Chinese Lunar Probe Lands Successfully

China's Chang'e 3 moon probe made its intended landing earlier today, setting down softly in the moon's Sinus Iridum, as reported by Reuters. From the article: "The Chang'e 3, a probe named after a lunar goddess in traditional Chinese mythology, is carrying the solar-powered Yutu, or Jade Rabbit buggy, which will dig and conduct geological surveys. ... China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast images of the probe's location on Saturday and a computer generated image of the probe on the surface of the moon on its website. The probe and the rover are expected to photograph each other tomorrow. ... The Bay of Rainbows was selected because it has yet to be studied, has ample sunlight and is convenient for remote communications with Earth, Xinhua said. The rover will be remotely controlled by Chinese control centers with support from a network of tracking and transmission stations around the world operated by the European Space Agency (ESA)."

Comments

They have the money to do this

[roman_mir]

The Chinese have the money to do this, no debt, huge Treasury reserves, huge surpluses. If the response by /. here is: USA should do this again, then the very next question should be: with what money? Chinese already have come out about 2 weeks ago with the statement that they won't be buying any more US Treasuries.

Re:They have the money to do this

[ArbitraryName]

China has no debt? Really? China is no paragon of fiscal virtue, they're barreling down the road to financial ruin unless they do some significant restructuring.

Re:They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

The real question is how the Chinese intend to continue their exchange rate manipulation (aka the peg) without buying lots of treasuries.

The exchange rate moving to a free market will change the world. In the meantime China will learn the downside of keeping it's exports cheap.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

The WSJ and the other wall street minions have been saying that since 1990.

Re:They have the money to do this

[guanxi]

The WSJ and the other wall street minions have been saying that since 1990.

Not really since 1990, but for awhile, In every bubble in history the predictions of collapse were wrong every time, except one.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Runaway1956]

What about money? We have resources lying around the country already - both human and material. We have the ability to do it all over again, any time.

What we lack, is backbone, initiative, the dream, the drive, the balls. Our leaders today are less than men, and there seem to be no real men to run the worthless bastards out of power.

Money. Money is important, in it's own right, but money doesn't control our ability to aim high. That ability is only governed by our lack of courage.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the women can do it instead?

Re: They have the money to do this

[DigiShaman]

Backed by private investors and tycoons, I fully expect that America's next moonshot will be lead and funded by SpaceX. Not NASA.

Re:They have the money to do this

[citizenr]

You mean like importing craploads of gold?

Re:They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

Not good enough. They would drive up the currencies in the gold producing regions, not the dollar and euro as they need.

Re: They have the money to do this

[WaywardGeek]

For guys my age (I turned 50 last week), the first Moon walk was a pivotal event. July of 1969... I was 6 years old, and my father was a squadron commander in the 318th Fighter Squadron flying F-102s, and I lived on Cherry Hill on the Air Force base in Anchorage Alaska. We all watched the first steps taken on the Moon, and as the son of an Air Force fighter pilot, there were high expectations for me. I remember when pilots where heros. Everyone expected even greater things from my generation.

We totally let them down, at least in terms of space exploration. I blame politics, and to some extent NASA (though mostly because of politics). I also have my hopes pinned on commercial efforts like SpaceX. We were on the Moon in 1969, while people in China were still starving. I'm glad China has revived some of the dream, and I hope they do well. In the meantime, our generation gave birth to personal computers and cell phones, so it's not a total loss, but there never was another OMG moment like the Moon walk.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

What we lack, is backbone, initiative, the dream, the drive, the balls.

But we teach our youth to have high self-esteem.

Isn't that enough?

Re:They have the money to do this

[GenieGenieGenie]

Your leaders, sir, have been put there by voters. One of those voters may even have been you. So don't put the blame on them. In democratic and pseudo-democratic countries, leaders are just reflections of their populaces.

Oh, and just to make sure you don't think this comes from some partisan BS, the other side would have done precisely the same thing.

Now go and get yourself a serious government.

Re: They have the money to do this

[nurb432]

Just don't blame NASA, blame a short-sighted congress.

Re:They have the money to do this

[BradMajors]

They can instead buy stock in American companies.

Re:They have the money to do this

[0123456]

Your leaders, sir, have been put there by voters.

No, they've been put there by the people who get to choose who's on the ballot, mostly by throwing tons of money to ensure one of their kind of people wins. You can hardly blame the voters when they're given a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC because I modded you up. I'm just turning 49. My earliest memory is being woken by my dad to watch Neil Armstong descend that ladder on out tiny B/W TV. That memory shaped my life.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

"The people who get to choose who's on the ballot" are the party members. In a two-party system like the US, you really need to become active inside the party of your choice if you want to have a reasonable amount of say on who gets elected.

Re:They have the money to do this

[GenieGenieGenie]

... as I said, reflections of their populaces.

Re:They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

Whatever they buy (real estate, stock), they will pay too much for it. By the very manipulation they are engaged in.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they will just adopt their own "non-currency-manipulating QE" programs?

Re:They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

Already did. Which is why we cause inflation in China when we print dollars. Perverse economic incentives abound.

Re:They have the money to do this

[0123456]

"The people who get to choose who's on the ballot" are the party members.

Who get a choice between half a dozen guys funded by the same special interests, and one outsider who has no chance, just for grins.

Re:They have the money to do this

[0123456]

... as I said, reflections of their populaces.

How were Romney and Obama, 'reflections of their populaces'?

Re: They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

There's a generation of us.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cavreader]

It only took Chine over 40 years to achieve the same OMG moment that the US had in 69. And their lander is unmanned to boot! Not to mention that China's space program consists of Russian technology sold in the USSR yard sale when they were hard up for cash and they basically stole the rest from the US and the other countries that actually R&D new technology and not just use the technology others have developed. Should the US ramp up to have another OMG moon landing just to prove they can still do it? Why not just spend the money on advancing robotic landers and probe technology to investigate the solar system?

Re: They have the money to do this

[O('_')O_Bush]

It is wild how times change. When I wasn't much older than you were then, I was in a classroom watching the Twin Towers fall and remember the feelings of hopelessness, and the following years of insanity.

Re: They have the money to do this

[DerekLyons]

We totally let them down, at least in terms of space exploration. I blame politics, and to some extent NASA (though mostly because of politics).

It's funny that you blame politics for "letting us down" with regards to space exploration, but fail to acknowledge it's responsibility for getting us there in the first place.
 
No, scratch that. It's not funny. It's frightening as hell that you're either so ill informed or so blithely unaware of what really happened and why.

Re:They have the money to do this

[roman_mir]

China has no debt, China as a nation has a gigantic surplus and it has enough savings in the Treasury to negate a tiny external debt that exists for strategic reasons. Inside China there are debts to other Chinese and while it is problematic, the fact that some Chinese owe other Chinese something that cannot be repaid in the long run, this does not change the fact that China is a productive nation without international debt and it can afford an internal housing market crash for example without negative consequences to the economy. On the contrary, while the housing market crash in USA caused it a recession due to the fact that purchasing power of USA consumer is tied so much to their ability to refinance their mortgages, in China the housing market crash would only strengthen the economy, because their economy is not dependent on an asset bubble constantly inflating. In their case if the housing prices go down, it doesn't affect their ability to purchase consumer goods, it increases this ability, as the housing prices, rent will go down as well, so it's a boon. Falling prices opens up new markets, only the backwards Keynesians can't figure out that falling prices is a good thing for the consumers.

