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Japan Moon Probe Snaps First Photos
mrcgran writes "Space.com reports, "Almost one month after Japan's successful launch of the Kaguya lunar probe, the unmanned observatory has begun its first major activities in orbit around the moon. In addition to snapping its first lunar images, the probe jettisoned one of two 110-pound (50-kilogram) "baby" satellites that will help create a detailed gravity map of the moon." The major objectives of the "KAGUYA" mission are to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration. "KAGUYA" consists of a main orbiting satellite at about 100km altitude and two small satellites (Relay Satellite and VRAD Satellite) in polar orbit."
I, for one, am sick to death of welcoming 50 kilogram robotic overlord after 50 kilogram robotic overlord, only to have them fly off to the moon after a month or so, leaving us high, dry, and overlordless back here on Earth!
John
More user friendly version here: http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/index_e.htm
Can't we all just get along
Nothing like a freaking high gain antenna smack-dab in the middle of every freaking shot.
That's supposed to be the tripod, I believe someone got fired...
Yeah I don't trust them too, considering that we are not in charge of Gundam.
For a well measured and written comment, that certainly harbours alot of fear and mistrust. Do you have a basis for those fears or are they more of a phobia? Im wondering because when a country is destroyed and then left to moulder I can see why it would harbour resentment, but I was under the impression the US helped with Japan's rebuilding efforts.
Can't we all just get along
What about the buggy thingamees that they left up there? And the coke can. I jest, but seriously folks, I want to see if these conspiracy theories can be put to rest for good. Can they photograph the equipment left behind?
I call paranoia. With a strong economy, a military isn't really needed. They can rule you wholesale instead.
Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
so Japan got to the moon finally with an unmanned vehicle - good for them
Mo
For a well measured and written comment, that certainly harbours alot of fear and mistrust. Do you have a basis for those fears or are they more of a phobia? Im wondering because when a country is destroyed and then left to moulder I can see why it would harbour resentment, but I was under the impression the US helped with Japan's rebuilding efforts.
And that is the key. Defeated enemies tend to become the strongest allies when you take the time to stick around and rebuild the country so that it is nicer than it was when you first showed up. Japan is an ally because we were allowed to finish the job and did not "cut and run". Hell, we are still there!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
....did they find our fake moon landing set yet?
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Perhaps the Japanese can provide some unbiased evidence of the (alleged?) moon landing site. Put those pesky theories to rest...
...SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS!
Yay! Let's do the preemptive war on them, too!
</sarcasm>
welcome our Japanese mooninite overlords.
[insert Asian version of goatse link]
Table-ized A.I.
Don't even start using that as an excuse to stay inside of Iraq. What are we accomplishing? Maybe we should drop nukes on Iraq as well? I'm sure that would overall increase our reputation. That way instead of not only creating more hostility between America and the Middle Eastern Nations, or even simply creating a general anger towards America's ignorance and atrociousness, we would be showing off to the whole world that indeed, America is just as evil an empire as all the Radical Muslims are attempting to fight against.
Maybe then you'll have given the whole war to these Radicals. This war needs to be fought person by person. Through Discussions between people, and by understanding the "enemy" to the point of reasoning with them.
Back to Japan though, I wonder how much of the "peaceful relations" that we have with them aren't so much because we helped rebuild (we had better help rebuild...after blowing a big crater in a densely populated area) but because we are the current world power. I'm sure most countries just "play along" with all the things we do simply so that they don't get lost in the shuffle.
umm i hate to rain on your parade there kiddo but china and japan hate each other. there's a few centuries of mistrust and ill will between them - they love america far far more.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Is there also an air of nerdy excitement about this new-sorta "Space Race II" (new character... Asia!) in the rest of you guys too?
What about the buggy thingamees that they left up there?
Everything left on the moon worked perfectly! (That slapping sound you hear is a horde of retired NASA engineers throwing down gauntlets)
I want to see if these conspiracy theories can be put to rest for good. Can they photograph the equipment left behind?
These are people who don't accept the existing film, photographs, hunks of moon rock, etc, as evidence; more photos won't make a scrap of difference. The only way to refute conspiracy theorists is to take them to the moon and push them out an airlock without a space suit so they can experience the low gravity and hard vaccuum first hand (and even then they'd probably use their last breath attempting to argue that it couldn't have been done in the 1960's...).
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[insert Asian version of goatse link]
I'm pretty sure you're talking about www.lemonparty.org
Was somebody arguing otherwise?
