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China Outlines Moon Project Goals
Kulic writes "SpaceDaily.com is reporting that China has announced 4 scientific goals for their Moon project. There are three general goals - orbiting the Moon, docking spacecraft with one another in lunar orbit, and returning moon rock samples to Earth. Each step is outlined, with a detailed description of what they hope to accomplish during the orbiting stage. It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."
It's good to see another nation making a dedicated push towards space exploration. Perhaps it will help redirect US endeavors in that direction as well - at the very least, it's a good way to boost high tech education and business in the US, which is struggling in the face of global competition (i.e. software & IT outsourcing).
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RTFA. Their scientific goals clearly indicate some interest in commercial exploitation in the form of mining... They are taking an approach that is quite different from the US one.
Just probing? I mean, that's all fine and dandy, but NASA and ESA did plenty of that. We want moon bases damnit! With Chinese restaurants of course! What good is space tourism, if you can't have a nice walk on a different planet or satellite and enjoy a nice dinner by earthlight.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
"It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."
Is this opposed to, say, the "do it all at once" approach?
The Chinese have put a man into orbit. That's a great success for them, considering there ain't too many other countries that have done it. But just assuming that, hey, it's a short trip to the moon is naive. There's no way they would have been able to take another flight straight to the moon, if only for lack of experience.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
to quote The Economist magazine;
"Congratulations China, no need for aid right?"
The Economist recently pointed out that China still recieved huge wads of international aid (premium content, no link, sorry). Sending men to the moon is a noble goal, but maybe it's something they ought to do on their own nickel.
Whos knows maybe moonbases will become a relatity in my lifetime.
While it is true that humanity as a whole has previous experince in landing on another rock in the solar system, the chinese do not. And it's more sensible to do it the first time in relative proximity to earth, where communications are nearly instantinious and home is just four days away, rahter than to go to Mars and hope everything works out just like they did in the simulator.
AFAIK, the chinese are plannin g a spacestation as well as a manned moonmission, and I got a hunch they won't stop there. So far all of their achivments can be dismissed as something other nations already has done - but as far as I can understand the mindset that drives the chinese spaceprograme (which appears to be close to the mindset that drove the early soviet and US spaceprogrames), they 'need' to do something spectaluar that no-one has done before.
A permanet moonbase might suit this criteria, or a manned mission to Mars... but they need to learn to walk before they can run.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
This is exactly what NASA needs right now. A kick in their complacent, idle butts. As you can read in my previous post ,I think that NASA needs to have a similar goal-oriented approach to their mission. Perhaps if we get shown up by what had been a second world country, we will get back into the Apollo mindset again.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Well, I would prefer that news writers act like they know something of what happened before last month. Wishful thinking on my part.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
>>It looks like China is serious about their space
:) China will be the most, without a doubt the most wealthy nation by far. Im not going to speculate when this happens, but im sure they're already only second to the all mighty USA. So looks like they'll have enough money to keep it going into the future.
>>program, and is taking an incremental approach
Well, at least someone is. Also incase anyone hasnt noticed
Exciting stuff!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Actually, it seems like the money would be better spent in China, improving the humanitarian and social situation.
I'm all for space programs, but a country like China should reconsider its priorities.
As far as I'm concerned the Chinese are at the same level now. Everyone's whining about how we've already been to the moon, but blame NASA for not going anywhere beyond that. It's their damn fault.
That's what the Moon is - a very large space station in orbit 240,000 miles above the Earth.
It receives unlimited, very strong, solar energy, and provides plenty of raw materials. It also provides unlimited, very high quality industrial vacuum, and is an ideal site for optical and radio astronomy. It is also a fine launch pad for interplanetary traffic, since it has only 1/6 the gravity of Earth and no atmosphere.
Granted, it may be lacking in certain resources, but the recent discovery of 100,000,000 tons of water near the lunar South Pole certainly casts things in a new light. A sustainable colony is most likely feasible.
If we weren't mired down in massive red tape and environmental regulations, perhaps private enterprise here in the West could take a shot at competing with the Chinese government. I'm pretty sure space flight is about to become commercially viable, especially if there is a breakthrough or two. Scramjets and detonation based engines are two possibilities.
We also need a non-crewed heavy lifter that'll take the "freight into space cheap" crown. Then big lunar and interplanetary ships can be constructed in orbit.
