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China to Land on Moon Around 2017
smooth wombat writes "China has announced that it plans to land on the moon around the year 2017. They also plan to set up a moon-based astronomical telescope, measure the thickness of the moon's soil as well as the amount of helium-3 on the moon. Helium-3 is regarded by some researchers as the perfect non-polluting fuel source. China's first lunar orbiter could blast off as early as 2007, coinciding with its third manned space trip in which possibly three men would orbit Earth in Shenzhou VII and conduct a space walk."
US knows how to do it with 1960's technology, making the moon viable as a platform for other activities, requires almost repeating the Apollo program all over again. Why? Because all moon activity was stopped in 1972 when the last 2 Apollo flights were scrapped.
Plus maybe the most imporant factor: money. I guess China needs 10 year to spread the cost. Or would you rather pay for it? (And here I mean you, as in US citizens) USA owns China a LOT of money, i.e. China sits on wast dollar reserves. and can easily drive the value of dollar down the drain and/or raise the US interest rate a few points. Result of the almost 8 trillion dollar deficit USA has.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
"How much of it would the government have to cede to China if it also landed there?"
That's a trick question, no one owns the Moon, much like Antarctica isn't owned by any country either. Essentailly with the Moon, the people to own it, will be the first to colonize an area which will be off limits to other colonization attempts without co-operating. Unless we find that only select spots on the Moon are suitable for a habitat, then there's so much real estate to go around, that we won't have to worry about running out for several centuries. Good planning wouldn't hurt though, so we don't end up with a bunch of lunar cul-de-sacs like suburban sprall in North America. We want Lunar Children to be able to ride their moon bike to school without taking major moon-routes.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Some parts will scarcely change, while others which may take advantage of advances in materials and computers shouldn't lag much as we've still got active launch programs for shuttles and satellites. It's not like the people who did it all suddenly died and their knowledge was lost.
Plus maybe the most imporant factor: money. I guess China needs 10 year to spread the cost.
You've obviously mistaken China for a poor country.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And, NASA was mostly all engineers -- good ones. Now it's mostly PhDs. This is a big difference when it comes to actually accomplishing something. An engineer solves several problems a week, and writes reports about them -- all in the same week. A PhD has solved one problem, took a few years, then took another few years to write the report. And oh yeah, his solution doesn't have to work outside the lab. As a result of working with ex-NASA employees (the good engineers who got chased out by the academic snobbery) I found the corporate culture to be pretty sick in recent (some years ago) days. Gosh, this IS rocket science, and some of it is dangerous (work out how many horsepower hours it takes to put a car into orbit, with 100% efficiency -- it's one heck of a bomb those guys ride), but they are too timid to admit that surely some folks will die playing with it. It seems China has a more healthy outlook here, and might go somewhere with it. Of course, if the academics weren't eating every last dime of the appropriations to "study stuff that can't be checked or proved", there might be money to get the job done, as there was last time. It's profitable to remember that these super smart academics missed Mars by failing to know the difference between metric and English units. Of course they are scared to attempt something most perceive as "simple". They'll want to study it for the rest of their careers and pass the problem to the next guys.
We will operate under the same belief that served us well against the Soviet Union. We will build so many nukes and aim them at China that we will be able to destroy their entire country if they should ever attack us.
The problem is that, this time, we'll be playing the part of the Soviet Union and go bankrupt trying to support an Earth-bound force when they can drop rocks on us all night. All of our satelites will be useless. All of our production facilities will be useless. But we'll still spend money on them.
What exactly is the point? It was already done over 30 years ago, why waste time and money doing it again? Note: This comment is assuming, of course, that the moon landings were actually real, which they weren't.
It notice that is 1 year before the first planned landing for NASA's new lunar lander. For China to land on the moon by 2017 Apollo style they would have to have at least a 100 ton class booster and a huge, visible effort. The planned Long March 5 booster is only 25 ton class (like Arianne V or Atlas V). Development isn't even approaved yet and it will take 7 years to develop. I doubt if the Russians will be helping them. If you ask me I'd say the Chinese spokesman was smoking crack.
an ill wind that blows no good
Gathering He3 from the gas giants in our solar system would be a lot more lucrative. The Moon just happens to be closer. But frankly, there's a heck of a lot more resources on the Moon than He3. Almost all the platinium group metals mined on earth come from meteor impact sites. It costs a lot to mine these metals on earth as erosion has washed most of the meteor away and the only ores left are the ones that fused with earth rocks. On the Moon there's no such erosion, so densities of platinium group metals are expected to be much higher in the millions and millions of craters we see up there. Of course, we don't have the technology to mine this massive wealth today, and we won't have it by 2020.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No, it wasn't.
I heard it with my own ears when he said it and a thousand times since. There wasn't enough time between "for" and "man" for there to have been an "a". Also the way his diction moves through "for man" differs than that if he had said "for a man" which would have come out more like "fora man". (Say it to yourself a few times)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
You've obviously mistaken China for a poor country
Not quite but it's the next best (?) thing. China is a country full of poor people. These space missions are rah-rah points for the leadership to show how great the country is on the world scene so the sustinence farmers making do on $800/year will feel as if their sacrifices are not in vain.
China has NEVER signed either the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 OR the updated Moon Treaty of 1979.
If they want to claim it there is no international legal mumbo jumbo to say it's not theirs.
China is the largest regional power; it was such for thousands of years. All this is well documented. However it was never a global power (=superpower); Emperors just minded their own business and practiced calligraphy. Now is the time to change that. A base on the Moon, armed or not, will be a very strong statement, and China has resources to do that. USA does not have money (all it has is a huge debt to, for example, China...) So USA can compete only if China allows it, in form of investing into more green pieces of paper.
China had 3 billionaires in 2004, this year they've got 10.
Adjusting income for cost of living, there's plenty poor people in the USA.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar