Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
>>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!
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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!"
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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!
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
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.
Chang'e is the name of a princess, who, according to Chinese legend, lives on the moon with a pet rabbit - having jumped there after consuming the immortality potion, and obviously trying to escape the wrath of an angry husband.
And now, the ship that will enable the Chinese to get to the Moon is named in her (mythical) honour... It isn't ironic - it's poetic.
Essentially zip. Even if there were huge deposits of anything interesting (there are some higher levels of rare earth elements in the lunar soil), the costs of getting there and back far exceed the costs of mining reserves back on Earth.
Some people have postulated that since the Moon has no atmosphere, the very fine regolith has been soaking up the solar wind for billenia. Part of the solar wind is helium 3 (light(er) helium) which is essentially absent from Earth. He3 *might* be useful in the future if we ever get fusion working and commercially viable.
Best wishes,
Mike.
You apparently don't know much about China. China is a socialist country much like th USSR was. In China, everything is about appearances. For example, when the Olympic committee came to Bejing to see if it was a suitable sight for the olympics, the Chinese government ordered every factory in the area shut down for a week beforehand so that the usually horrid smog would die down.
My in-laws live in Bejing at the moment, and the propaganda there is interesting... There's only one channel in English, and it's a government channel telling how wonderful China is.
The Chinese government blocks CNN, MSNBC, and most all western media. All news comes through the government sponsered tv channels, or through the "rumor train". We often know about things going on over there before they do.
When we were at war in Iraq there was nothing on but sad music and pictures of wounded children...
In China, you are told what school you will go to, what you will study, where you will live, and until recently, where you will work. You need a permit to be able to move to a city, and many families(like husbands and wives families) are split up because they can't both get permits to live in the same place.
Throughout school they have a class they call Propaganda(well, not really, but an equivelant word in Chinese) that is just that, all about how bad the west is and how wonderful China is. How Chinese medicine is so wonderful and western medicine is bad(My inlaws masters biology students don't really think that viruses and germs cause disease, and that if they opened their windows to let the Chi flow and excercised, they wouldn't get SARS. Most of them contuined to eat from a common bowl because it's the chinese way, and their strong chi would keep them from getting sick...)
China is building the worlds largest ferris wheel and going to the moon purely to make themselves look good. If they can set up a moon base it won't be primarily to make money, though I'm sure they wouldn't mind that. It would be much like our space race, to prove that we're better then them.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
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...
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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
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