Princess Kaguya is the traditional main character in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. She's something of a Japanese 'Tom Thumb'.
Kaguya is a golden-haired princess sent to the Earth from her Moon kingdom to learn about the joys and sadness of life. In various versions of the tale, she's required to return to the moon once she reaches adulthood.
Anime fans will note that the 'Moon Princess' motif is used repeatedly in modern stories, such as 'Sailor Moon', 'Mammotte Syugogetten' and more recently, 'Oh, Edo Rocket!'.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
You're a fucking idiot.
What is savage word? Why must we always have stories about what some barbaric race is doing?
Meanwhile, the Linux server marketshare has dropped 20% in the last quarter and no stories on that...
These pictures are fairly low quality, probably from an engineering camera rather than a scientific one.
One thing I noticed on the website is that they also carry an HDTV camera! Can't wait to see some nice HD video from lunar orbit.
This is when we find the monolith.
*This post brought to you buy me FINALY finding the stupid javaascript shit with the reply button.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
I wonder how long it will take them to find TMA1
Yes but if you took them all you could end the argument. I vote ship two we load up with middle management types and phone sanitizers.
At first I read that as "Japanese moon probe snaps: first photos"
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And that is the key. Defeated enemies tend to become the strongest allies when you take the time to stick around and rebuild the country so that it is nicer than it was when you first showed up. Japan is an ally because we were allowed to finish the job and did not "cut and run".
Oh for crying out loud, the thinly veiled reference to Iraq is ludicrous.
We didn't unilaterally invade Japan. They were at war prior to our involvement with them.
Japan wasn't harboring long term resentment over American oppression and manipulation at the individual level the way many Iraqi's 'hate america'.
Japan wasn't already on the point of a civil war due to multiple mutually hostile internal factions that were barely being contained by the brutal dictator we installed and propped up.
So it was largely the government that was at war with the US, not the 'people'.
So when Japan surrendered after the nuclear weapons attacks, and the government was dissolved and reformed they really did surrender, and the whole country especially the average civilians were pretty unified in their desire to get on with the rebuilding. Iraq has gone a completely different direction; with multiple competing hostile factions that were there all along going at each other with America caught in the middle of it.
Even if the US manages to ultimately succeed, it will be by siding with one of the factions and helping them become dominant and rebuilding with them... this will only alienate the other factions who will just become even more hostile to the US, and they will gather with allies in Afghanistan, Iran, etc.
At -best- its going to be Israel all over again. Sure we have a great ally in the faction we helped dominate and claim and rebuild the space, but at what cost? perpetual war and festering anti-american sentiment from the displaced/neighboring factions.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Maybe we should drop nukes on Iraq as well?
No way, we don't want an Iraqi Ishiro Honda Creating more Godzilla, and an endless stream of city destruction analogue cartoons that all seem to require the technical expertise of schoolgirls.
'Ah yes, we need the schoolgirls because their purdah wearing panty flashing abilities, um, well, we just need them, ok?'
I wonder if they are planning on taking a closer look at the backside. Look it up, seriously.
There is simply too much glass..
Don't a handful of the Toho rubber-suit-monster movies start with a Japanese space launch getting the attention of unfriendly aliens?
Start a happiness pandemic
"to the point of reasoning with them" makes the erroneous assumption that humans (other than a rare few) are consistently capable of reason. On any subject where "belief" is involved (religion, political and economic theory, child-rearing, ...), reason is literally not possible by the believer. You can no more reason with an Islamic fundamentalist or George W. Bush regarding their respective delusions, than a significantly afflicted schizophrenic off his medication, and probably less.
"Peaceful relations" with Japan are a product of the advantages that they perceive and American delusions. When either of those factors changes, then the Japanese would quite willingly return to their Imperial behavior, or the US will go back to the arrogant pre-war behavior that made the war with Japan inevitable.
President Truman: Get this saucer to Area 51.
General: But that's where we're building the set for the fake moon landing.
President Truman: Then we'll have to really land on the moon. Invent NASA and tell them to get off their fannies.
A very, very long time on a gravity map - they'd need a MAGNETIC plot. Remember, TMA1 stands for "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly - One" thats how they found it.
Of course the gravity map *might* find the buried Atlantean spaceship because of its mini-blackhole power source, but I doubt it....
When they snap the Apollo landing sites and see two sets of footprints leaving the capsule..