Anyway, good luck with your theories, they are not yours of-course, they are created for your consumption.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

In the meantime, our generation gave birth to personal computers and cell phones, so it's not a total loss, but there never was another OMFG moment like the Moon walk.

FTFY

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

China lands a small rover on the moon. Meanwhile, the USA has the most advanced rover ever built chugging around on Mars.

Re:They have the money to do this

[roman_mir]

Seriously? Last time USA engaged in this type of activity (of-course coupled with Medicare introduction, SS expansion, business regulations expansion, basically creating and expanding all the worst parts of government), USA ended up DEFAULTING on its promise to the world to keep a gold reserve, USA defaulted on the gold dollar in 1971, all the current problems can be traced to that default and that default can be traced to government expansion of power. So you are saying: all that USA lacks is backbone. You ever stop and think, what exactly is the end goal? Is it to completely wipe out the economy? Well, you are pretty much there already.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Chinese government troll.

There have been plenty of economic collapses over the years, and in every case SOMEONE has predicted it.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Dahamma]

You clearly aren't getting his point. IMO by definition "the populous" would imply the majority, when in fact it's the few percent of those with money who really end up deciding the primaries. So then at that point the "populace" gets to decide on the cherry picked candidates from the left and the right.

The only way to stop this absurd process is to ban campaign contributions, "Super-PACs", etc. Though even that may be a lost cause. A lot of the problem is just that 535 people just can't reasonably listen to or properly represent the interests of 300 million (when this system was devised the population was ~3M, ie. 1% of what it is now!) It's obvious that the current legislature is completely beholden to a few wealthy and influential special interest groups rather than actually listening to "the populace" that supposedly elected them. Something in the system sure has to change, and (duh) it's not going to be the populace.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Dahamma]

Or maybe the problem with space exploration is that the moon was the cherry (ie. cherry picking). It was mostly an exercise in engineering and money at that point. Now the distances (or masses, if you want to start a moon colony) involved are such that something fundamental has to happen to make it worthwhile - and just because we haven't figured out how to break the (known) laws of physics doesn't mean there was no effort expended since then. It just has to be a lot smarter, since spending orders of magnitude more money to accomplish the same thing on planets orders of magnitude further away does pose a moral question when so many people are suffering on Earth in the here and now.

Here's one example: we officially eradicated smallpox in 1979. Which effort do YOU think has done more to improve the lives of the entire population of the world? If people had their priorities straight that could arguably be the greatest scientific and logistic accomplishments of the 20th century. Of course, there are TONS of other examples of amazing scientific/engineering accomplishments (superconductivity, nuclear fission, discovery of DNA, the transistor, etc) - the problem is they just weren't designed to be broadcast to the world on TV.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Maow]

Posting AC because I modded you up. I'm just turning 49. My earliest memory is being woken by my dad to watch Neil Armstong descend that ladder on out tiny B/W TV. That memory shaped my life.

It's with sadness that I don't recall that specific event, though the parents assure me that I was watching.

I do recall other, related events though, just not the big one.

Also, posting AC will remove your given mod points, unless perhaps you logged out altogether.

Easy to test: check score on some post, then give it a unique moderation. Check the score to ensure it was recorded. Post a reply as AC. Check score again: your mod will be gone.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom isn't free! It takes folks like you and me,
and if you don't throw in your buck o' five who will?
oooooo, buck o' five.....Freedom costs a buck o' five.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet through all these 40 years, dumbass Americans still can't spell China! Or is "Chine" the actual spelling and those fucking chinks just stole that too? I mean, you do certainly seem to think those Chinese guys are all thieving little ninjas or something, ya racist prick. Holler back at us when YOU put a lander on the moon, umkay?

Re: They have the money to do this

[Smauler]

The most pivotal event when I was young was the USSR collapse, and the Berlin wall coming down. It wasn't of technological significance, obviously, but there was a lot of hope that international politics would become a lot more cooperative, and less confrontational. It has done to some degree, but everything has fallen far short of what most of us hoped for back then, which was a new world order with David Hasselhoff at the helm.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately the US has never stolen technology from anyone right?

Heck, didn't Lincoln even encourage it?

Re:They have the money to do this

[thrich81]

Everyone gripes about how the "US has given up in space" or fallen behind or some other bull, but it is just wrong. The US currently has two functioning rovers on Mars (which is two more than anyone else) , a probe on the way to Jupiter, a probe on the way to PLUTO, a functioning orbiter around Mercury and a probe which recently left orbit around the asteroid Vesta on the way to orbit the dwarf planet Ceres, and a functioning orbiter around the moon. The US spends more money on space operations, both civil and military, than any other country. The US has a temporary gap in the ability to launch crewed missions but has at least three funded projects in place to build human-rated launchers (Space-X Falcon 9, ULA Atlas 5 , and NASA SLS) and at least three funded crewed capsules in work (Space-X Dragon, Boeing CST-100. Lockheed Orion). Other countries are doing things in space, -- great!!, but the USA remains the premier spacefaring nation in the world, due to the nation's technology and will to devote the resources to do it. China or anyone else putting crews on the moon is a great thing, but the US has been there, done that, and is moving on.

Re:They have the money to do this

[khallow]

In every bubble in history the predictions of collapse were wrong every time, except one.

Trying to determine the timing of a bubble collapse is something of a fool's game since as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. But actually predicting that a bubble has happened is not that hard. For example, a common sign that things have gone too far is that serious errors and fraud are ignored.

For example, during the recent real estate crisis, some loans had faulty paperwork such that it couldn't legally be determined who owned the loan. During the California electricity crisis (of 2000-2001), it was a bubble for electricity producers. A key player was Enron who was already engaging in huge levels of fraud to cover huge mistakes it had made. And there were many, many crazy businesses with insane plans during the dotcom bubble.

Another indicator is that outsiders get involved. For example, here's a story about Bitcoins. The relevant part for us is the first few paragraphs where the narrator is talking with her family at dinner while a few of her relatives consider whether Bitcoins are the get-rich ticket they've been looking for. When you see people with very little knowledge of a market jumping in, that's a big sign of a bubble.

Huge volatility is often a sign of a bubble. If something rises and falls greatly for little reason, that's an indication that the price of that good or service is based on fellow traders' perceptions not any underlying value.

Finally, there's the psychological side. A sound investment with good return isn't going to be hurt by people talking bad about it. When people get upset over negative talk, it's a sign that the market in question isn't healthy.

Re:They have the money to do this

[mathew42]

The two problems you need to solve are decedance and entitlement.

In Australia we've seen distinct waves of immigration: Europe after WWII, Vietnam in 70's. The parents work hard in low skilled jobs and push their kids to study hard. The kids become the doctors & lawyers, but the grandkids start to assimilate and don't work as hard. Coupled with this, the majority of society expects handouts from the government, but do not contribute back.

As for real men, what you are asking for is a benevolent dictator. The problem is very few have the moral character suitable for the job and they are almost always betrayed by corruption of the next couple of levels down.

Finally, I find it sad that rather than celebrating the achievement of the Chinese, there is more discussion about decay in the USA.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cusco]

consists of Russian technology

So what? If the Chinese want to build an aircraft should the reinvent the airfoil as well, so that it doesn't "consist of US technology"? Really? Technology progresses by building on what went before, if it works you use it and you add to it. It's just bizarre that I keep hearing this same stupid non sequitur every time the topic of the Chinese space program comes up. "They're using Soviet/US/EU technology!" Big fucking deal.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cusco]

Shut down the useless money pit of the Pentagon and there will be all the funds and resources you want for all your pet projects, and mine to.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Runaway1956]

I used the term "leader", and that is exactly what I meant. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and other institutions have worked over the years to define "leadership". The US Navy has it's Leadership and Management Effectiveness Training, which is largely derived from some of those studies - primarily Princeton. A good working definition of leadership is, "The art of motivating people to do that which they ought to do anyway."

