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China Plans Moonbase
jfruhlinger writes: "According to this BBC news article, the Chinese government plans to put a human on the moon by 2010, with the long-term goal of 'set[ting] up a base on the moon and min[ing] its riches for the benefit of humanity.' The article seems to think that the program is more for the benefit of China's defense and aerospace industry. D'ya think they can pull it off?"
They should switch to democracy instead!
I wonder what would happen if China offered the US participation in the program. It probably would not happen but if China is serious about benefiting the whole of mankind (?) they should consider such an offer.
"Can they pull it off"
I hope so. Perhaps this is the start of the second space race?
It would not necessarily be a bad thing if the US government thought China might successfully build a moon base. Perhaps there would be more serious initiatives to encourage more space exploration and development on this side of the Pacific.
Hey, it worked with Sputnik...
This can only be a good thing, regardless of whether the Chinese Government ultimately succeeds. As I said in a bit more detail here,
'China's moon mining plan is perhaps one of the best things that could have happened as far as space exploration is concerned. The world's primary space organisation, NASA, is constantly having its budget chipped away by the US government. Hopefully, China's future successes in space missions will force the US, and other countries, back into research and development of technologies needed for space flight and colonization such as nuclear propulsion, terraforming and techniques for mining resources on off-earth locations such as the moon and asteroid belts.'
Who knows - three hundred years from now, our decendents could look back on this day and say 'thanks to China pushing the world into a new space race, we managed to develop the technologies that allowed us to get off that overcrowded and overpolluted chuck of rock that we called Earth, before it killed us all off for good.'
Janie took my gun...
One has to think that China has their priorities mixed up here. Considering that this is a country that in which not everyone gets enough to eat, and innocent children are murdered for violating population guidelines. I mean, people die in un-humane conditions in sweatshops in this country, and they are spending a mass amount of money to go to the moon? I fail to see the point.
Funny, yes, but realistically, what riches are there to be mined on the moon? And if there are riches, they would have to be pretty valuable to justify throwing a rocket and a mining mission to the moon to collect them. ~my $.02
Perhaps it doesn't matter if they can pull it off. If it's sufficiently plausible that they might, it might provoke the US Gov and NASA to perform the necessary digital extraction procedure on their own space programme. After all, look what they achieved when they were chasing the Soviets. :-)
I don't give a damn who pulls this sort of thing anymore, as long as I get to see it in my lifetime. I'm sick of waiting for cool things to become profitable before actually being done. I can't believe that the ISS is still being built, although it has had some very close shaves in the US Congress over the past few years, all because of fucking money. What's so difficult about kicking the secretary's personal assistant's secretary's page off of the government payroll, stopping the spending on idiotic pork projects and $6,000 curtains (thanks Asscroft), and just using the tax money to do things that our decendents will look back at and say, "Bitchin'?"
NASA reckon the cost to go back to the moon -
$2 Billion.
Cost of setting up a moonbase (self sustaining) $10 Billion approx.
Just go look at Dubyas defense spending, and weep at the fact we could all be there.
Actually, 1kg of iron mined and made into satellite parts on the moon plus the difference in processing costs (to earth creation is equal in value to 1 kg of iron similarly processed on earth *plus* the value of the propulsion system cost differential to loft it into space. If you can live on the moon cheaply enough, things get rather valuable there simply because they are easier to loft into outer space.
Even if the manufacturing costs are higher, the military position (uphill on the gravity well compared to earth) could only be beaten by orbital systems backed up by asteroid and orbital mining/manufacturing.
...if 1.5 billion people say they say they are gonna do it, they will.
Be it in business, life, current affairs -- whatever the situation. It's almost ingrained into the Chinese worldview. This has been shown time and time again, through the projects that have been completed and/or worked upon, in China. The Great Wall and The Three Rivers Gorge are the first two obvious examples that come to mind; the manmade Kunming Lake elicits the same thoughts, as well.
Now, I'm not saying these tasks are/were not costly, both in terms of dollars and human lives, nor am I saying that many (especially current) Chinese projects are without corruption and/or controversy.
Rather, what I am pointing out is the historical Chinese trend of "progress" against odds. I don't really want to use the term "determination", because there is certainly the very real possibility that people work on these things against their will. Yet in any case, foreigners who've worked there on corporate projects for a while will tell you that, when working with a Chinese corporation, while they may promise you something seemingly outrageous... but short of a few exceptions, they won't promise you something they can't/won't complete.