..and three returning that you need to start worrying.
Nah, I'm no so amused about the landing site, it's the enormous "Kilroy was here" on the darkside of the moon I'm wait for....
What! You want us to die from a virulent disease from a dirty telephone????
Geez the nerve of some people!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
There are very few countries I would trust in a foxhole, and only one of them doesn't speak English as the national language. That one is Japan. Japan is so intimately tied with the United States politically, economically, and culturally that to suggest that Japanese rearmament (a frog that has LONG since boiled -- they now have something like the world's 5th largest military) leads to military conflict with the United States is like suggesting that Canada is planning to continue the War of 1812 grudge match at the first provocation.
In some bizzaro world where Japan and the United States had economic hostilities (as opposed to the odd disagreement among friends over import levels, tariffs, and the like), Japan cutting off trade with the US would ruin the nation in a matter of months. (And that is assuming we didn't respond by having the Navy cut off their oil supply, in which case she would quite literally cease to have a modern economy in a matter of weeks.) That is the flipside of them being economically dependent on exports to America and their other overseas markets.
Additionally, debt is a weapon that goes both ways. There is a nice expression -- "When you owe the bank $100,000, the bank owns you. When you owe the bank $100 million, you own the bank." The economic nuclear option for the United States is having a midlevel Treasury functionary say one catastrophically important sentence: "We will not pay interest on the T-bills held by the Japanese government, or anyone they should sell them to, for the duration of the hostilities." Oh, we owed you a trillion dollars? Sorry, our mistake -- the accountant has been fired.
That is a heck of a lot more important with regards to China than it is to Japan, by the way. I really don't mind China investing their profits in the US debt (*somebody* is going to own it, who cares who) -- should they decide to have an attack of stupid and talk about nuking Los Angeles again, we can just threaten them with causing a financial panic on a scale unheard of in history. All of the devastation with many less bodies than threatening to match them in megadeaths.
I call this the economic nuclear option because it would NOT be consequence free -- it would pretty much guarantee a worldwide financial panic. But, hey, if you're talking about a major conflict between two of the richest nations in the world the worldwide financial panic is a given.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
To be fair to the plan, death by dirty telephone is only a possibility, while ridding ourselves of middle management is guaranteed.
Worth the risk, IMO.
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Why do we need these pictures anyway. Everyone knows that when you get close enough, you will find out the moon is made of cheese.
Geez, nothing but pictures of itself! Should have named it PRINCESS.
I wonder what the speed of that little thing is. I noticed that the moon just about doubled in apparent size in the space of twenty minutes, according to the comments under the photos.
--
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
If the US had mismanaged the occupation of Japan and Germany to the extent that it has bungled things in Iraq, we'd have ended up fighting and losing 20 year long guerilla wars in both places. And we'd be looking at two important rearmed and hostile enemies.
Like Kenney Rogers says "You gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em." In the case of Iraq we should have stayed out of the game and it's long past time to fold our hand just walk away. Stay a few more years and it'll be time to run.
BTW, I don't have any problem with sending the Iraqi's a bunch more money eventually to fix up their country. We broke it. We should pay for the damage. But they probably need to have (a) real functioning government(s) before air-dropping money will do any good. In the meantime, how about we focus on what went wrong in the US, and why, and how do we keep the clowns who are responsible from ever doing any decision making again?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
>Is there also an air of nerdy excitement about this new-sorta "Space Race II"
>(new character... Asia!) in the rest of you guys too?
Yes, but also I have this nagging fear that we won't be able to dominate like we used to. We're lazier and more expensive than we used to be.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
WWIV. Ah, the good old days. :)
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"That's no moon..."
Meta will eat itself
I say this to all your things, for this is a robbery.
That *this* is the ministry in charge of Gundam.
I, for one, would like to see third-party pictures of the landing site.
I trust the Japanese to supply me with all my high-tech components -- my auto, cameras, etc. Frankly, I trust them more than I do my own government.
Please explain how America is acting "imperialist."
JAXA to Kaguya ni omedetou gozaimasu!
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
The resolution will be 10 meters per pixel. That's not good enough to see the lander bases from apollo, let alone any footprints.
wiki article (look for the data on the Terrain Camera)
Japan's close proximity to China is exactly why we should be in favor of Japan having a stronger military. China has been building theirs up for years, and with Kim Jong Il in the neighborhood, it's important for us to have strong allies in the region for the balance of power. South Korea and Taiwan can't exactly provide that by themselves.
