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Chinese Moon Base by 2012 - or 2006?
apsmith writes "Former congressman and House Science chairman Robert S. Walker has written some rather striking conclusions about Chinese intentions in space over the next few years, based on information received for the recent Commisison on the Future of Aerospace. Walker is convinced the Chinese are going all-out for a permanent settlement on the Moon within 10 years; apparently some closer to the situation in Japan think the first landing will be in only 3-4 years. Meanwhile the Economist says IT people are starting to focus on space as the next high-tech venue. Fortunately, despite NASA's neglect, we do have a few private missions to the Moon in the works."
The russians never pulled this off, but maybe a communist red flag next to the stars and stripes might knock the Americans off their high horse, or at least, wake them up. The Chinese are also willing to accept loss of life in this pursuit, so it wouldn't suprise me if they had something going bt 2010.
I'd just be happy to see Homo Sapiens someplace other than Earth.
Why should this be considered a problem if non-US people plan to get to the Moon ?
I thought this was like Antartic : a Free (as in... uh?) place.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
a good Chinese restaurant on the moon will fix that little no-food or water problem and make NASA's job so much easier....
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
I think this is great. Yes, I have the typical reservations many will have here (human rights, poverty in China, etc.). However, I support this 100%.
I really think space is not something that should be done alone by a nation, though. I think we should see how we can help or team up with China in some way. It could be the common bond that finally helps us get over this mini-me cold war that we have going on with them.
Space exploration should no longer exist as a competitive sport. Write your representatives and let them know that you support US cooperation with China in space.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Personally, I'm hoping that only #1 will happen. Competition is good. See what's happened since we lost an 'opponent' in the space race? We've grown complacent. Having another space will be good for just about everything (national pride, the tech sector, the economy in general, innovation, etc).
Anyone not familiar with this Heinlein tome, and who has an interest in the next century should read it.
/.ers just waiting to rebuke this claim, knock yourselves out. Democracy cannot fight gravity, nor stop a 1/2km bolder travelling at Mach 33 coming down through the atmosphere.
Whoever has the moon, has the Earth. If anyone is thinking of entering an expansionist phase, it would behoove them to set up shop there. They are at the top of the gravity well, we're at the bottom.
I am sure there are
I like to maintain a positive outlook, but that is much easier with hindsight rather than foresight.
]3
ps - I didn't have anyone in mind when I mentioned entering an expansionist era - if you associated the remark with any particular geopolitical entity, that was your own doing!
While competition is good fun when it comes to sport, it is about time the West, in particular the USA stopped believing that every time another entity tries to do something newer, bigger or better that such a step is looked upon as a threat. China has never attacked a Western nation and is trying to open up - in particular since SARS. So, we should be supporting and encouraging them. We have worked pretty well with the Russians, that has paid off with their help since Columbia. So we have learned that if you corner the fox he will bite, but if you pamper him he will lick.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
If life is like civilization, as soon as the Chinese make it, our entire society will crumble!
Since we have about 4 Future Technologies already, I beileve we should launch a full scale attack on China, take our scientific research down to 0% to collect as much gold as possible, and start building our own.
While we are at it, we probably shouldn't ask for a UN vote, we will surely fail, and lose there too.
What would be America's best way to win? We've already secured some oil resources, we need to build a harbor!
http://use.perl.org
Almost anyone who is a technophile was weaned on stories of colonies on the moon and mars by the new millenium. NASA, for better or for worse, never fullfilled those dreams. But now that some of those technophiles are all grown up and have a billion and a half dollars, it only makes sense that they would start to use their new-found power to realize the dreams of their youth.
As a fellow dreamer, I can't think of a better outcome to the dotcom-dotbomb cycle than the kick-off of a vibrant commercial space industry. (Well, maybe the immediate cessation of world poverty and the industrial destruction of the environment. But the chances of that happening even with a couple of motivated dotcom dreamers at the helm, are probably close to nil. At least space doesn't have too much in the way of entrenched powers that prefer the status quo.)
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
As a Westerner who sadly recognizes the fact that his society has abandoned space exploration and colonization, I'm more than happy for the Chinese lunar colonists. At least some members of homo sapiens will get to leave the rock.
But as a Westerner who's read Heinlein, I'm pretty sure that sooner or later, those guys are going to end up more free and more happy than their government could ever imagine possible, even in its worst nightmares.
You go, Chinese guys. More power to ya.