The aforementioned exceptions are, however, predictably tied to corruption, where unwilling corporate heads -- or even middle management -- can very easily tie up a project with red tape, unless there's a little cash to "oil the wheels". If China's going to build a moon base, this corrupt undercurrent, in my opinion, is the most likely stumbling block. (As an aside this goes for the 2008 Olympics, too. After just getting back from Beijing a few weeks ago, I will be most amazed if they solve, at least to a large degree, the pollution problem, as they have promised.)
In most cases, however, while a project may take 10, 20, or two hundred years, the Chinese have historically tended to accomplish any goal that they've set out to do.
Again, it's all in the mindset... a "slow but steady" one, at that. Westerners tend to think in short, digestible timeframes. "Project ABC has to be completed in X months." The Chinese, on the other hand, look at things across a much, much larger timetable. What's a hundred years, when you've been around for several-thousand, already?
Granted, in a modern world, this opens the door to corruption and inefficiency... but how many of those "really cool projects", on which you've spent countless hours at work, have gotten tossed into the circular file because they were deemed too costly or too time-inefficient by the corporate heads?
So they say they'll have a moon base? I really don't doubt it. It may not happen in my lifetime, or yours... but it will probably happen, nevertheless.
And what's wrong with mining resources? Do you use 100% recycled products?
Capitalist NATIONS don't take huge percentages for GDP in taxes to go in search of the raw materials for production. Instead, CAPITALIST individuals (or their legal constructions) take personal risks to later return a profit. If a CAPITALIST has the means to launch a moon-mining project (including obtaining some precedent for mineral rights on Luna) and the fervent belief that they will make money (BENEFIT). This is all well and good and moral, and all who contribute do so voluntarily.
Frankly, if the Chinese are going to go to the moon on the backs of the Chinese workers it will almost certainly hasten the demise of their non-free (non-free as in speech and as in beer) regime. [See Heritage foundation freedom index. ] That will benefit humanity.
Me physicist. Me make rockets.
I think you're seriously underestimating 1960s tech.
Actually, the Saturn V was better, cheaper (per lb of payload) and about as reliable as the Space Shuttle. The only big failure (ignoring Apollo I) was Apollo 13, and that wasn't a launch vehicle failure.
It also launched much more payload than the Space Shuttle can; the Space Shuttle simply can't reach the moon because of this.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"If the title was "US to build Moon base", 90% of the discussions would be related to technical issues, and similar things.
When the title is "China to build Moon base", 90% of the discussions are related to 'communists', 'stealing technology', 'human rights'. I presume, most of the people have never been to China.
Couldn't people stop 'stealing technology' stories for a moment (think US would have nukes if they haven't *stolen* German scientist and research?), and talk about feasibility of this project, no matter who does it.
There are so many sites dealing with politics - don't turn Slashdot into another one.
The main reason that capitalists have not taken up mining on either the moon or nearby asteroids is the price of admission. It costs about $10,000 for every pound that goes into orbit. Taking that same pound to the moon increases the cost even higher. And what is on the moon that could be mined right now anyway? Sure, it's a rich source of helium 3, but how many power plants are there currently that use helium 3 as a fuel?
The cost of getting men and material into orbit, let alone to the moon, has to come down dramically and the possibility or extracting a profitable material would have to really go up before such an operation would ever be seriously considered by industry. Any corporation that would spend billions of dollars on something with almost no profit potential would last about as long as Enron or Global Crossing.
Technically it's an orbiter. Economically, it's a disaster.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Don't you think it's kinda double standards ?
Only if you use a race based standard, like the theme of your poost.
The USA blocks China mainly because of their overt statements that they want to destroy the US and some of our allies, like Taiwan.
We had an embargo on Japan when they were saying similar things pre-WWII.
Besides, even those efforts wained during the Clinton administration, with plenty of US payloads and US rocket technology launching from China for Irridium.
Hope this helps you.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
When the lunar lander landed, all the dust was blown away from underneath the module. With no air to resist it, it all went straight out away from the module, leaving it resting on solid earth (err, whatever). Without any wind, the dust didn't return during the landers stay. Thus, no dust when it relaunched.
-jk
God became man to enable men to become sons of God. -C.S. Lewis
Given a little more time, private enterprise would have gotten us into space. Look at John Carmack -- whee!
No. Instead, the governmnet has to rush the gun and abso-fucking-lutely hobble the private sector while trying to rush premature technology into space. Private enterprise has proven to be the best solution to technological inadequacies; as proven throughout history and at the current time.
