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China and Russia to Launch Joint Mars Mission
The Interfacer writes "China and Russia are planning a joint mission to Mars that will bring back samples to earth and land on one of the red planet's tiny moons, state media quoted a Chinese scientist as saying Wednesday." From the article: "Russia will launch the spacecraft, while China will provide the survey equipment to carry out the unmanned exploration, Ye Peijian, a senior scientist at the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, told a meeting in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency."
Red planet, ha ha.
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Isaac Asimov: There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
Any space program is good news in my mind.
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The day has arrived when a Russian/Chinese announcement of a Mars mission is believable, while the American president's announcement is mere political propaganda.
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who hopes this sparks a real space race? Although, it would be a shame it was all for the sake of going there and then doing nothing again for 40 years.
HASA has either suspended or cancelled outright nearly half of its space probe missions due to cost constraints. These compete against the Shuttle Return To Space, the new Orion manned spacecraft, ISS construction, and the presidential Return to the Moon and Mars initiatives. So its nice other countries are picking up the slack.
What's keeping the US from joining with them?
If it's feasable that the US alone could go to mars, and that Russia and China together can go to mars - then could not all three work together to achieve this goal better?
Or is it neccessary to have the "us" and "them" philosophy when it comes to these kinds of projects?
Must there always be an adversary?
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China and Russia have rarely gotten along. In decades past, they had a good chunk of their nukes pointed at each other, large armies stationed at their border, and their politics didn't always match dispite their supposed shared Communism.
These days, you'd be hard pressed to call either country Communist. I think of both as sort of Wild-West capitalist societies. Now they seem to be forming an economic alliance against the other growing political powers - mostly Europe and the US. It's been interesting watching how similar their replies are in the current Iran negotiations.
I think they're both interested in developing their high tech sectors, and see it as a natural partnership. Russia has lots of experience, while China has a very well-developed industrial base.
IMHO ? Gravity.
Getting on and off of a moon with a very low level of gravity is easier and cheaper than landing on something where you need to land and launch,while fighting the planets gravitational pull.
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Well, Mars anv Venus are closest. Unfortunately the atmosphere of Venus is very unfriendly to humans/machines.
Venus has an extremely thick atmosphere, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide and a small amount of nitrogen. The pressure at the planet's surface is about 90 times that at Earth's surface--a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of 1 kilometer under Earth's oceans. The enormously CO2-rich atmosphere generates a strong greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature to over 400 C." cite.
The next closest planets are Mercury and Jupiter, you wouldn't want to visit them either. Mercury is basically a semi-molten ball of rock, Jupiter is no treat with its high gravity, high winds, and very little (if any) crust. The planets don't get any better the further you get away from the sun. Basically, Mars is the only planet close enough and similiar enough to Earth to have any hope of visiting (and staying) for any useful amount of time.
Russia really benefits, if this goes through. This sort of thing has the potential to guarantee substantial launch volume for them. Always a nice thing to have. And given China's economy, I suspect that China sooner or later will be paying most of the bills.
I find it interesting that China apparently is forgoing the launch vehicles. I think this is a big shift in the focus of their space program. Maybe from a strategic angle, they think that they can build up their launch systems later or maybe buy/steal the necessary technology from Russia.
Er, not exactly... http://www.factcheck.org/article148.html
/No, my scarcasm filter isn't broken, I just wanted to set the record straight on this particular issue.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.