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Japan Launches Lunar Orbiter Mission
Sooner Boomer writes "In a historic event, Japan today launched its first lunar probe. The mission is nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess from Japanese myth. The news media is calling it the 'latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States' to explore the moon (don't forget Google). From the article: 'The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter took off into blue skies, leaving a huge trail of vapor over the tiny island of Tanegashima, about 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo, at 10:31 a.m. (9:31 p.m. EDT) as it headed out over the Pacific Ocean. The mission consists of a main orbiter and two baby satellites equipped with 14 observation instruments designed to examine surface terrain, gravity and other features for clues on the origin and evolution of the moon. China has plans to launch an orbiter later this year, with unmanned rover lander mission scheduled for 2010. India and the US also have orbiter missions scheduled for next year.'"
Interesting choice of name. Selene was a lunar deity and is the Greek word for the moon.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Great! Now will they show both raw HD and anime? Just so long as there are no DBZ or pokeymon on the moon.
"unmaanned"? Show some respekt for the craft, fer fuck's sake!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I can't wait for these lunar satellites to be in position. I have a $50 bet with a "nut case" friend of mine that NASA's moon landing was real (he is a real conspiracy theorist - I blame drugs). Once these babies are in position, they'll be able to take nice pictures of the Apollo mission sites.
I am Slad.
and your bitterness will finish it off.
The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter...
Are you sure about that?
Developers: We can use your help.
...is that the spacecraft is in the shape of a giant robot, and that, upon achieving lunar orbit, it will disassemble itself into three smaller robots, a moon buggy, a six-wheeler truck, and a mouse-class pokemon carrying a katana.
It was a great feat back then and it is a great feat today.
Kudos to japanese space team!
They will awaken Gogirra!!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Kaguya was also the name of a character in Okami who goes off into space in a giant bamboo stalk.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Is the information from all these various probes being shared or is each nation building up its own little pool of data?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Guys after the apollo program all they'll have left to do is research future tech and start building space colony ship modules, once they got all the modules assembled and reach Alpha Centauri it's Game over man.
About six years ago Japan tried to send a probe to Mars. It MISSED the plant so, they sent around the solar system to try to hit Mars again. When it finally got there, it had run out of fuel and died.
The had a little better luck with a comet probe. It made it there. I was supposed to retrieve samples. They think it might have gotten some. But the probe died on the way back to Earth.
Good luck next time!
Hate to get a weepy and jingoist, but isn't this just kinda pathetic? We sent people there almost 40 years ago, fer Christ's sake, and now we're in a "race" to send orbiters around it?
We should already have moon-based lasers to shoot down them godless foreign spy satellites before they enter orbit. We should own that goddamned moon, complete with a Disneyland! And blackjack! And hookers!
In fact, forget the moon!
Japan and China (and probably India, too) have made clear that their plans to "explore" the Moon all target exploiting the Moon, for mining and energy extraction.
When will the US leverage our huge, pioneering, and still leading Moon exploration to harness that energy? Solar panels on or orbiting the moon could send enough energy back to the Earth to power everything we do, without pumping a single barrel of oil from under treacherous sands, or emitting another gram (net) of Greenhouse gases. The way out of our 21st Century's greatest political and economic problems could lead through the Moon. Will we let these foreign countries stand on our shoulders, or reach for greatness ourselves?
--
make install -not war
what would be truly awesome is if their subsequent missions were named eirin, reisen, and tei.
This mission is just a warmup. Japan's future plans include a lunar mission in 2022 in which gigantic teflon and mylar sheets will be installed at strategic locations extending upward perpendicular to the surface. Upon completion of the complex in 2024, observers on Earth will see that the moon has been transformed into a giant Hello Kitty.
Tanegashima is "tiny" now? The island's 50 km long. It's got a city on it!
Why not just add your info to Wikipedia?
Actually, I just looked randomly at docforge's article on hash tables, and I can tell you the Wikipedia one is far more accurate and complete already.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The difference between the two tons (or tonnes if you must) is so small that to qualify whether you're using one or the other is nit-picking[1]. As it is, unless the weight of the spacecraft is an exact number of tons, the journalistic rounding-off of the weight far exceeds this small difference in definitions.
[1]unless of course you're using the weight in orbital mechanics calculations, in which case you'll need better accruacy than the 1 significant digit reported here.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Interesting choice of name. Selene was a lunar deity and is the Greek word for the moon.
No, it's not an interesting choice of name! It's like Anime going to the moon or sommat. What we need here is name like Susano and he's going to go all samurai on the Moon! Good grief, what is the world coming to? ;-)
china, not to be outdone by fierce rivals Japan have announced plans to lauch their own lunar surveyor named Ripple of Leaf Falling on Water of Still Pond at Sunrise
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If you read some of the claims of the moon mission doubters, they have no problems with getting the hardware to the moon, they have problems with the claims that humans traversed the van allen belt without massive shielding, etc, or that the landing module was even large enough for fully suited astronauts to use it with an inward opening door. That and weird things like the anomalous cables that showed up in some pics, etc.
So, just seeing hardware sitting there is not proof humans made it there. Humans in low earth orbit, sure, broadcasting from "space" then, sure, beyond that, not much proof beyond their say so and some grainy and dodgy stills and video. And they conveniently "lost" a lot of the original footage, like leftover junk at a garage sale. "Lost" it "Misplaced".uh huh.
I don't doubt it (much) even with the previous said, but do find it rather odd that the Russians never went there, and in some stuff I have read (sorry, no links, a long time ago), they also had concerns over the van allen belt and decided it wasn't doable because of that, just too risky, they couldn't do a mission because of inadequate shielding, and they were known for being even more cavalier about their cosmonauts. And it's not like they didn't have the tech, there was rough parity back then, lift capabilities (built or could have been built) and computing power, but they said it wasn't doable for them at that time.
Now they will witness the moon bases that NASA has known about for many years. HINT Disclosure project.
The moon is made of rock. There is no life on it. There is no liquid water on it. We have sporadic indications that there may be frozen water in some deep, dark places.
There, that about sums it up. For my next post, I'll share what the nations of earth have learned from Mars after spending billions trying to reach it. That post will be a dupe of this one.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Hey, this is GREAT!
Time for a lunar lander renaissance! Dust off those rarely used "left, right, right, left, space bar" key skills!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander
OK, call me no fun at all, but why the hell is anyone committing major resources to getting to the moon? As far as I understand, we're pretty confident it's a big lump of sand. No real advantage of being there vs being in orbit. Nice place for telescopes maybe, but so is high Earth orbit or a Legrange point. Other than a playpen for new technology, what's the draw? Mars at least has some interesting geology and the whole maybe-there's-microbes thing. But the moon? Lunacy! Why doesn't Google give an X-prize for orbiting a next-generation Hubble? Same industry-boosting tech trickle down, more or less, and then we get some science from it. A 10-pound rover with a Nikon on it doesn't really light my fire.
To be perfectly honest, I just want two things from the Japanese: 1. Show us a clear shot of the American flag there (to put to rest all those pesky conspiracy theories, once and for all) 2. In the name of all that's holy, please don't use names like Takazigashi Homochikimura on new lunar features ! Thanks.
W. was voted in. Twice. You have pubs claiming that they are balancing the budget, while ignoring the fact that the last 'pub' to truly push a balanced budget was Nixon (Though to Bush 1's credit, he at least turned the tide).
Europeans run around knocking Amerca all the time, while ignoring the fact that they have all sorts of issues. In particular, EU likes to knock Americans for not dealing with MS, and yet, they are in 15 year attempt to do the same (and will punish MS less than America).
W. is not pushing the moon because of legacy. He is pushing for it to be able to place nukes and/or weapons on it. But, it is doubtful that it will happen. The truth is that we are shooting for the moon at least a decade ahead of any other nation. And with private enterprise pushing it, we will be on the moon by 2015. And how will they make their money back? Via solar energy. There is a LOT of evidence that indicates that we really have hit peak oil and that future issues will come about. Assuming that W. does not have enough brains to restart his fathers program of IFR (integral fast reactor), then it should be obvious that energy is going to be very expensive in the next decade. Private enterprise will make their money back in the exact way that you have suggested, in addition, to vacations, manufacturing, minerals, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
SELETE, a Japanese consortium of semiconductor manufacturing companies, collaborating on research.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Exploiting NEA resources is a much, MUCH better choice.
I don't have the time nor room to explain why here; read "Mining the Sky" by Lewis. He presents a great case, with math to back it up.
Cheers,
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
NASA will partner with Privater Enterprise by 2013 for getting to the moon. But so will the military. The reason is that the next x prize will no doubt be for putting man on the moon. Again. It will almost certainly be more for than 50 million (I would guess 100 million), and will be offered by several companies (like what I mentioned earlier) or possibly the USA. I would guess that it will be for time frame of 201[45]. This will lead to spacex, bigelow, and (armadillo|new shepard) going to the moon by then (If by the USA, then it will be open to others including l-mart). Once these companies are on the moon (with a bigelow space station), then the next president will stop NASA's effort WRT orien, esp if the merlin 2 engine is in active development (that is if the plan is to go with the Ares V rather than the direct derivitate).
What will be interesting to see is how other nations respond. EU, Canada, australia, Japan, and probably India will pull tight with us. China will denounce us. The real question is, what will Russia do? Will W. have pissed them off so much that they decide to go it with China? If so, then real estate will suddenly matter (we will build out both poles quickly). If they do not, then real estate will not be an issue. As it is, China is making steady progress, partially on their own, and partially by Russia. But China is several decades from being able to put a base on the moon. With Russia's help, they can be on their by 2020-2025 timeframe.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
>> Don't you mean "This is more fucking proof hat no one actually learns to write anymore."
No. In god's holy name , perhaps YOU mean
'Don't you mean "This is more fucking proof that no one actually learns to write anymore." '?
(The pinoqachole helps with grammar)
>>..We get telemetry back from the Moon. There's a mirror array up there so that we can bounce a laser off the moon
"we?"
Who is "we"?
You and that fake punch-drunk 'Buzz' Aldrin?
He's been stoned on Pinoqachole since 1978.
And everyone knows that Neil Armstrong has had a lobotomy.
He's probably fed Pinoqachole too, just to keep him off-balance.
"WE?" - Don't make me laugh, you NASA shill.
Yes, You. And the other 245,000 conspirators.
Thank god you're all dying off. Finally the truth will be known!
He's alive and well,lives in Cyberspace and speaks to his Pinequoled (pinch a hole) followers evrry night. ;_)