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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."
We, as a species, should pool all of our assests together and put forth as much effort as possible at exploring space and figuring out a way to get off this rock.
"But Pojut, there are so many issues down here already! Hunger, Homeless, Terrorism, Etc.!"
And a lot of those problems would go away if we stopped acting like little children (our club is better than your club), united our efforts internationally, put some real money towards it, and actually went out and learned things.
We will all either explore space together and get off this tiny planet, or we will all kill each other and our species will die out. I don't know about you, but I know which one I would prefer.
Living With a Nerd
I think that you are a bit out of the loop! We are in fact designing a system of rockets designed to deliver us to the moon once again. They are largely based on existing hardware that is being built today in the USA. Much of it shuttle derivatives, but also some older stuff - like some engines that trace their roots back to Apollo.
Check out Project Constellation.
Compared to NASA's aborted shuttle replacements, this project is pretty low-risk and has a high likelihood of success.
Sending an unmanned probe around the moon is cool, and I'm happy to see Asia exploring space... but it is a far cry from sending men there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
It's not just the moon. If we spent half the money we spent in Iraq on research, we may all be driving fuel efficient vehicles in a few years. Don't get me wrong, I support the guys overseas for getting into a tank and doing what's requested of them, but with leadership like this?
All I'm saying is that we in America could be enjoying richer lives due to technological advances instead of economic decline. Education, Research, and service. That's the next step from industrial progress. We are unfortunately, thanks in part to unions, stuck in the oil that's keeping us from progressing beyond making cars with manual labor.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The problem isn't so much Asia sending probes to the moon (or even men, for that matter), it's that these countries have demonstrated a willingness and ability to pour a significant chunk of their national consciousness to science and engineering, and we do not. This doesn't just apply to the space race, but also everything else we research. My brother is working on his Ph.D in evolutionary biology, and he elected to stay in Canada for his schooling, despite originally intending to go to the US. Why? Because many of the top researchers in his field have been lured away to other countries in recent years (including Canada), mostly owing to the fact that the Bush administration has been sabotaging the funding to their particular field of research (I wonder why?).
I myself am in engineering and I can see this effect also. I have had the pleasure to study under, and work with, many exceptionally skilled engineers, and while it once was the holy grail to teach and work in the USA, I find that most of my professors no longer have that wish, and in fact many adamantly stay out of the US. Many of them are Muslim, go figure.