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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."
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!
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!
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.
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.
"[...] China sits on wast dollar reserves [...]"
...which they need in order to pay for their nuclear wessels.
(I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.)
...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.
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!
China - 2017
USA - 2018
not of course counting: Hollywood - 1969
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
"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."
You see that is the funny thing. If China drove down the value of the dollar then cheap stuff from china wouldn't be cheap! The less reason for jobs to be out sourced and production would shift back to the US. China can not afford to devalue the dollar or have it's currency go up. The last thing they want is to become a consumer economy instead of an exporting one. What you think would hurt the US would actually in the long run help it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
They could just stand on each other's shoulders like they did in the kung fu movies.
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.
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