Heinlein was a starry-eyed optimist to think it could ever happen on Earth, but he had a valid point on Luna - any resource-rich, low-population, but otherwise harsh environment practically necessitates the development of certain cultural norms.
To the rest of the world, this is just one more triumph of the United States that nobody else has caught up to after 35 YEARS! The second country to land on the moon would still look big in the eyes of the rest of the world, and more-so if they build a moon base (something not even the USA has done).
On a different note, I'm going back to school for aerospace engineering. When touring the department, I found that they are having record enrollment in both their graduate and undergraduate programs. Kinda make's one wonder how many of them (like me) are switching from the computer industry...
science is a religion
This is a nation which still hasn't launched a person into space, let alone have the capacity to go to the moon soon. At the time of the Apollo missions, the US was spending 1% (http://members.aol.com/dsportree/VH04.htm) of the GNP on NASA. The Soviets were probably spending about the same amount of dough. That's was 6 billion in 1967 dollars, or about 32 billion dollars today. Can China afford this? I'm dubious, especially given the current world economy.
Tack on the expenses both nations had (US with Mercury & Gemini, USSR with the various Vostok missions), and the experience China will have to gain... I'd wager on a 2012 landing and 2020 at best for a permanent base. It will take many heavy-lifting flights to get stuff to the moon, and just one disaster to set back the whole timeframe.
Further, the natural Chinese economic advantage (lots of cheap labor), is of little value in the aerospace realm. Sure, you can have folks using picks and shovels on a dam along side modern construction equipment. But on a Saturn V/N-1 type rocket? Not likely.
Can they do it? Sure. So could ESA, Japan and probably a half dozen other nations like Australia, Brazil or India. Will they? Probably, they want the bragging rights. But by 2006? No way.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
There are only a few reasons to go to the Moon that I can see.
1. Scientific. These are pretty weak. Some nice radio and optical telescopes could be set up on the dark side. However, the next Space Telescope will be placed at Lagrange Point 2. That's pretty clean from Earthly interference and cheaper than the Moon. Exploration? Really, what are we going to find that will be useful that can not be done robotically?
2. Commercial. The solar cell idea is just stupid. Stick with Nuclear here on earth. Cheap, clean, and practically infinite. Maybe, someday, fusion will displace it. If so, H3 mining might be a winner for being on the Moon. I'm sure that will drive the Moon environmentalists up a tree. (hee hee). I can just see the protestors and signs now, "Stop Strip Mining the Moon! It's destroying the view from the earth for Spotted Owls." If we could ever make the per pound (screw you metric guys) cost to high orbit cheap enough... vacations would be a good reason to put up a colony. Just look at Vegas and Cancun. There's some serious scratch.
3. Political. That's why we (the US) went the first time. That's what the Chinese are up too. The US may have to do it just to keep the Chinese from being the only ones there. National pride can be an odd thing.
But the biggest political reason will be to get the fuck off Earth. That may be a while. Or a well funded cult may be the first to go. Too bad the Hal Bop guys are gone. It's easier to catch a lift on a Comet from the low gee of the Moon.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
In my opinion, this is a distinct possibility. If they have the willpower to do it, they WILL pull it off without US help or competition. Personally, I hope this or some collaborated(sp?) effort is the case because I really want to see more people in space and the expansion of the human race beyond the thin atmosphere between us and the rest of the universe. Granted the moon is just a baby step (and we're talking a baby atom here) on the cosmic scale of things, but we need to start somewhere, and if the currently most active space program on the planet will not do it, then let someone else. We ARE all human here anyway.
Along these lines, there have been some other posts to this story about the financial problems and the probable lack of commercial return from these ventures. I say to that, Who the hell CARES??? This is the future we are talking about here. This is the possible expansion of the human race. Personally, if I could be around in 20,000 years to see it, I would really like for the Galaxy to be much like Isaac Asimov wrote in his Robot Series and Foundation Series. There is still all of the good and bad of human nature, but we will be free of these earthly bounds and able to go just about anywhere we please.
Not to sound cheesy (and Trek-y) but Space really is the final frontier, and I think we (as a species) need to get off our lazy earth-bound asses and get out there to see what we can find. We really need to work harder to make science fiction into science reality, IMHO.
Of course, I really am just a clueless, idealistic dreamer, but perhaps if there were more people like me and less business-y, money grubbing, power hungry jerks in the world then perhaps we would already be out to Mars and on our way to Jupiter, Saturn, or even Proxima-Centauri...