How to place a thriving American colony on the moon; Lift all restrictions, except those that keep private companies from harming people (i.e., dropping rocket stages in Dallas, Texas).
And, this one will get us on the moon long before China; remove all taxes on any corporation whose primary purpose is to get to the mooon, and remove taxes on their transactions with other corporations. Bingo! You don't even have to subsidize 'em!
But of course the idiots (and they are!) in Congress don't have the balls to consider such a radical move. Lift Restrictions? My God, man, you're talking the end of the world!
-chris
As always, the essential question is why. Prestige only gets you so far. Notice that after mankind proved it could be done in 1969 - 1974, we just plain stopped. Know why? We'd gotten all the scientific information we could reasonably have gotten, it was very dangerous, and very expensive. So now we have to ask why and look for deeper responses, an actual purpose to flying out into space. What possibly could be done on the moon that couldn't be done right here, or perhaps on our money pit noisemaker, the Int'l Space Station (ISS)? I strongly suspect the answer is nothing.
Speaking in a larger, world exploration of space sense, couldn't we get more scientific gain by sending out many, many more satellites equipped with finely engineered sensors? I know our human nature makes us feel that if there's not a biped there we haven't really experienced it, but putting a base on the moon, landing on mars, doing deep space exploration, etc - these are all things that become exponentially cheaper if we decide to send machines instead of people to do it.
Before we went to the moon it held an air of mystery for us. But when we got there we found it was just a big dusty gray rock, and so our fascination was with ourselves with succeeding in getting there, not with the destination itself. People who dream of moonbases fail to realize that it'll never happen. It's like going to a far-away island - anything you need you have to bring with you. Food, housing, any and all equipment to do anything - it's ridiculous and there's no reason for it. We'll also never practice interstellar travel, or likely even get beyond Mars & Venus as humans, mainly due to the gamma ray problem. And will it be worth it? For science, yes. But not for any practical purpose.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
The Chinese system government now resembles fascism much more than communism. That is, it relies on appeals to nationalism and its superiority to legitimize itself. Sound familiar with anything else? They have openly stated that their ambitious space program is an attempt in this aim.
The reaction here is, "What a cool idea. They should go for it!" without, without thinking for a second what the consequences of that action would be.
Don't forget what got America on the moon. Sputnik. The article mentions it is a point of national pride. It was national pride that started the US space program to "catch up and surpass" Russian advances in space. And what was the benefit to American's that congress argues when marginalizing NASA? Huge funding into materials and technology development that resulted in many consumer and military applications we use today.
;-)
But now the argument is America cannot afford to be in space. Look at the massive scaling back of Alpha. It serves no purpose... to the political machine driven by corporate lobby. And this is why China will succeed.
Even though China's communist ideals may be for show, China is an effective oligarchy. No battling for mindshare for that next election "addressing short term problems".
I hope Zhong Guo Jen succeed in this vision. It is the Only way Americans will make it to Mars.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
I'm from China, and I can tell you that the Apollo moon landings are widely accepted as fact throughout China (in the government, the scientific community, the popular media, etc). This is not a recent development. Right after the moon landing of Armstrong and Aldrin, people in China celebrated it as a great achievement for mankind despite the fact that at the time China was in midst of the worst throes of the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, the U.S. space shuttle, the Hubble telescope, the Russian Mir space station, the new international space station are all generally viewed in China as exciting developments in mankind's exploration of space. I find it amazing that in this era of telecommunication advances that so many people in the U.S. have such distorted conceptions of other peoples and nations that ridiculous assertions as those of your roommate's are easily taken as fact.
It might be a whole lot easier to accomplish getting somebody to the moon to live if you didn't have to worry about getting them back. I'm willing to believe that the Chinese would send people up to the moon with supplies to attempt to set up a moon base, and keep sending them more stuff, but not worry about the return trip, at least not right away. Send 3 guys up with O2, food, water, and equipment to process lunar dust and rock to extract O2. Use the weight budget that would have been used for a return trip for more survival supplies. Send up resupply rockets. Once the people on the moon have had a chance to experiment on the lunar dust and get a better idea of what would work (perhaps dying in the process), send more people with better equipment. Keep sending people. Don't worry - those who died on the moon did so in the firm belief that they were paving the way for those who followed. They'd be heros on the ground.
The dynamics are way different if you are willing to accept casulties.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Not only is anything on the surface sheltered from micrometeors, anything on or in the moon is much less threatened by space debris in general (though this advantage is sort of negated by the inability to dodge the rare bits of debris).