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China Launches First Moon Orbiter
hey0you0guy writes "China has launched its first lunar orbiter, on a planned year-long exploration mission to the Moon. Analysts say it is a key step towards China's aim of putting a man on the Moon by 2020, in the latest stage of an Asian space race with Japan and India. Earlier this month, a Japanese lunar probe entered orbit around the Moon. India is planning a lunar mission for April next year."
So the Chinese have caught up to where we were in 1961. I'm not too worried, yet.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
Nie hao ma? (How are you?)
Wo hun hao. (I'm fine.)
Ke bu ke yi wo qui nie de huo jian? (May I go in your rocket?)
See what I've been reading.
are belong to us...
You must be new here.
(And by "here" I mean planet Earth.)
Perhaps we can get some pictures of the US moon landing hardware left behind on the moon from the Chinese. If they send us pictures THEY took, perhaps we can lay to rest the notion that we never went to the moon at all.
Nie hao ma? Does it really help to speak Chinese with a Russian accent?
WHICH is why I advocate putting out of business ALL "state" navies, deprecating (not combining) them to the status of own-nation coast guards (in such a scenario, the USCG would FINALLY get to be THE maritime/policing authority and wouldn't the USN HATE that!) and supplanting the UN to some extent. State-based navies are shitty excuses for government billy clubs.
See one of my sites.
No, they're not about "bringing down the government", but they ARE about putting out of business a bunch of activities that need income curtailment, and need to be put closer to home. A stateless navy being attacked by a state force would make such a state force the official SCOURGE of the planet.
The primary missions would be to:
- protect commercial shipping and shipping lanes
- chase down and apprehend terrorist, pirates, and other scofflaws
- conduct counter-espionage action against nations spying on or infiltrating other nations
- rescue shipwrecked or storm/disaster victims displaced from safety
- other peacekeeping/monitoring/non-combat instigating operations
- reducing the effect of "flag-waving navies' power-projecting" nations will impositions
Liken it to a "federation" if you will, but we've got way to goddamn much fiefdom, redundancy, and international bullying going on, and most of it is power concentrated in the hands of just a few countries.
Officers would have to be FLUENT (R/W/S) in at LEAST 3 non-home languages. Enlisted personnel would have to be able to SPEAK at least 2 "foreign"/non-home languages, and maybe write in at least 1 non-home language. The ships would be stateless, meaning not OWNED by a state; they would not be subject to being boarded by STATES; they would be the local authority in the event a ship in international waters being told "heave to and prepare to be boarded" says, "I elect to be boarded by a Unified Nations Anti-Unilateral action Navy (UNAUN) ship, not your (name any nation, particularly western ones) ship, since we're in international waters...)
No two ranking officers on each ship can be from the same home country, this being to reduce the chance that the local chain of command would go off playing Lt. William Cally or the like. It could end up being a jobs-creation organization, but for the higher-IQ of humans, officer AND enlisted alike. Launch-capable weapons would be range limited to say (50 miles) meaning they legally and physically have no ability to launch strikes onto, into or over most nations. The ships would be highly-defensive, with a mandate to sanitize the local waters of ANY nation, clearing them of lurking foreign subs of ANY nation. The ships would (despite Greenpeace and other environmentalists) tow mines and noisemakers to wreck or force the surfacing of subs trying to conduct espionage. Don't want to be sunk? DON'T FUCKING SPY ON FOREIGN NATIONS, then.
If anyone can propose if for space exploration, then we owe it to humanity to first do it with some portions of military. "State Superiority" is a bullshit notion and fact and needs to be put into the past.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Distribute a pirated copy of America's moon landing?