Today's "leaders" lack any vision which I might identify with, or if they have a vision, they utterly fail to convey that vision to us, in the population at large. How can they motivate, if they lack a vision, or fail to communicate that vision?

The closest things to leaders in America today, are those corporate heads who are bent on fleecing the population. They are very effective at transferring wealth from the lower end of the food chain to the higher end.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

So I gave you an Interesting mod and now I'm posting AC. Lets see what happens.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

So when I posted AC the mod you your comment was removed but I was able to mod another comment below successfully. Let's see if it sticks after I post this.

Re: They have the money to do this

[anarkhos]

It's just a bunch of rocks

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that mod got removed too. So I guess I can still mod but if I post AC any mods I've done so far will be removed. Good to know.

(And now I have to wait a while before posting this, queue the Jeopardy music.)

Re:They have the money to do this

[shutdown -p now]

Now go and get yourself a serious government.

I have concluded that Americans, as a nation, simply don't believe in government.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Bing Tsher E]

A lot of the problem is just that 535 people just can't reasonably listen to or properly represent the interests of 300 million (when this system was devised the population was ~3M, ie. 1% of what it is now!)

But increasing the number of lawmakers at the national level by a factor of 100 wouldn't improve anything, it will just result in bigger nosier gridlocks. Perhaps devolving power to more local and regional control would help. Like, the state governments, perhaps.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cpm99352]

" Everyone expected even greater things from my generation. We totally let them down...."
Yes, you did. The baby boomer generation is the most selfish generation in American history. You have left the country in worse shape than you found it.

The most recent two presidents are from your generation, and they are arguably the worst in American history.

But we see no apologies. Instead, we finally see attempt at marijuana legalization, to lessen the pain as you head to your graves.

Re: They have the money to do this

[dbIII]

consists of Russian technology

That's how Americans get to the ISS these days. There's no shame in it.

Re: They have the money to do this

[dbIII]

Inform us then.
Tell us why Skylab fell despite there being enough bits of Saturn V and years to do something about it. It looked a lot like politics to me.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Which is why the logical, rational way to build society is to concentrate power into the hands of a few. A rational market may be like a gradual rising tide that lifts all boats, but an irrational market is like a storm that capsizes and sinks the smaller boats. The logical answer is to centralize and create a smaller number of bigger boats.

Love it or hate it, but all the government and socialism the world has seen in recent human history is not done out of greed or corruption by malicious men seeking power and delighting in other people's misery. Well, some of them might be, but that's not why the rest of them - and rest of society - lets them do it. They're doing it because it's logically sound.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Clsid]

The WSJ? Really, a bunch of conservatives writing about the demise of a country they perceive as a threat. LOL.

I'm in China and all I can tell you is that you still haven't even seen half of what's coming. The only issue I see is the high cost to acquire real estate, but the Chinese being what they are, just tackle the issue by making it a top priority or a must in a family to buy the house first and then get married. So the main thing is that they are used to a lot of hardships Western people would not be able to endure for a week, especially the jobs where they treat you like crap and only pay 3000 yuans. But by basically eating 10 yuan noodles every day and actually saving as much as they can, the Chinese thrive. Sorry but humankind need to go through periods of crap to become better and the Chinese had their fair share and now they will just keep going up for at least two more generations from what I see. Even the 1-child policy had the unintended effect of making a large portion of the population a lot more educated since families poured all the resources in their single child instead.

So again dude, you still haven't seen the half of it. If you want to get a glimpse, go to Chengdu, the New Century Global building and you will see what I'm talking about.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that China's space program consists of Russian technology...

And the US and Russian programs only worked because they stole Nazi technology and Nazi rocket scientists. And those Germans were themselves following the American pioneers (like Goddard), who was following from Russian pioneers (like Tsiolkovsky)...

You, meanwhile, contribute nothing and inspire no one.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wondered: if they want to keep the value of their currency low, why don't they just print some more of it every time it goes too high?

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Too lazy to log in, but all the countries in the world is building the debt towards the only one that can give it, the earth. And soon we all have to pay back. That's not green party idiology, that's just the truth. Now we're looking for helium 3 on the moon to explore^H^H^H -oit it further.

Re: They have the money to do this

[DerekLyons]

Tell us why Skylab fell despite there being enough bits of Saturn V and years to do something about it. It looked a lot like politics to me.

Well... let's see. There weren't any operational Saturn V's, and there weren't years.
 

It looked a lot like politics to me.

Skylab was nearly thirty years ago, if you insist on believing nonsense rather than acquainting yourself with the facts, the problem isn't politics.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Patch86]

You misunderstood his clever saying.

He is saying "For every bubble that bursts, only one prediction of it's demise will have been the correct one- and it won't have been the first prediction". It's a variant on "it's always in the last place you look" (because once you find it, you stop looking).

His point is, people have been predicting China's bubble will burst since the '90s. So far they've always been wrong- but it only takes one prediction to be correct.

Re:They have the money to do this

[HornWumpus]

Because we've cornered the market for high quality printing presses?

If fact they do, this is how economic wars are waged. All players smiling at each other.

Re:They have the money to do this

[dj245]

A key player was Enron who was already engaging in huge levels of fraud to cover huge mistakes it had made.

No, they were engaging in fraud for the sake of fraud. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Electricity in deregulated markets is sold reverse-auction style. Electric producers bid down each other, the regulating body takes all the lowest bidders, up until the point where the demand is met. Here's how their scam worked-

Enron would bid well below their costs for a couple of the power stations under their control. They would do this for say, a 6PM to midnight block, whereopon they changed their bid (for those couple of stations) to $999/MW-Hr at midnight. OK fine- the regulator could see this and have other companies spool up their generators starting at 11:30 or so and then at midnight the regulator could drop Enron at midnight and buy electricity from someone else. This is perfectly acceptable.

The fraud comes when Enron would purposefully drop their "cheap" stations off the grid for "maintenance" at 12:01AM. The grid couldn't cover this using reserves of other companies only. So the grid regulator would be forced to buy at $999/MW-Hr from Enron until they could spool up MORE power stations owned by others.

All of Enron's scams were like this, using their control of multiple power stations to game the grid auction. There were many variations but they all followed the same general theme.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cavreader]

Implementing existing technology is a lot different than creating it. I can plug a power cord into the outlet to power my computer and use it but I sure as hell couldn't build a computer from scratch or construct a power grid. Using existing technology also allows you to bypass the costly R&D expense. There is really nothing wrong with using existing technology no matter where it came from but in this case some people seem to believe China is leaping ahead of others when it comes to technological innovation. To be fair the US, USSR, France, England, and a few others all benefited from the German technology and scientists seized after WW2. The US actually brought Von Braun to the states to lead their rocket programs and he played a significant role in the first Moon landings while advancing the development of the US ICBM's at the same time. My comment is a response to all those who are claiming that the Chinese lander means they are somehow leaping over the US when it comes to advancing space technology. The same people who use the termination of the shuttle program as an example of disappearing US space programs. The shuttle program ran it's course and provided a wealth of data on space operations as well as provided a test bed for new technologies over the past 25 years. The shuttle program was replaced by the unmanned X-37 space plane which has been conducting orbital ops for the past 3 years and a manned version that holds up to 6 people is already being tested.