Sorry for the huge digression and the rant, but whenever I see stories like this and people putting down those who try (not the parent post, but others in this story) it makes me a bit hot-headed (well...the beer helps too).
"Knowledge is power" - Sir Francis Bacon
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
I think the human race needs to take those quotes a bit more to heart. We need both more "small steps for man" and more "giant leaps for mankind".
Again, sorry for the rant. Goodbye Karma.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Will they all soon say "Made on the Moon" ? ;p
I always considered the moon landing an achievement for the entire human race.
Acknowledged that Americans had the technology, supplied the funding, and risked their people in pursuit of the world-wide dream of getting to the moon.
Americans have been too the moon, but much more importantly humans have been to the moon.
Dragon Action Figures
You might not want to live on the moon. Your kids might not want to live on the moon. But if the human race doesn't get some skills in living away from this little blue bubble, we're not going to be able to:
We will need to be able to live away from the Earth at some point in the future. It's going to cost money sometime, but we have the technology to give it a try now. To learn from our mistakes and do better next time.
It shouldn't matter what country does it. However, if we're going down the "but that's my tax dollar" path, I'd rather my tax dollars went towards space exploration rather than some stupid war in Iraq.
it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
Err...that may well be how it was presented, but I think you'll find that the Russians had quite a lot to do with the defeat of Germany. Possibly more than any other nation (a hard thing for me to say, as I'm British), and they certainly earned their rest. And the scientists that helped with the American space programme were also captured German rocket scientists.
Cheers,
Ian
The American army is not invincible. Bush is pouring money down the toilet like it was going out of fashion. Look up the cost of each American cruise missile vs. the cost of Iraqi buildings. Look up the news item regarding how the Pentagon misplaced a trillion dollars. Look at the U.S. economy.
A person I know works with a major U.S. military contractor, on a vehicle project, in the 20 ton range. These things have huge pneumatic shocks; almost no natural force on Earth can touch 'em. And just the other day, they had to scrap a $2,000,000 vehicle because some asshole American grunts were joyriding the fucking thing off a cliff, for kicks. The troopers who pulled this stunt got off scot-free.
America is going to go down, hard, if they don't shape up. Their commanders don't understand cost-effective warfare. The Roman Empire fell because it alienated its satellite states, misused the legions, and because its leaders were mad with power and decadence. It can happen again.
Hmm... interesting theory. So you're saying that the moon is a means for a Chineese attack on the U.S.?
You do realize that the Pacific ocean is easier to traverse than the distance between the earth and the moon?
You do also realize that the U.S. has demonstrated the effectiveness of nuclear submarines as a "last strike" deterrant?
Do you think it is possible that rather than nuking the U.S., the Chineese goverment wants to use this for genuine research, some nationalist bragging rights and as an asset to build or develop international relations?
Great food, but no atmosphere.
(rimshot)
Thanks, I'll be here all week...
All China has to do is be able to drop rocks on American cities. The threat will make us dance with them.
How is your concern any diferent to that of anyone else in the world whilst there is the current American administration with a view that the US can do what it wants, when it wants, to whomever it wants through the threat of military force?
Shouldn't we all be dancing together anyway? What has happened to diplomacy and negotiation in an attempt to improve everybody's lot?
Actually, they can't. Their ICBM fleet has nowehre the range that the Soviet/US missiles have. The Chinese nuclear weapons were developed to deter their main ex-enemy, the Soviet Union. In fact, they almost came to a nuclear war in the late 1960's over some clashes on the Amur.
The Soviets also considered a nuclear pre-emptive strike on their nuclear weapons plant before their first test.
In the meantime the PLA's missiles have not been extended in range save for a very few missiles. They do have some Submarine base missiles but that would be tracked/destroyed by the vastly superior US Navy. They only have 3 or 4 subs.
The US government's assesment of Chinese nuclear capability is classified but there are lost of info on the net. They do pack a punch but their delivery range is very limited.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
At my Washington office a few weeks ago, I met with a visiting Japanese parliamentarian who specializes in science and technology issues... In his view, the Chinese would be on the moon within three to four years.
parliamentarian
this is the only evidence he offers that China is even thinking of going to the moon. some random Chinese dude? well, I'm convinced, let's start a space race.
Bob Walker man must be a real patriot to be so concerned about the plight of America's space prestige. Who is this great thinker? oh wait... Bob Walker is a corporate lobbyist. For who? For these guys. Nice list of clientelle. I wonder if any of those people would benefit from increased public paranoia about a foreign space program?