Sorry but that is simply not true. Way to rewrite history. The majority of Japanese citizens believed in what their government was doing. That was one of the reasons in fact that the bombs were dropped despite the fact that the US was already on the point of winning the war by conventional means. US generals believed that there would essentially be no way to really 'win' in any conventional sense because there would be so many civilians rising up to fight in the streets. They believed any attempt to take Japan would be met with *very* high losses to both sides because the resistance from the civilians would be so strong. The belief was that many would prefer to die fighting in the streets than surrender. Ironically in Iraq it seems to be just the opposite. If there has been a mass organizing of Iraqis to overthrow the US occupation I have certainly not heard anything about it. These sneaky little bombs here and there are just not going to do it. Sorry. So they may be pissed about being occupied by a foreign power, but I guess they are not pissed enough to try to really fight.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Well there's no doubt that many Chinese *still* hold grudges against Japan due to its actions in WWII. However I'm not sure that the Japanese hold any deep seated resentment against China. And I certainly think it's an exaggeration to say that either country 'loves' America. Certainly I have met some Chinese who don't have too many nice things to say about Americans in general. And I'm talking about the American people, not the US government.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I REQUIRE MORE MINERALS.
However, my VESPIAN GAS stores are UNSTOPPABLE.
Lets see if they announce or show images of the moon structures that NASA found long time ago.
The Japanese have a lot more incentive to colonize the moon.. They have a serious overcrowding thing going on in their cities. Creating Lunar colonies might be a good way to free up some space by shipping people to the moon for extended work programs or even living. Of course, I imagine the prolonged exposure to less gravity might be an issue for a return, but put that in the fine print! I can't wait to vacation at Disney's Moon Adventure!
what crack are you smoking? the japs are fucking insane for anything american. look at how crazy they are over baseball and mcdonalds.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
...to bad the Americans only care about conquest of the middle east and ethnic cleansing of Muslims so their god will be happy.
I agree with this. Japan and China are as "physically and culturally linked" as the US and Latin America. Lots of cultural exchange, and not a few invasions, but that has not made the two merge together at all.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
a glitch in human reasoning
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
The name is a mythological Moon Princess. Or something like that.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Sorry but that is simply not true. Way to rewrite history. The majority of Japanese citizens believed in what their government was doing.
You misunderstood what I was trying to say. Yes the Japanese believed in what their government was doing, but it was faith in their own government and patriotism not years of ground in hatred of America that would have driven them to fight.
These sneaky little bombs here and there are just not going to do it. Sorry. So they may be pissed about being occupied by a foreign power, but I guess they are not pissed enough to try to really fight.
First any attempt to organize, even if it was in the cards, would be exactly what the US would want. A nice conventional enemy to fight. If one wanted to fight the US, guerilla/terrorist tactics would be one's best bet. You aren't going to go toe to toe with them and win.
Second, they don't have the will to organize and fight collectively because they hate each other just as much. The various factions are more interested in securing their own dominance in Iraq over the other factions than they are interested in driving the American's out. The real coup is getting the American's to take sides. The faction doing that wins control of Iraq.
A Ridiculous Liberal Myth!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
We didn't unilaterally invade Japan.
The U.S. didn't invade Iraq unilaterally, either.
U.K., Australia, Canada, Poland, and many other countries sent troops.
Unilateral would mean ONLY U.S. troops.
But don't let the facts interfere with your religion of liberalism.
I read it as "So, Pope John's tampon sops brainfart"
"they love america far far more."
You mean, they hate America far far less...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
It's amazing what can happen in a country after they attack us, we beat them into submission costing tens of thousands of our people and millions of theirs, then they formally surrender under threat of nuclear annihilation and/or soviet invasion followed by a well-run occupation sufficiently manned.
I think it's heartening that history is showing a trend that the aggressor in a war takes more and more blame for it and suffers accordingly in the long term. It's not 100% true, but it's more true than it used to be, and it shows that we humans may be growing a bit wiser.
Play Command HQ online
They have a serious overcrowding thing going on in their cities
It wont be as bad in a generation or two.
Personally I'm seeing a striking similarity between that comment and Taliban mentality. Hate being brought down through the generations, that's exactly what that comment represents. Yes, our fathers fought their fathers but that was then and this is now. The people who made the decisions that lead to, amongst other things, the attack on Pearl Harbor are no longer in charge. Guess what, they haven't been for a LONG TIME! Are you the type of person who is still mad at that bully that beat you up in grade 2?
Well, that and Mars (MER), Jupiter and its moons (New Horizons), Pluto (New Horizons), Saturn (Cassini), the Heliopause (Voyager), and incidentally the Moon (Orion), right?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
China is nowhere close to being a threat. Stop getting brainwashed by the media. Our greatest threat is ourselves.
I didn't see that analogy, but thanx for pointing it out. It makes perfect sense that you don't abandon a country in their time of need. That explains why Japan and Germany prospered and became allies and Afghanistan failed miserably after the Soviets left and we abandoned them.
But, since you brought up Iraq, it really doesn't matter what you think about about the war or why we went in. The reality of the situation is that we are there now. Trying to change the subject is denying reality! Explaining why we should not have gone in is a complete waste of time and breath. All that really matters at this point is where we go from here. Do we simply pull out as Code Pink wants (Out of Iraq, NOW! (impatient little bitches)) or do we stick around until Iraq is able to stand on their own two feet? History shows that it is better to stay, stand, fight and rebuild (Japan and Germany) than it is to simply abandon (Afghanistan, Vietnam).
From the way things look now, the BEST we could hope for an abandoned Iraq is for them to turn into a 1990's Afghanistan, only with unlimited funding from oil. I think that is exactly what Code Pink wants so it will make Bush look bad and they and people like you can say, "see, told you so!"
If you are concerned about the US's image on the world's stage, do you think leaving Iraq in a state of civil war will make the US look good? Do you think that turning Iraq into a puppet of Iran and/or Al Qaeda is good for American interests and security.
Stop trying to place blame and start trying to find solutions. The debate on going into Iraq is over and your side lost. History will show if it was for better or worse. Let's try to make it for the better instead of throwing a temper tantrum and hoping for the worst just so you look like you were right.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I think I pointed out a decent solution. I may have leaned too much on the side of Troop withdrawal, but I was trying to point out that conversation is the key. See my post that was marked (-1 Off topic). In there I had an example of how Conversation between the Iranian President and George Bush was terminated. If knowledgeable, peace seeking Americans engage on a Religious/Spiritual level with Muslims across the world, then we can start waging peace with our enemy instead of war.
heh! I think that's the first IN SOVIET RUSSIA joke that actually means something. The USA landing on the Moon first pretty much won the space race. The Soviet Union had a decent (if careless and hasty) space program, but failing to reach the Moon before the Americans was a big blow to their image.
sudo eat my shorts
>>I wonder if they are planning on taking a closer look at the backside.
/. ?
Don't you read
This was extensively covered in last week's discussion on the mission to Uranus.
.
- aqk
F U
I don't know about those other US puppets you mentioned, but Canada did NOT send troops to Iraq.
Take a look- NO Canadian soldiers in Iraq.
1.
2.
3.
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- aqk
F U
Odd, I thought you could see various human light sources over the face of the earth at night, but this shot seems totally dark.
Perhaps that is only when up closer as this shot is pretty far from earth. I can't remember where I saw images showing all the night time light, but it was neat looking, and so is this image.
Speaking of this distance to resolution problem, and no I'm not trying to pull a moon landing hoax, but it would be nice to see some shots of the landing site from this probe if possible, specifically because it is non-US.
U.K., Australia, Canada, Poland, and many other countries sent troops.
Canada was and is in Afghanistan. They declined to participate in Iraq, and were against it.
The US sent 250,000
As for the 'many other countries' sent troops, you are referring to:
Of the 41 countries involved: 39 of them sent 2000 or less. (Of that 39, 33 sent less than 500, and of that 33, 12 sent less than 100.) A few sent less than 10.
But ok, it was still a US led coaltion. No real argument there.
The U.S. didn't invade Iraq unilaterally, either.
Unilateral would mean ONLY U.S. troops.
Uni = one, Lateral = side.
The US war on Iraq was "unilateral" or "one sided" because the other side (the Iraq side) never attacked America either before or after the US attacked them.
In the US/Japan conflict both sides struck each other in a number of conflicts during the war, and Japan struck America first, making American retaliation completely justifiable and uncontroversial.
But don't let the facts interfere with your religion of liberalism.
I'm not the one who has issues with 'facts' Mr "Canada was there too". But hey, don't let actual facts interfere with your narrow minded grandstanding.