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How China Will Get To the Moon Before a Google Lunar XPrize Winner
An anonymous reader writes in with this link about the advances in China's lunar program. "A $30 million Google-backed competition to land a spacecraft on the moon may be about to be scooped. China's Chang'e 3 probe successfully put itself into lunar orbit on Friday in preparation for an attempted touchdown around Dec. 14. China won't be winning the prize money, which is reserved for privately funded, previously enrolled teams, not government agencies."
One giant leap for mankind.
Play Command HQ online
"which is reserved for privately funded, previously enrolled teams, not government agencies"
doesn't that make this article completely irrelevant?
If you are going to include government probes than China was itself scooped by the Soviet Union's Lunokhod_1 rover more than 40 years ago.
Who said that, Wernher von Braun?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I guess everybody is tired of these fake Hollywood landings.
Google is not letting go any terrestrial object!! .. LOL!!
I give up. Are the Chinese running KitKat or Key Lime Pie on Chang'e 3?
The point of the X-Prize is to show that private space exploration is possible, i.e., that the costs have come down enough so that it makes sense for businesses to start engaging in space exploration, or that it has become cheap enough so that people can do it for fun.
The ability of space exploration by tax-payer funded government entities doesn't need to be established, it was established half a century ago. Communist nations tend to be even better at doing such things in the short run because they can redirect money more easily to such projects even if they don't make sense.
That deep inside, I hope that the Chinese have a critical failure which either prevents them from completing the mission, or their lander is somehow destroyed on impact? It doesn't count if all you do is deposit litter does it?
I'm glad that someone is going to the moon. I never got to ride the Concorde either.
You the necessary authorisation for the verb budget, though.
So... China's trip isn't comparable to what the private companies are doing. When a private chinese company sends something to the moon... then they're in the running. Till then... welcome to the party china... the punch bowl is over there.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why's that?
No, Wernher von Braun said "Ja, vee could fly to ze moon and back with zis rocket, but a one-vay flight to London vill do for now mein Fuhrer."
Or were you talking about something he said in his post-paperclip period?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You the necessary authorisation for the verb budget, though.
The verb "need" needs authorization too it would seem.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It will explode from using low quality components.
Many of the quality product you associate with "american-made" or "european-made" are in fact made in China, part or whole.
If you still think China churns out shite copies of good products like in the 70s and 80s, you need a reality check. Many, MANY China products are brilliant, quality made and innovative. Granted, many are still shite and copies too, but that's changing fast.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
that's not my department says Wernher von Braun.
--Tom Lehrer
But seriously. Of course, unlimited funds can move mountains. Or people onto the moon. And maybe even back, too. Von Braun sure had unlimited funds in the 60s.
Too bad the US leaned back on the "we're #1, why try harder" position. Just think where we could be by now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Too bad the US leaned back on the "we're #1, why try harder" position. Just think where we could be by now.
At some point, they needed to have something in space which generated a return on investment. Apollo didn't do that. And the Shuttle ended up being even worse (for about ten years till 1984, no one in the US could actually launch a payload on a private launch vehicle).
China is an expert in manufacturing in both ends. They can make weak stuff but also extremely professional robust stuff.
I work in China. Even the Chinese don't believe that their products are any good. Their manufacturing skills are sketchy. Their design skills are weak. Raw materials are sub par. Their key asset is low cost. Not quality.
They were saying similar things about Japan in the 1970s and creating chicken little blockbusters in the 1980s about how Japan was taking over the US. Now, Japan is merely a really big economy without either the ridicule or terror.
It's just like Japan in the 50s and 60s.
I guess that was the point of the AC...
Sig?
I presume he is referring to the Air France Concorde that crashed.
It's all very impressive that they could land something on the moon 50 years later, but let's see them do it without microprocessors, as the US did. Whenever I think about the 1960s' moon efforts, I'm amazed that it could be done at all with the computer technology that was available at the time.
Uhm. Easy to fake? So, how will they fake out the huge amount of telescopes that will be pointed at the moon when they approach? How do they fake the large amount of listening posts that will listen for the chinese signals from the moon?
Not to mention, flybys by other nations, later, will look for the equipment. It would be kind of embarrassing when nobody can find it. ;)
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
A nation of 1.4 billion people, with a gdp of $8 trillion, the largest nation in the world, will manage to reach the moon before a couple of handfuls of mostly-private teams with budgets perhaps 1 MILLIONTH of theirs.
Go China!
-Styopa
They're going to make a human ladder. One person stand on another's shoulders. THIS is why they've got so many people in their country. Why spend money on a space program when you can just climb your way there?!
Not easy at all. But yeah, money is excellent lube for getting stuff done and they don't have to reinvent the wheel.
at least you had metal forks.
besides, you wan to try cramped, try an asian budget airline(still better service than norwegian or ryanair though..).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
First Woman in Space : Vanetina Terechkova
First Manned Space Station : Salyut
First Lunar Orbit : Luna 10
First Venus Landing ; Venera 7
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Catcha a falling neutrino why don't you.
Being done as we speak, by one of the coolest (both figuratively and literally) experiments ever designed.
(Technically, they weren't falling but rising- Ice Cube uses the Earth as a shield to screen non-neutrino events)
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Part of it is that China produces what is specced and paid for. Spec out a piece of crap, and the Chinese factory will happily make sub-par components for you.
Spec out top tier materials, high tolerances, good QC, and the shipping containers will have stuff that is on par with what Europe makes. The problem is that if you pay for the top tier stuff, China's competitive edge is less than doing it domestically or having it done in Japan or Europe.
It isn't really China's fault they are the go to guys for the "make 'em cheap, stack 'em deep" orders by companies wanting to cut corners.
Why would it be guaranteed to fail? The knowledge to do this is getting to the half a century mark. We have better knowledge, better computers for simulating potential mishaps, better engineering, better metals, superb polymer tech, and both the knowledge of the USSR and the US, with their mistakes.
This is not as much breaking new ground as it is a task of getting a specialized factory up to speed, which is something China does damn well.
China has slow, steady well financed program. Private contests may have some hope. the US program suffereing death by a thousand small cuts. They manage to get two Mars probes funded this decade, otu several planned. JPL-NASA is talking about turning off Opportunity soon because they cannot financially afford to operate multiple Mars Rover due to sequester cuts. Curiosity has more powerful instruments and has less explored its area.
yeah, that's totally different from the USA where over half our wealth is taken in taxes, we're only governmet slaves until mid July
The return, better science, better world view, better communications, just think of what happened since that initial investment?
My point exactly. NASA has burned something like a trillion dollars and all we have to show for it is vague happy-speak like the above.
Wait, you seriously think that Japanese wouldn't do the same back in the 50s and 60s? Country with millenia worth of sacrificial culture, country that has existed in one of the least certain environments in the world leading many japanese to still adopt a very nihilistic view on life?
They'd have done it in a heartbeat. And their public would have supported it. Wholeheartedly. They'd just shout "for the empire" and bury the kids, like they've done countless times before.McArthur had to do some very nasty cultural brutalizing to get Japanese "civilized" into more Western levels of respect of life of those of lower status.
Err, they didn't because McArthur was in charge. Their first uplifting on the other hand back in late 1800 and early 1900 pretty much followed that particular form.