-sweatyb
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Bruce Sterling wrote an interesting Wired column about the budding Cold War between India and China. Sterling reminds us that India is also interested in a space program, largely for the same reasons America was: symbolism and prestige.
As Pakistan weakens, India is starting to view China as its principal rival for South Asian hegemony. "India and China are comers with a lot to prove to the world, and especially to each other," Sterling writes. "Nuclear India versus nuclear China is Kennedy versus Kruschev, and Reagan versus Gorbachev, all over again. Now, as then, a space race is a sexy alternative to nuclear annihilation.
"China has openly declared its desire to colonize the moon. The world's most populous nation is unlikely to build lunar settlements, but that's not the point. China's motive lies not in constructing a lunar Hong Kong, but rather in luring India into a loud public competition. Later this year, if all goes as planned, China will become the third country to send a citizen into space. An orbiting taikonaut will be even more impressive if American shuttles are stuck in their hangars while the misnamed International Space Station limps along with a skeleton crew."
Sterling's conclusion sent a shudder of surprising revulsion through me: "A decade after the end of the Cold War, good old-fashioned space programs still matter. Not for exploration's sake, but to settle new cold wars. If you doubt it, imagine this scenario: It's 2029, and a lunar mission lands at Tranquillity Base. A crew of heroic young Indians - or Chinese - quietly folds and puts away America's 60-year-old flag. If the world saw that on television, wouldn't the gesture be worth tens of billions of rupees or yuan? Of course it would."
Are you aware that the US now has a larger percentage of its population in jail than any other nation including China? China was the largest percentage for decades, but just in the last couple years the US pulled ahead. We're currently neck-and-neck with the Chinese in the race to jail the largest percentage of our populations. I guess that's one race we're winning with the Chinese...
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
...they'll have a rocket that can send a man to the moon, but not a nuke to NY?
The russians never pulled this off, but maybe a communist red flag next to the stars and stripes might knock the Americans off their high horse, or at least, wake them up.
No flag, but they did have the first landing, 2 rovers, and 24 unmanned probes which even returned samples.
In a lot of respects they beat us pretty well on the moon. I think the technical details of unmanned rovers and returning samples all remotely are very cool.
I give them about 3 years before they've either made good on their threats and actualy seem to be going after this goal, or are shown to have simply issued another boast.
If in 3 years they have indeed begun the initiative to colonize the moon, you can be certain the US will get off it's collective ass and either infuse NASA with massive amounts of bucks and initiative, or simply kill them and replace them with a new goverment entity to acomplish the same goal.
there are two reasons for this.. A: if china sets up a weapons base on the moon we would be at a serious disadvantage the moment they develop anti-ICBM type defenses. Although this isnt near to happening now... it is an inevitability as far as the progression of tech in nearly all major societies.
The second reason... The US has one of the greatest attitudes possesed by man. Out right jealousy. If they do it, then we damn well WILL do it too AND better. Who cares about the expense... it's important simply because it is.
The reason NASA is grounded right now ISNT because they fucked up.... it's cause they fucked up and dont have much of a purpose thats beneficial to the miltary/social/economical intrests of the US corporations or populace. Put china upstairs.... and you can garentee our space program will geta shot in the arm well beyond anything we could imagine about the star wars project or otherwise.
nothing like good old economic/political rivalry to get the inovation engines running.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
The Chinese are happy to lull you into your Western arrogance of superior technology. They are technologically modernizing at a blistering rate, thanks to Taiwan and Western companies relocating their high tech factories into China. They are one of the few countries in the world still generating a large increase in GNP per year. Any capital they can keep from going into populace maintenance is going to their military. They are making/buying modern tanks, fighter planes, ships, and other weapons. God forbid the Israelis start selling them cutting edge military technology. Even if Israel stays under the US's economic thumb, and the US keeps them on a tight leash, China will be able to generate capital to buy weapon systems outright from the French. In five years, their military will be unrecognizable from their status. And trust me, their ICBMs will hit any place in the world they want it to. In ten years (at their current economic pace), they will probably be able to go head to head against the US. Oh sure, our weapons will be able to hit theirs at a farther distance, our tanks will be nicer, and our airplanes will have doodads theirs won't. But 1.5 billion vs 300 million. You do the math. Oh, I forgot, the US kids aren't so good with it anymore.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon