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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."
"China has announced that it plans to land on the moon around the year 2017.
10 years to landon the moon?!?!? How many cows do they have tied up to the booster housing?
I could see 3 to 5 years, but this isn't exactly new rocket science, is it? Is there some matter of the Russians and Americans not sharing with them, or are the Chinese just so proud they want to do it all themselves?
The United States unveiled a $104 billion plan in September to return Americans to the moon by 2018.
I fully don't understand that. NASA already knows how to do it. Why the foot dragging? They got to the Moon practically at Warp Speed compared to this mission. It's a sad day to learn all my Sci-Fi books will be further wrong on projections of lunar colonies, etc.
China was designing a rocket that could carry a payload of 25 tons, up from a present limit of eight tons, the Beijing News reported this week, though it would unlikely be ready for another six-and-a-half years.
Time to chuck the abacus and get some computers in those hands.
They should land just in time for the 100th Starbucks opening.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
But since it's a fermion, it can't become a Bose-Einstein Condensate.
:(
Sorry... too much Wikipedia
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Exactly how much better than the usual DT mix would this stuff have to be to make it worth the expense of getting it and bringing it back?
Wait until they arrive and find out it's just a Hollywood set.
They're taking the long view of becoming a super power.
And leaving their enemies radiation free.
"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.
Let's just mine the moon of it's natural resources. It won't affect the earth in any way or will it... If we take off any sizable chuck of the moon it will affect the tides.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
I think that it would be logical for countries to establish bases within reasonably close proximity. There is too much that can go wrong for someone to risk establishing a 'loner' base.
...that they can see the Great Firewall from space.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Since the days of US vs CCCP space race has passed and nobody seems to be interested in our very convenient stepping stone for some real exploration. We have become so much accustomed to satisfied with the warp drives and photon sails and whatever in the space opera shows we like so much, many people (perhaps excluding most /.ers) are overlooking the fact they are waiting to be invented and implemented. Since the Soviet Union is no more, the battlefield has shifted somewhere else, space exploration has served its temporary political purpose now the russkies are defeated (though it was very useful for technological advances as a side effect). We are living the days of land and resource grab (WMD anyone?), when nobody wishes to look ahead.
China has been a world power for -let me see- all known history, and is chinese first and anything else a distant second. They are a pragmatic people, move with slow but sure steps. I certainly hope this move of theirs will have more real tangible benefit to humankind, and not just for political bravado.
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.
"We come in peace for all mankind."
I bought many of acres of moon land through the "Lunar Registry". I assume that China will check with me before picking a landing spot? I don't want any of my prime real estate damaged by their rockets.
I didn't pay $32/acre just to let anyone use it. That would be stupid!
NASA is out-sourcing as well?
China - 2017
USA - 2018
not of course counting: Hollywood - 1969
Yeah! We wouldn't want to scar it's face with craters or anything.
Look, I'm greener than most but unless there's life on luna, I have
no problem mining it for He3. Of course, lunar based PV would be a
better power system.
Were that I say, pancakes?
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
They don't even know how to drive a car, and they're going to land on the moon? Good Luck... Hopefully they don't dent up the ISS while en route =P
Fundamental limitations on plasma fusion systems not in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Keep fucking dreaming kids.
China has always been a poor farming country until recently.
Poor farming countries tend not to be able to carry out voyages with a fleet of over 300 ships of which some are the size of a small aircraft carrier, halfway around the world (and some say all the way around the world) nearly 100 years before Columbus.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Travelling to the moon ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations they could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end their trip real quick, wouldn't it!
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.
Yes, it takes massive amounts of raw materials to get Helium-3. Luckily we don't actually need much Helium-3 (in theory). The overall mining operations will be small compared to a great number of Earth based mining operations. Even on the side facing Earth...you wouldn't be able to see mine pits from Earth.
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.
I would think that, when the time comes, when there are enough people, then it would be those folks living on the Moon who would want to create their government. And they're not likely to be asking us for any advice.
You guys got it all wrong. China does not need to land on the moon to claim it. They did not set a foot on Taiwan and what's stoping them from claiming it as part of China?
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.
Quoting Wikipedia on Helium:
"On Earth it is created by the radioactive decay of much heavier elements (alpha particles are helium nuclei produced by the decay of uranium). After its creation, part of it is trapped with natural gas in concentrations up to 7% by volume. It is extracted from the natural gas by a low temperature separation process called fractional distillation."
Perhaps the Helium in Moon is trapped similarly in natural gas. OTHO, if there is natural gas in the moon, wouldn't that be a better source of fuel (with current technology)?
Quoting Wikipedia on Moon:
"The lunar crust is composed of a variety of primary elements, including uranium, thorium, potassium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, aluminum and hydrogen. When bombarded by cosmic rays, each element bounces back into space its own radiation, in the form of gamma rays. Some elements, such as uranium, thorium and potassium, are radioactive and emit gamma rays on their own. However, regardless of what causes them, gamma rays for each element are all different from one another -- each produces a unique spectral "signature", detectable by a spectrometer.
A complete global mapping of the Moon for the abundance of these elements has never been performed. However, some spacecraft have done so for portions of the Moon; Galileo did so when it flew by the Moon in 1992. [3] The overall composition of the Moon is believed to be similar to that of the Earth other than a depletion of volatile elements and of iron."
Wikipedia does not even mention Helium, but it mentions hydrogen. Is Wikipedia's Moon article up to date?
According to the Finnish Wikipedia on Moon, 25% of the Moon's athmosphere consists of Helium gas. I do not see how this gas could be "mined". Perhaps they could just somehow collect it?
"The satellite is to be launched into lunar orbit for comprehensively probing into rich resources on the moon such as He3, Fe, Ti and water-ice, as well as its surface condition, landforms, geologic structure and physical fields through remote sensing. "
Later that article mentions the three step goals as:
"Another two deputy chief designers of Shenzhou III spacecraft revealed a three-step plan of China's first manned spaceflight:
[1] Take Chinese astronauts into space;
[2] create a space laboratory;
[3] and establish China's space station and establish a connection with international space stations. "
Looks like the Moon base and telescope were recent additions to the three step plan. In November 8, 2003 the Xinhua News Agency reported these four goals for Moon program:
" For the first goal, there will be three-dimensioned graphs of the lunar surface.
Basic structures and physiognomy units of the lunar surface will be defined precisely. Researches on the shape, size, distribution, and density will be made on the crates on the moon. These researches on the crates will produce data for identifying the age of the surface and early history of terrestrial planets and provide information needed to select the sites selecting for soft landing on the moon surface and for the lunar base.
The second goal is concentrating on the distribution and types of elements.
It will be focused on the content and distribution of 14 elements such as titanium and iron which can be exploited. A map of elements distribution around the moon will be sketched. Graphs for lunar rocks, mineral materials and geology will also be drawn respectively. The area rich in specific elements will be identified. And prospects of the development and exploitation of the mineral resources will be evaluated.
The third goal is to detect the depth of the lunar soil through microwave radiation.
In this way we can calculate the age of the lunar surface and distribution of the lunar soil on the lunar surface. This lays a foundation for the further estimates of the content, distribution, and quantity of helium-3 which is power generating fuel caused by nuclear fusion.
The fourth goal is focused on the space environment between the earth and the moon. ...
The average distance between the earth and the moon is 380 million km, which is in the earth's far magnetotail. Here the satellite probes solar energetic particles, plasma in solar wind, and the interaction between the solar wind and the moon and between the tail of the magnetic field of the earth and the moon. " Then of course we have to look at Chinanews 2005-11-01 article that sums up the most recent plans: "China will consider manned lunar landing after 2017".
" As for when the first Chinese astronaut will set foot on the moon, Ouyang said China will be capable of realizing manned lunar landing between 2020 and 2025. After that, China will also plan to build a base on the moon. "
One day, someone is going to build a flag so big, it will destroy us all.