Safe, high performance power (fission, fusion or antimatter) needs to become a reality soon for interplanetary travel. That will be the revolution in the 21st century to rival flight in the 20th.
We'll see if we can get more than a million people into space a year by 2100...well probably not me personally... ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
As long as it is reported as a copy of something already done, no problem!
/. story that mentions this, can you point it out?
It is not the fact that the Chinese are using a tested method, it is the fact that the reporters are acting as if this is the first time anybody did it this way. I missed the portion of the
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
So, I'm not a scientist, but what are the chances that the moon habours a great deal of precious metals or minerals? I'm certain there's going to be a lot of abundant metals like iron etc but what about the stuff that could add incentive to the high cost of going to the moon and bringing the stuff back? If there was enough of it you could get some commerical interest from LUNAR PROSPECTORS.
I don't know how easy it would be to get a pack mule into a space suit though.
can somebody tell me how this is incremental? here were the steps listed in order: 1)orbiting the Moon 2)docking spacecraft with one another in lunar orbit 3)and returning moon rock samples to Earth. they just got into space and they already want to tackle the moon? and they have more than one spacecraft to dock in lunar orbit? IMO, that's like me saying i'm going to create an operating system, gain 80% of the market, and run gates out of the OS business... but it's all going to happen in increments...
1. It's incremental because they have a series of goals, each more complex than the previous one, and aim to acheive each one in order.
Really, is that so hard to understand? Has the meaning of the word "incremental" changed or something?
2. The goals aren't only acheivable, they've already been acheived once.
NASA did all this back in the 60's, in the same order - lunar orbits, lunar docking, then finally lunar landing and return. If NASA can do it, then so can the Chinese. All it takes is manpower and resources, which won't be an issue for China.
Remember, JFK announced the US's intention to go to the moon and back just a few years after the first American was launched into space. At the time of that announcement, the US had as much experience, perhaps less, of space exploration, rocketry, etc than China has today. Again, if the US could make such a bold claim then and deliver then there is no reason to dismiss China's claim so flippantly.
Is China in a position to put men on the moon today? No. Will China be in a position to put men on the moon 10 years from now? You better believe it.
Space exploration is all about small steps of steady progress and giant leaps of vision. If Neil Armstrong could recognise that standing on the surface of the moon 34 years ago then why can't you today?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
No one is doubting the phenomonal rate of progress made during the sixties and early seventies by the US and USSR. Like Newton, the Chinese seem to have their sights set further than their predecessors and intend on exploiting space more directly than using it as a research platform.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Is there some kind of international agreement dictating ownership? Or is this like the new world - a first-come, first-served queue?
Instead of denigrating a fantastic acheivement, why not congratulate them ?
Going to Mars is a fine scientific aim, but if you read between the lines, their aims are also commercial - the moon is a definite target then...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Cept the government of China doesn't believe it has a humanitarian or social situation. Everything is fine, in their eyes, so a space program seems a reasonalbe expendature of funds.
How about getting the hell out of Tibet before invading the moon.
I could level equal charges against the US. 13,000+ shot dead every year, god knows how many more killed on the roads, a welfare system that pales into comparison compared to that of any other developed world nation, a crumbling school system that's badly underfunded yet the US finds it more important to wage war half way around the world.
Why spend billions fighting a war? If Saddam was the problem then why not just put a $1 billion bounty on his head? It would have been cheaper and it probably would have been more successful.
Does the US really need tens of thousands of nuclear warheads? Wouldn't a few hundred be enough? Just how many $1.3 billion B-2 stealth bombers does the USAF need? They're going to get 20, but the original order was 144... Even so, wouldn't that money be better spent elsewhere?
See? I can construct a similar myopic argument detailing why money shouldn't be spent on grand endeavours for just about any nation in the world. Just because you think that there's no benefit to the average Chinese citizen in this lunar programme that doesn't make it so. If I recall correctly, people made the same argument about the NASA Apollo missions, and the scientific acheivements of Apollo and the success of its commercial spin-offs are still benefitting us today.
Something tells me if this new endeavour came from NASA rather than China you'd be the first to jump on the "about time too" bandwagon. Stop being so damn xenophobic.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
the romanized spelling of their mission is simply 'change'. (Chang'e I)
guess we oughta get used to the idea that only china has something left to prove politically in space, and the resources to do it.
combine their drive, resources, and that they learned from the US situation and are sticking with proven technology specifically designed for the mission at hand -- and China will either meltdown or raise the bar outside our atmosphere.
it's gonna be a different world when you have to learn Mandarin to vacation on the moon.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Now we know where those 500 billion dollars in foreing investment in china have gone.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
when a new Chinese Space Mission update is posted on slashdot some people start to complain:
- China has other problems and moon is not a priority
- Been there done that they are 30 years late
You have to know that China is not spending ALL the money on space travel. It's working on its own problems right now. It's a developping country but the thing is it's a hell of a developping country with almost a billion workers that are about to create the biggest market in the world.
You did that 30 years ago... ok. And what ?
What about doing REAL space and moon exploration instead of a big show off like the Appolo program was ?
China is planning actual exploitation of moon ressources within the next 50 years. They could really become prevalent in the future just because of the bargain they are doing today. Imagine if they manage to set up a full moon base.
They would become prevalent in energy, astronomy, vacuum manufacturing and space exploration. You should think about it and maybe the US government should try to spend less money on war and maybe a little more on space exploration...
Iraq: war to save the U
Every time we return to Mars (successfully) we learn more because the instruments are modern. The 2001 photo orbiter has 20 times the resolution of the 1976 orbiter. This permitted seeing layering in valleys, indicative of water action. The 2008 orbiter will has five times better resolution for learning more geology.
The Moon has only been revisited twice since the 1960s, so there is much to learn with improved instruments. Especially since only eight locations have been sampled by US and Soviet expeditions. I dont care whether NASA, the ESA or China does this, as long as somebody does.
Ahem, we cant even get our USA asses to the moon anymore.
i'd say that with-in 2 years that china will be much farther ahead of the USA in space that it will be silly.
Hell if they figure out a way to launch sattelites cheaper than NASA and the EU maybe it will be a way to finally get the powers that be off their asses and actually do something in regards to the space program.
Go China! make the dirt cheap access to space a reality, just like they did with computers.
(If your moherboard,processor and ram were made in the states, we would be paying SGI and SUN prices for the low end stuff...)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm sure Japan is pleased to know where their 2.26 trillion yen in foreign aid to China went over the past 25 years.
No, he meant Nuclear arsenal. Those scientists with those theories are not taken seriously within the geological community.
Think careful about earthquakes : they are the build up and release of energy many MANY orders of magnitude greater than the largest atomic bomb, and they happen..... right between the joins of tectonic plates.
This alone should be enough to show that having a nuclear explosion in the crust affect the core or the tectonic is a ludicrous idea, but then consider that below the crust much of the material has properties and behaviours that more closely approximately liquids than solids - and that the impact of an explosion or otherwise would dissipate in many directions, rather than focusing in one.
I find it strange that a country that requires so much foreign aid ($1.8 Billion according to the Economist) can afford to have a space program. Perhaps it's time to cut them off...
This is not the sig line you're looking for... move along.
That's what the Moon is - a very large space station in orbit 240,000 miles above the Earth.
That's no moon, it's a space station!
Well ok, it's a moon and a space station.
In response to China's 4 Moon goals, president Bush has recommended Outsourcing NASA. The current 4 goals of NASA administrators: 1) Qualify JB weld for in-space repair of foam damaged wing leading edges. 2) Talk to Halliburton about constructing up ground based communications station and alternate shuttle landing site in IRAQ. 3) Do a google search, find out what this MARS thingy is all about. 4) Upload Resume's to monster.com see if China is hiring for space development work.
Ross Youngblood
www.users.wineasy.se/dg/treaties.htm.............. ..6. The Moon Treaty
What is normally refereed to as the Moon Treaty actually has the name "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies"19.
This treaty came into force in 1984, five years after it was unanimously adopted by the U.N. General Assembly and opened for signature. Many countries have, however, decided not to be parties to the Moon Treaty. Sweden is one of them.
The Treaty declares that the Moon and all its natural resources are the "Common Heritage of Mankind", Art. 11 item 1, and that these resources shall be exploited according to an international regime, Art. 11 item 5.20 The idea of a Common Heritage of Mankind was that it would include the fair distribution between all states of the natural resources of the Moon, with particular consideration for the interests of the developing countries. It had even been proposed that the right of ownership of the specimens of minerals and other substances of the Moon should be vested in the United Nations, though a rule of this kind was not included in the Treaty.21
The United States could never agree to rules of this kind and have thus never ratified the Treaty. Since the U.S.A. declared that it would not ratify the Treaty, many other states have also decided not to ratify it, and Sweden is one of those.
The Moon Treaty is only binding for the few countries which have ratified it. Nevertheless, it must be considered binding on others to some extent, especially as to those rules of the Treaty which no one has made any objections about. These can perhaps be said to be part of space law due to consensus in COPUOS and the fact, that the Treaty has entered into force. When drafting new treaties on space law, COPUOS cannot make up rules in conflict with the Moon Treaty, unless the participating states agree, in consensus, that the conflicting rules in the Moon Treaty will be abolished.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
China:
1) build spaceships
2) launch humans
3) launch humans to Mars
US:
1) build space ships
2) hire venture capitalists
3) hire managers to impress venture capitalists
4) hire managers to impress managers
5) rebuild space ship different way to impress managers
6) file chapter 11 and close
What the Economist doesn't say is that nearly all of that $1.8 billion in aid that China receives is in the form of interest bearing loans with conditions attached. E.g. the EU/US/Japan gives China a $300 million loan at 5% interest with the condition that China makes a $1.5 billion order of Airbus/Boeing/Mitsubishi products. Most governments in the industrialized world categorizes such loans as aid to make themselves look altruistic and divert popular attention from the fact that these aid are really nothing more than government subsidies for the big and powerful corporations.
Also, not the other posters comments on how the "aid" money ends up in the pockets of big business interests ( same with Israels billions ).
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Tell that to the French and the rest of the Europe. Let me cite some examples off the top of my head.
You were saying something about hypocrisy?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yes, that is a problem. Are you saying that corruption is unique to the United States? How do you respond to the French doing business with him in the first place?
hat $5 billion is Iraq money, it comes from the procedes of Iraqi oil sales
Actually, no, to date, there has been very little income realized from sale of Iraqi oil. We are too busy trying to stop them from sabotaging the oil infrastructure to focus on selling any of it. We just passed an $87 billion dollar spending bill, of which, about $20.3 billion goes into the reconstruction of Iraq. There was an attempt in our Congress to make (at least some of) this money a loan. That attempt was defeated. We are, for all intents and purposes, giving them that money to rebuild the country with. So what if some of it goes to American contractors? If you were living in Baghdad right now, and didn't have reliable electric power, would you complain if an American company (instead of, say a French one) fixed the problem? If an Iraqi doctor saves your life after a serious accident using American medical supplies are you going to be upset about it?
Oh, and it's funny how you fail to mention that in the past, even when he was waging war with Iran and gassing Kurds (all with the backing of the CIA), the US was happy to do business with Saddam Hussein, just as they are happy to do business with countless oppresive regimes around the world.
Yes, and the French were only too happy to do business with him as well. And business with the South Africans during apartheid. I fail to see your point, other then perhaps, "World politics suck", but it's hardly a uniquely American problem now is it?
Yeah, I find it laughable that you say the French didn't want to go to war and proscribe it down to money
We didn't ask them to go to war. We asked them to support us in doing so. Right, wrong or indifferent, they could have gone about opposing us with a little bit more tact. For a country that we have twice saved from the Germans (whom I'll point out were no threat to us in the First World War), this shows a lack of graditutde. It kind of reminds me of the French refusing to allow us to use their airspace when we went after Quddafi. Sure hope they don't expect us to use their airspace the next time they lose a war to one of their neighbors :) Sure would hate to offend them.
I'll also say that, regardless of what your opinion was on the Iraq war, you have damn good reasons for wanting to support us now (and for hoping that we succeed) -- not the least of which is the plight of the Iraqi people. Can you honestly say that they would be better off if the insurgents drive us out of the country and declare an Islamic State? Perhaps you should get off your soapbox and help out. If you aren't part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.
Lastly, I would also point out that I was initially opposed to the war as well. Once it started however I saw no choice but to root for it's quick end and for our success in rebuilding the country. Pulling out now would be a disaster for us and the rest of the region.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.