Re:They have the money to do this

[khallow]

The fraud comes when Enron would purposefully drop their "cheap" stations off the grid for "maintenance" at 12:01AM. The grid couldn't cover this using reserves of other companies only. So the grid regulator would be forced to buy at $999/MW-Hr from Enron until they could spool up MORE power stations owned by others.

I was thinking more the hiding of 12 billion dollars in losses, but there's some fraud here too.

Re:They have the money to do this

[BalthCat]

That's a lot like saying you shouldn't make sure your buildings are up to code for the expected San Andreas big one, because it hasn't happened yet...

Re:They have the money to do this

[Dahamma]

Yeah, the choice is between no representation and useless representation. Good times.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Dahamma]

Or at least don't send them off to spend $6 trillion dollars on military actions based on false information. There's no question the US needs a strong military. But why does it have to spend more than the rest of the world combined?

Re:They have the money to do this

[khallow]

Which is why the logical, rational way to build society is to concentrate power into the hands of a few. A rational market may be like a gradual rising tide that lifts all boats, but an irrational market is like a storm that capsizes and sinks the smaller boats. The logical answer is to centralize and create a smaller number of bigger boats.

Sorry, that's not logic. First, you assume that irrational markets are more harmful to small players than big ones. Rather irrational markets are more harmful to irrational traders than rational markets are. Size doesn't correlate with rationality.

Second, centralization is actually a big contributing factor to market irrationality. A lot of wealth and economic power in the hands of an incompetent leader or a coterie of parasites just results in big, irrational perturbations of the market.

Love it or hate it, but all the government and socialism the world has seen in recent human history is not done out of greed or corruption by malicious men seeking power and delighting in other people's misery.

So what if they have good intentions (which incidentally, I think is a rather generous assumption on your part)? Outcome is far more relevant. I see centralization actually making the problems you claim it fixes worse.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they believe in it. They just won't do anything about it.

Re: They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

I was 22 when Armstrong and Aldrin walked about. Watching, my reaction was "Wow. Yes! Fantastic!" followed by "'Bout time" and "Now let's build. Go places."

Down-thread a guy blames boomers for crapping out. Yeah, could be. A lot of shit went down. Vietnam, Watergate, Church hearings, Watts, oh, man, a lot of stuff. Some burnt out early, others hunkered and got through, some went high-flyer and made money, a lot just tried to muddle on through. So, yeah, we blew it. Bite me.

One thing always bothered me, by the Census Bureau's def of boomer generation as births from '46-'64. Somehow counting somebody born the same year I'm a high-school junior doesn't set right - ain't no way they're part of my generation - and they never acted, lived, or worked like it either. For me, the boomer generation is precisely all the issue from all the women knocked up in the first couple-three years when all the guys came home from overseas. Call it '45-'48, '50 tops. Lumping the next ten or fifteen years of births into it is absurd. But that's just the way it feels and the way it played. The experts differ.

Re:They have the money to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, that's not logic.

Sorry, it is.

First, you assume that irrational markets are more harmful to small players than big ones.

No, I did not assume. One does not need to assume reality.

Rather irrational markets are more harmful to irrational traders than rational markets are. Size doesn't correlate with rationality.

I didn't say anything about size correlating with rationality. I'm talking about size and solvency. Again, no need to assume reality. In reality, the bigger and richer you are, the more options you have when you need cash flow: sell/mortgage assets, call in debts and favors (you can be bigger by having more friends and connections), call government to bail you out...

So what if they have good intentions (which incidentally, I think is a rather generous assumption on your part)?

Did I say good intentions (I don't feel like checking, I'm pretty sure I didn't)? I mean logical intentions. Logic isn't bound to your silly morals my emotional friend.

Outcome is far more relevant. I see centralization actually making the problems you claim it fixes worse.

You must be blind, as the outcome of human history is all about centralization and pooling resources together to increase the group's chance of survival. And it does work as humanity is still here, and the humanity we have today is based largely on empires of the past (Romans, European kingomds, China came from a history of dynasties), not the random small groups that were defeated by the big boys or faded away to obscurity.

Re:They have the money to do this

[painandgreed]

The WSJ? Really, a bunch of conservatives writing about the demise of a country they perceive as a threat. LOL.

Actually, WSJ is about the most trustworthy source out there and has been for decades. They make money because people read their paper to make money. They can only do that if they actually provide factual information. Unlike Fox, if they put a spin on the economic situation is in China and investors steer clear when they should be investing, then somebody has lost billions because of their false information and will go elsewhere. They may be pro-business, but are probably one of the most factual sources of news out there. This is why they can actually function with a pay wall, because people with money actually find their information worth paying for.

Re:They have the money to do this

[khallow]

No, I did not assume. One does not need to assume reality.

Then already you need something beyond mere logic. You need evidence for your assumption.

I didn't say anything about size correlating with rationality. I'm talking about size and solvency.

Well, I did. But let's look at things in your limited sense.

In the past few years business bankruptcies in the US peaked just above 1% per year (in 2008) of businesses that employ workers while individual bankruptcies peaked about 0.5% per year (again in 2008). There's no real difference between how businesses as a whole and individuals fared in the recent economic crisis.

2008 was also the year that banks, investment firms, pension funds, etc were suffering from solvency issues that frankly affected the individual far less. There's no indication that size and solvency are correlated IMHO.

You must be blind, as the outcome of human history is all about centralization and pooling resources together to increase the group's chance of survival.

Really? So this is your "logic"? Argument from an appeal to obviousness is a fallacy. But then so is merely claiming stuff is true because you assert without evidence that it really happened.

Re: They have the money to do this

[cavreader]

The US has better things to do than waste resources on running a orbital delivery service. The US still retains the capability to deliver supplies to the space station if there was an emergency using their X-37 space plane. I wonder when Russia, China, or any other country will voice strident protests concerning the X-37 which gives the US a perfect platform from which to conduct anti-satellite missions.

Re: They have the money to do this

[dbIII]

There you have it. Naked nationalism is ugly folks.
I wonder how these losers will react when they find out that NASA has been an international effort since day one?

Re: They have the money to do this

[cavreader]

It certainly has had non-US nationals working with and for NASA ever since Von Braun was sent to the US after WW2. He was the key rocket designer used in the first moon landing while also working on the US ICBM program. China sends their scientists and astronauts to the US for consulting and training. And it is not nationalism to point out anything that might be considered good coming from the US. Of course I know that is preposterous in today's climate when history is being re-written everyday by people who do not know anything about history outside of what they read on their favorite online blog. One idiot throws out a line of unsupported bullshit and 40 more idiots join the fan club. After all If 40 people agreed with the first idiot it has to be true doesn't it? And then the facts get replaced by dogma and idiocy the continues spreading.

Kicking up the lundar dust

[tttonyyy]

Interestingly, this landing may affect NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer operation:

http://www.space.com/23675-china-moon-lander-trouble-nasa-ladee.html

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck NASA the moon is chinese now.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[NReitzel]

Not even the Chinese can claim a planet.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

you're from California, aren't you?

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[tttonyyy]

Not even the Chinese can claim a planet.

It's a moon, not a planet, but since we're talking on your level... if you look on the other side there is a huge "MADE IN CHINA" sign and a big array of bitcoin ASICs that they used for their 51% attack. More hashing power than Uruguay. That's how they bought the fake landing sets off NASA!

