getting there first – when with Alvin we’ve been there for decades.
One of the sad aspects of this story is that the U.S. Navy had the exact capability that is now being proposed for the Alvin upgrade. DSV SEA CLIFF was a 6,200 meter (20,000 ft) capable vehicle operated by the Submarine Force in San Diego. (DSV TURTLE was the sister vehicle with a 3,100 m (10,000 ft) capability.) (I commanded SEA CLIFF in 1990-91.) SEA CLIFF was retired in 1999 and placed in mothballs at Woods Hole. TURTLE was retired and is on display at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. The rationale was that un-manned vehicles would take their place at less cost and greater capability. But the truth is that 10+ years later, unmanned systems still cannot do some of the things that a manned system can do. Hence the Alvin upgrade. Maybe the Chinese developments will prod the Navy to put SEA CLIFF back in service.
Cap’n, I love you and all, and appreciate your keeping us up to date on things, but the continual succession of buzz-killers and virtual nut punches can be right depressing, at times.
Oh, Cap’n? Have you ever felt a temptation to have made a very nice sword, of the best steel, of perfect weight, balance, and radius of gyration, and with a shaving edge on it, with which to go and do Emergency Liver Surgery on people who really need it?
I’m waiting for the first time one of these things forgets to call “8-1-1 Call before you dig.”, and puts a shovel through one of our undersea phone cables…or taps them.
I believe USS Halibut did a bit of that, among other things. Nation-States tend to cheat, if they can. That’s what “sovereign” means, really. That is, nobody else has authority to tell them what they may or may not do.