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[K. S. Kyosuke]

When that happens, nobody will be able to say that the Chinese landing was a fake. Or, more likely, the conspiracy theorists will say that USA and China are colluding in secret to mutually corroborate their respective fakes.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know Uruguay was a Bitcoin mining superpower. Mod parent informative!

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

The article failed to mention the fact that the Chang'e 3 turned off all propulsion systems at the height of 3 meters above surface, then let it drop like a rock and risk damage to high tech equipments just to reduce dust.

The dust that will be produced will be nothing compare that to the recent US moon mission where they struck the moon deliberately then collect dust samples to see what's underground.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite

Centaur had nominal impact mass of 2,305 kg (5,081 lb), and an impact velocity of about 9,000 km/h (5,600 mph),[7][8] releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ).

LCROSS suffered a malfunction on August 22, depleting half of its fuel and leaving very little fuel margin in the spacecraft.[9]

Centaur impacted successfully on October 9, 2009, at 11:31 UTC. The Shepherding Spacecraft descended through Centaur's ejectate plume, collected and relayed data, impacting six minutes later at 11:37 UTC.[10]

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Runaway1956]

Not even the English can claim a continent, right?

Anyone can claim any damned thing they like. If they are the only people around, they get to set the rules. If China puts a crew up there, with orders to confiscate the US flags already there, and replace them with Chinese flags, WTF are we going to do about it? Run to the United Nations, to whine and snivel?

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[TemperedAlchemist]

You mean besides have serious diplomatic repercussions with pretty much everyone?

Yeah I can't see why pissing on your economic partner could be a very bad idea.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[DigiShaman]

This! While yes, the parent is correct, I'm fairly certain China will leave this historical landmark alone for diplomatic reasons if anything. Otherwise, it's game on! King of the moon. He who lands last would have been given precedent to take down and stomp on anything else left behind by others.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[thrillseeker]

You only own what you can defend.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[AJWM]

Dust? Seriously?

This is high vacuum we're talking about. Lunar dust is just tiny rocks, they get kicked up and immediately fall back to the surface. It's not as though the dust is going to float for days (or even minutes) in the (virtually non-existent) lunar atmosphere. (Sure sign of badly written SF or shot-in-a-studio movie footage: dust on the real Moon doesn't cloud, it sprays then drops.)

Sure, the exhaust plume gases will stick around for a bit. That will give LADEE something to help calibrate its instruments against, since presumably the reaction products are known.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[AJWM]

While the Outer Space Treaty has some things to say about it (the Moon Treaty was never ratified, or even signed by many of the players), historically the rules of precedence for establishing claim over new lands has been:
1. First to spot it.
2. First to plant a flag on it (which historically implied setting foot)
3. First to set up a base or fort on it
4. First to establish a settlement (ie, permanent habitation) on it.

With "right of ownership" proceeding in the above order. Robotic flag planting as we've had since the mid 1960's might be step 1.5, which is where China is at. USA was at 3 for a brief time in 1969-72 (since the later Apollo missions had surface stays of several days) although disclaimed it with the "we came in peace for all mankind" verbiage on the landing plaques.

If/when China establishes a manned base on the Moon, is there going to be anyone in a position to argue about it (beyond stern words at the UN and threats to remove "Most Favored Nation" trading status) if they claim ownership?

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[smash]

LOL. What some people (mainly americans) fail to see is that China could quite happily not have you as an economic partner? Why? Because you never actually pay, you're just racking up credit.

And it's looking like you never actually will be able to pay, either. Hence China buying massive amounts of gold and attempting to get out of US treasuries slowly and quietly without crashing them.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

You do, however, need to consider the Larkin decision paramount in cases like this.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[TheGavster]

I believe that there is something to be said for an age where there are potential scheduling conflicts between lunar probes.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Adriax]

China is cashing in on that debt quite often, buying up american businesses and the physical assets associated with.
Trading land for trinkets is a time honored american tradition.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[savuporo]

Also, with OST there are bunch of people running around claiming that it leaves the door open for private property. Well, any national space agency could technically make any of their big projects "private" with a stroke of a pen - JPL robots are built by Lockheed, China has a "China Aerospace and Technology Corporation", Russia has Roscosmos, etc etc. It would be super easy to get around the technicality of private/public there, so i dont think that aspect can really be leveraged.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that Goldman Sachs holds more US debt than the whole of China right?

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Jeremi]

LOL. What some people (mainly americans) fail to see is that China could quite happily not have you as an economic partner? Why? Because you never actually pay, you're just racking up credit.

As the aphorism goes: If you owe your bank $10,000, you have a problem. If you owe your bank $10,000,000, your bank has a problem.

I doubt the Chinese are going to do anything that might significantly increase the risk of a default on their loans to the USA.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[khallow]

The dust that will be produced will be nothing compare that to the recent US moon mission where they struck the moon deliberately then collect dust samples to see what's underground.

Sure it will. The dust from those long ago impacts settled long ago and won't affect the Chinese mission. The mission planners for the Chinese lander were just worried about dust from their landing interfering with their own vehicle, which is a very reasonable concern.

As to the alleged drama to NASA's LADEE mission, they have a much better scientific opportunity than they were going to have. They can just run the mission longer than planned so that they get the atmosphere with the Chang'e 3 injection and without as that contribution dissipates.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[timeOday]

Can you name any piece of land for which long-term possession was determined by flag-planting? Keep in mind the north American continent has been occupied (and fought over) for at least 12,000 years.

.

Even if you include only the separate European nations that made claims after Columbus, there was a lot of back-and-forth for hundreds of years and "I called it first!" was practically never the determining factor in the outcome. In the end the territory was all taken by newly-organized nations that didn't identify with any of the original claimants. (What percentage of GDP in the western hemisphere comes from colonies currently ruled by Spain or Portugal?)

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[0123456]

The article failed to mention the fact that the Chang'e 3 turned off all propulsion systems at the height of 3 meters above surface, then let it drop like a rock and risk damage to high tech equipments just to reduce dust.

You do realize that's about the equivalent of dropping 'high tech equipments' from eighteen inches on Earth, right? My girlfriend has dropped the netbook further than that on many occasions.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[rossdee]

"Not even the English can claim a continent, right?"

The English did have competition in North America (France, Spain) and Africa (France, Belgium) > India was only a sub-continent. And of course all of them already had inhabitants. There are no people already living on the moon.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[dk20]

According to Goldmans site they have $194 billion in short term money market investments. That is the sort of place you would buy government bonds.

China on the other hand holds $1.1 Trillion in US debt

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[GumphMaster]

If we are discounting prehistoric claimants (much as the Europeans did at the time in discounting the native population)... the continent of Australia. Dutch, French, Portuguese and other groups had found parts of the continent prior to Cook's flag planting and claim of the eastern regions in 1770. The first British colony exploiting the explicit claim was established in 1788 (Sydney). The British claim stuck and it was not challenged in any substantive way. The French claimed western Australia (1772) and the Dutch Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania, 1642) but neither nation settled or defended these claims in material ways when challenged by British settlement.

New Zealand is an another example that comes close, although the French did manage to create a settlement on purchased land there (Akaroa) and Mori settlement occurred inside the time span of documented European history.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[GumphMaster]

No, not "Mori", "Maori" with a macron on the a... it's just that Slashdot is too 1970's to realise that ASCII just doesn't cut it in the Internet age.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[myth24601]

The only rule that matters is:

5. Whoever has the power to enforce a claim, owns the claim.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[CohibaVancouver]

then let it drop like a rock

Well, drop like a rock if the rock was dropped on the moon. At 1/6 the earth's gravity, I assume the 'THUD' was more of a 'plonk.'

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even the English can claim a continent, right?

Australia

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[xenoc_1]

I live in Uruguay and don't have any Bitcoin, you insensitive clod!

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[quax]

How juvenile.

The Western world has still enough clout to hurt China economically. Although, it'll hurt us almost as much. So yes, a diplomatic solution is most likely if they were to overstep.

At any rate, the Chinese are not opposed to cooperation, they have a good working relationship with ESA.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Or as the conspiracy people would say, They cant do that because you lot never put one there in the first place.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Money Market funds must have very short maturities. (Under two years.) We issue bonds going out 30 years. There are plenty of funds besides Money Markets that hold tremendous positions in U.S. Treasuries.

To the troll a few levels higher, if the U.S. wasn't buying Chinese merchandise, who do you suppose would, and how would that impact their economy. (Hint: Go look at Chinese GDP before it "opened to the West" in the latter portion of the twentieth century.) There's a reason why Beijing is pumping money into completely unneeded construction projects, including entirely vacant cities, and that's to prop up the house of cards that is there economy. They have a tremendous population, but a lack of any intellectual property right enforcement, and corruption that can only be rivaled by Russia, keeps their economy in a very precarious position.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Zynder]

Utter rubbish! Everyone knows that there is a Nazi base mining Helium 3 on the dark side of the moon!

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[dk20]

Europe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_China

I could be mistaken here, but i thought the bulk of the US debt was more to the shorter term (70% is 5 years or less)

Something like this: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/draghi/UST%20Maturity%20by%20Bucket.jpg

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[retroworks]

5. You say a mad French Emperor sold it to you to finance his invasion of Russia.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[readin]

This is usually the case, and certainly the Chinese view of things. They are now claiming plenty of lands for which they have neither moral nor legal justification to claim. The do look for excuses for their claims, but know that what is really comes down to is bullying.

If they decide they think they can get away with claiming the moon, they'll say Chinese saw the moon first - it was first written about on ancient Chinese turtle shells. And they'll say whatever else they can think of.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly the point, minimal impact means minimal dust. Asteroids are constantly slaming into the moon anyway. So claiming the Chinese lunar probe will affect other country's project is pure bullshit.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are sending over boatloads or "things" for bits of worthless American paper.

Just cut out the middle man, keep making the things but dump them in the ocean, and "pay" for them with bits of worthless Chines paper instead.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a sunk cost, China already knows it's not getting the money back. Its just mitigating the damage and trying not to make the $10M into $20M

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Runaway1956]

Do you own property, or does property own you?

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at this country! U R gay.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

The dust could hang around for weeks or even years, the escape velocity is so low that the landing thrusters could easily put a cloud into orbit. Particles could go up for miles and come back days later if they were blown away at just below escape velocity and that would really mess with LADEE's day if it were to orbit through said cloud.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

The dust could hang around for weeks or even years,

Nope. It's only the exhaust gases themselves that can linger. (The Apollo exhaust gases better than doubled the thickness of the lunar "atmosphere".)

No dust can reach lunar orbit. Unless each grain has a circularisation-burn rocket to raise perigee above the surface, the grains either impact half an orbit later at most, or escape entirely.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[smash]

Pretty much that. If they get out too quick they crash the dollar.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[smash]

That's pretty bad for goldman sachs.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[smash]

Exactly. Or even better, shock horror... have your domestic population buy them.

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's not as though the dust is going to float for days (or even minutes) in the (virtually non-existent) lunar atmosphere. (Sure sign of badly written SF or shot-in-a-studio movie footage: dust on the real Moon doesn't cloud, it sprays then drops.)

Unless, of course, the scientists in the charge of the LADEE project were right again. (I have no idea what you thought this mission was supposed to verify if you thought that the dust drops immediately.)

Re:Kicking up the lundar dust

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lunar dust is just tiny rocks"

No. Surface dust, top couple of inches where most Apollo missions went, is much of it fine, fine, super-fine stuff. With all the real physical hassles involved in two guys schlepping about for half a day at a time, sleeping upright in a cabin the size of a small walk-in closet and doing all the other 'living large' stuff, the prevailing complaint was about the verdammt dust. It coated everything, stuck to everything physically and electro-statically, got into everything, got eaten and breathed - everything smelled and tasted of Moon. There were serious worries about the integrity of control electronics and mechanisms - even the ability to launch - and about potential near- and long-term health effects.

Moon dust, from what I've read, is somewhat akin to doing polyester powder-coat in a poorly-ventilated production booth while wearing a cheap, leaky paper or cloth painter's mask. Down here it's mostly just annoying (well, the shit can get nasty in the lungs, mind) and dealt with by air-hose and vacuum. Up there? It's a pain.

For living on Moon and Mars both, dealing with dust will be a major issue until an effective method of dealing with it is found.

Re: Kicking up the lundar dust

[quax]

it was first written about on ancient Chinese turtle shells

Probably even true :-)

First

[Dan East]

In case anyone cares, the first soft moon landing was on January 31, 1966 by the Soviet lander Lana-9. It still boggles my mind how they were able to achieve that without anything remotely resembling a modern computing device.

Re:First

[fisted]

Sorry to break it to you but they did have turing-complete machines in '66, which do more than ``remotely resemble'' modern computing devices, as the fundamental principles didn't change.

Re:First

[Trepidity]

Nitpick: the name is Luna-9.

The first landing of any kind (a crash landing), was the Soviet Luna-2 in 1959. The U.S. then sent a series of crash-impact spacecraft in the early 1960s, the Ranger series, whose goal was to take photos during the final descent, along with testing out systems. Five of the nine Ranger missions successfully impacted the moon, and three of them managed to send back photos.

Then as you note, Luna-9 was the first non-crash landing, in 1966.

Re:First

[Dan East]

Are you saying that Luna-9 was controlled by a Turing-complete computer? From what I can discover it only had a programmable timing device, which would trigger a fixed list of tasks after variable delays. Stuff like shutting off the main engines was done by a physical switch that detected when the lander was just above the surface. I stand by my comment that it was not controlled by anything remotely resembling a modern computer.

Re:First

[Thagg]

Curiously, in my youth in the 60's, we referred to Luna-9 as a "hard landing", and the first "soft landing" was Surveyor 1 three months later. Now, it's clear that the Luna 9 lander really was a soft landing (similar to the landings of the Mars Pathfinder and Spirit/Opportunity rovers) and we were just ragging on the Soviets.

Re:First

[rasmusbr]

In case anyone cares, the first soft moon landing was on January 31, 1966 by the Soviet lander Lana-9. It still boggles my mind how they were able to achieve that without anything remotely resembling a modern computing device.

There were plenty of good analog designers available back then.

They probably basically used one or several analog control systems to control the descent based on signals from a radar and one or several gyros. The landing sequence could have been terminated on landing by a simple mechanical switch.

Come to think of it, the Moon is just about close enough that they could potentially have landed it by hand if the craft was sending back it's radar signal and gyro signals to Earth.

Re:First

[hey!]

May have been. The Russians have always had a lot of great mathematicians, and they certainly understood the concepts. They had a significant computer industry, often copying western systems to be sure, but they were certainly could and did make their own designs going all the way back to the 50s.

Anyhow, they wouldn't have needed to Turing complete machines. In many ways back in the 60s specialized circuits might have been simpler and more robust. By the mind 60s they had ballistic missiles with multiple, independently targeted reentry vehicles, so they clearly had a lot of capability when it came to guidance systems. In some ways a lunar landing controller would have been simpler than MIRV guidance.

Re:First

[david.given]

As an interesting addendum:

Luna-9's pictures were sent back using one of the standard encodings used for wireless newspaper photography transmission. During the transmission, the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in the United Kingdom was listening in (well, wouldn't you?) and the astronomers there recognised the encoding, phoned someone at the Daily Express, and as a result the first pictures from the surface of the moon ever were printed in a British newspaper while the USSR was still wondering what to do with them.

There is some speculation that the encoding scheme was picked deliberately to make sure this happened...

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

It still boggles my mind how they were able to achieve that without anything remotely resembling a modern computing device.

My mind is not boggled by that. The task isn't that complicated. You need range finding to the surface as input, and based on that analog circuits could control things. The Soviets used primitive computing because it was affordable and fully up to the task. We would use digital technology today because it's ubiquitous, low mass, and the accepted solution.

Re:First

[ihtoit]

three words: paper orbital mechanics.

Apart from injection burns and terminal braking manoeuvres, the spacecraft is a passenger of Newton. Launch windows come into play here, taking into account: local weather conditions, atmospheric height, local gravitational anomalies, and the final say comes down to where you are and where you expect the destination mass to be in x number of days.

All this can be done on paper. Apollo was all done on paper and slide rules before the first rocket was lit. Before even Mercury, Apollo was timetabled down to the second. They knew just how much thrust was needed, how much fuel they needed to carry, and where they wanted to land, and how long they wanted to stay on the surface.

Hell, even Verne and Wells had a handle on this. Both wrote stories describing in incredible detail how one would get to the Moon, a feat equally, if not more, daring than the Saturn V shots in that those two stories involved the firing of capsules out of a gun - 22,000G would be a bit much for even the hardiest of humans.

Caveat: it is possible to perform a direct flight to the Moon without using gravitational slingshots. Problem is this would require a LOT of propellant. Probably too much for a single lifter, the spacecraft would have to be assembled and fuelled in orbit, and flight time to a Lunar landing could be measured in hours - halfway out to accelerate to maximum velocity, then spin the whole thing around and decelerate through the other half of the trip to a soft tail landing. Very inefficient and totally dangerous.

Re:First

[0123456]

Anyhow, they wouldn't have needed to Turing complete machines.

They wouldn't have trusted it with a Turing-complete machine because it might have gained sentience and defected.

Re:First

[wjcofkc]

Luna 9 did not have a computer. It was all careful launch timing and Newtonian mechanics to ensure it got where it needed to be and deployed what it needed to precisely when it needed to. The closest thing it had to a computer was a clock that made these things happen at precise intervals. From Wikipedia:

The lander had a mass of 99 kilograms (220 lb). It used a landing bag to survive the impact speed of 22 kilometres per hour (14 mph).[2] It was a hermetically sealed container with radio equipment, a program timing device, heat control systems, scientific apparatus, power sources, and a television system.

If the whole thing weighed 220 lbs., where would you even fit a meaningful 1966 computer? Never underestimate persistent human beings.

Re:First

[gtall]

No, not Turing complete, their memories were FINITE. To be Turing complete means to simulate (at least) an infinitely long tape.

Re:First

[arth1]

Five of the nine Ranger missions successfully impacted the moon

Does that mean that four of them missed?

Re:First

[ballpoint]

Five of the nine Ranger missions successfully impacted the moon

Does that mean that four of them missed?

No, the other four impacted unsuccessfully.

Re:First

[Trepidity]

Two of them actually did miss, and are now orbiting the sun in deep space. The other two didn't get far enough to miss.

Ranger 1 and 2 were botched launches, which barely made it into space into unstable low-earth orbits, from which they burned up on reentry shortly thereafter.

Ranger 3 did in fact miss the moon. It successfully launched to high-earth orbit, and then successfully boosted out of high-earth orbit towards the moon. But not quite towards the moon enough. It missed the moon by 22,000 miles and flew past it into deep space.

Ranger 4 was the first successful mission. And then Ranger 5 missed again, this time by a much smaller amount, only 450 miles. The exit from high-earth orbit towards the moon appears to have been reasonably good this time, and any minor trajectory errors were supposed to be fixed in a mid-course corrective burn. But the craft lost power after exiting earth orbit, so was unable to make the mid-course correction, causing it to miss.

More info in the usual place.

Re:First

[DerekLyons]

Luna 9 did not have a computer. It was all careful launch timing and Newtonian mechanics to ensure it got where it needed to be and deployed what it needed to precisely when it needed to. The closest thing it had to a computer was a clock that made these things happen at precise intervals.

A certain amount of luck was involved too... a couple of feet more per second error, and that timer (pre-programmed on the ground before flight) could have been hopelessly out of sync with what was actually happening.
 

If the whole thing weighed 220 lbs., where would you even fit a meaningful 1966 computer?

SLBM guidance computers of the era weighed in at around forty to sixty pounds. Gemini's onboard guidance computer tipped the scales at a hair under sixty pounds. The Apollo guidance computer (directly descend from an SLBM system) weighed seventy pounds.
 
Not that they had one, or the Soviets were that advanced of course, but not all meaningful computers available in the sixties were room sized behemoths weighing tons.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Five of the nine Ranger missions successfully impacted the moon

Does that mean that four of them missed?

No, the other four impacted unsuccessfully.

I think your comment was a successful attempt at not being funny in a serious way, and modded accordingly.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Turing machine != Turing completeness

If you can express it in untyped lambda-calculus, it's Turing completeness.

Re:First

[cusco]

There shouldn't be much speculation, since Korolev made sure that they told Jodrell Bank any time they had a successful mission. This was actually part of their planning, since they didn't have a world-spanning network of dishes like the Americans did They did it since the first Sputnik.

Re:First

[cusco]

The Soviets also had excellent electro-mechanical engineers. The Soviets didn't trust electrical systems, they had better experience with mechanical timers and relay logic.

Re:First

[Catmeat]

Interesting addendium to the interesting addendoim....the Daily Expresses' actual Muirhead picture receiver, that got plugged into the big dish at Jodrell Bank, still survives and is preserved in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

Check here http://www.watermargin.com/vietmain/speed/speed.html if you want to hear what the signal from a Muirhead sounds like, and presumably what the people at Jodrell actually heard coming from the moon.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

And it boggles my mind that the video that Chang'e 3 is producing is ONE FRAME PER SECOND and low resolution...

If the Apollo missions could beam back 10 fps video, why aren't we seeing HD video, 1920 x 1080, at 24 fps (or whatever the moden video standard is).

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

NO. To be Turing-complete, it has to be capable of simulating any turing-complete function, and you don't need infinite memory for that, you just have to comply with a few requirements (like being able to compute certain structures), which they did.

Collaboration - YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm happy that the ESA is willing to let the Chinese to use their transmission infrastructure. This way hopefully more science will be done.

one step to utopia

[Trepidity]

Mars next!

Images from the surface

[mbone]

There is a cool animated gif of the descent imager pictures of the landing, and a false color image of the surface.

Re:Images from the surface

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the photos you've been seeing from NASA are the false color and airbrushed photos.

100% Proof Of Alien Civilizations Exist On The Moon - Nasa Lies Uncovered In Colour

Live Moon in true color

I don't blame them, they got to paint all the wide shot moon photos grey otherwise the glass dome structure will be obvious.

Moon glass dome

Re:Images from the surface

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake! I've seen more realistic footage in 60's Sci-Fi movies!

Re:Images from the surface

[Anonymous Coward]

False color image? You gotta see this: Amazing Moon Anomolies.

When are we going?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the question is when are we going again and to stay?

Re:When are we going?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first of all, we need whalers and harpoons.

Re:When are we going?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same time when we'll go to the bottom of the ocean and stay. It's about as useful. We already have all the pictures of dead rocks that we want, and we already know how to get lunar samples back without sending people. The Russians, again, beat you to that technology. The spinoffs are obvious when you look at Russia today!

Re:When are we going?

[thrillseeker]

Forget the blackjack.

Jade Rabbit Buggy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Science and "luck" culture make strange lunar bedfellows.

Re:Jade Rabbit Buggy...

[Anonymous Coward]

"luck" culture

"China rabbit folklore" - Google it before being an ignorant idiot.

Re:Jade Rabbit Buggy...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard a lot of stories, folklore is Confucianism and has a certain value. I'm saying it doesn't make much sense to me in the context of space exploration.

Instead of having some witty riposte, "google it" without even a scintilla of a hint to let us know YOU know what you're talking about. Captcha : Eunuch.

Hey kids, check this out

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia lands robotic sample return mission on the Moon! Surely this means they will beat us because of all the spinoffs and glory!

Oh wait, it already happened in 1970. Anyone going to move to Russia now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_16

Welcome to the 20th century China!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok I'm just poking fun. Seriously, India has a probe on its way to Mars. The US has to step up its game!

Re:Welcome to the 20th century China!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? They're just imitating big brother. Space is still empty and deadly and nothing has changed rocket-wise to change that equation. They're gonna find out the same thing the US figured out 40 years ago. No one cares, we know space is empty and sci-fi just got it wrong. End of story. We also don't have supersonic passenger transport anymore either, should we "step up" our game here too? Of course not, that vision is as quaint as bell bottom jeans. So is space.

Re:Welcome to the 20th century China!

[couchslug]

"The US has to step up its game!"

Not really. If we are wise we'll work on the automated remote-manned systems we must have to interact with the permanently hostile environement of outer space and let others who don't have to overspend to protect crews send meat tourists first.

That humanity get into space would be useful, but that doesn't mean every nation should pursue it the same way.

Successful terrestrial exploration relied on cheap expendable ships and expendable crews. Life was cheap and so was wood.

Now it costs so much to protect a few humans to US/EU standards there is no advantage to sending them. However, robots are useful on Terra and in space, so there is every reason to send them. Robot development cycles can be rapid and they are ideal for risk-taking without the human drama.

Re:Welcome to the 20th century China!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now it costs so much to protect a few humans to US/EU standards there is no advantage to sending them."

Maybe just because we all need to leave this rock at some point?

No one saw the Chelyabinks meteor until it was too late, and even if we detect a bigger heading our way in time, we can't do anything to stop it, so better not have all your humans in the same basket, a few dudes at the ISS woul not be able to repopulate the earth....

Re:Welcome to the 20th century China!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok I'm just poking fun. Seriously, India has a probe on its way to Mars. The US has to step up its game!

Let's leave India out of this...it is a totally different story. Mars Mission? I thought India haven't finished moon orbitting yet. Didn't India lost control of Chandrayaan-1 and it just hit moon UNCONTROLLED?

Sincere advice: please complete one task before moving to another one. And most importantly, please do not refer to your Mars Mission at this moment. Talk about it after September 2014 if it is still able to reach Mars orbit, and let us know what kind of experiments it can do at that time.

Building the capability for deep space exploration takes much more than "worlds biggest democracy". You need telescopes located around the world to keep tracking/commanding the spaceship. Even China, equipped with several huge tracking ships that can sail to different parts of world, still needs some help from ESA to cover about 3 hours gap. I seriously doubt India can send anything to moon, not to mention Mars. NASA/ESA is doing all the job for you.

Re:Welcome to the 20th century China!

[couchslug]

Since mankind has no purpose beyond its own amusement, there is no particular requirement to leave or repopulate Earth. If /Deity is real, she will sort that issue out.

Deafening silence

[Anonymous Coward]

Deafening silence.

The price of not using Houston to launch.
Same price Alien abductors pay for kidnaping eskimos when
they should know by now its real only if they land in Roswell.

If the mission failed ...

[guanxi]

I genuinely hope it is successful. The rise of China is one of the great humanitarian stories in history, lifting hundreds of millions from poverty. I expect the people of China to make great contributions to the world.

However, it's still 2013 and China's government is still authoritarian, unaccountable and non-transparent, and the Chinese press is still restricted. If the mission failed, would they admit it, or release some photos anyway? (Could they get away with it? Could other governments or amateurs with telescopes see for themselves?)

Re:If the mission failed ...

[gerddie]

If the mission failed, would they admit it, or release some photos anyway? (Could they get away with it?)

No, because ESA helps during the whole mission.

Re:If the mission failed ...

[ihtoit]

(...Could other governments or amateurs with telescopes see for themselves?)

No, because the probe is just too damn small.

None of them can see it. The probe (or to borrow another local example, the Apollo 11 flag) is far too small to be seen with any telescope on Earth, or even the Hubble space telescope (which is in low Earth orbit).

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (orbiting the Moon) took pictures of the Apollo 11 landing site, however. It showed a long shadow cast by the lower lander stage, but not the stage itself - again, it's just too small.

You can approximate the angular size of an object by dividing its width by its distance from the telescope:

A galaxy might be around 100,000 light years in diameter. At a distance of ten billion light years, it would have an angular size of:
(100,000 light years) / (10,000,000,000 light years) = 0.00001 radians. HST can (and has) taken images containing *millions* of these galaxies.

Now we do the same for a flag on the Moon, generously estimated as 1 metre in width:
(1 metre) / (384,400,000 meters) = 0.0000000026 radians

Well, look at that. Seeing the flag requires about 3800 times the resolving power needed to see the galaxy. Who would have guessed?

This is something that *cannot* be done optically. The wavelength of visible light is just too long. By about 3800 times the wavelength needed. Now we're in high-energy cosmic ray (X-Ray in the Gigawatts) range.

Re:If the mission failed ...

[norite]

The HST isn't allowed to point anywhere near the moon; it's far too bright and it would damage the HST's sensitive instruments, so it's a moot point anyway.

Re:If the mission failed ...

[dbIII]

That was thought to be the case initially but if you search the NASA web site or use google you will find some photos Hubble took of the moon after it had been proved that it was safe to do so. They are amazing photos.

Re:If the mission failed ...

[ihtoit]

strange, because the preliminary calibrations were done by pointing the mirror at Earth - orders of magnitude (pardon the pun) brighter than the Moon.

cannon ball

[globaljustin]

It still boggles my mind how they were able to achieve that without

It was a radio transmitter packed into a cannon ball, just like Sputnik...not exactly 'space age' and certainly not requiring a modern computing device

Techies today have kind of fetishized the command line, but there are other ways to program a machine.

You can hurl a wad of electronics at a world and send pictures back or you can **EXPLORE**

Guess which one this China mission is?

Re:cannon ball

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, "explore" as some kind of romantic fetishisation of test pilots in rubber suits to pick up rocks that we have to bring back to Earth anyways to analyze... Just send machines. We are exploring the universe just fine from RIGHT HERE ever since Galileo built a telescope or Ptolemy made drawings.

What is it with this ridiculous notion of sending people? Remember how they thought Mars had a civilization in the 19th century? Yeah, woops. Or how Venus was this lush paradise full of clouds! Oh wait, those clouds are sulfuric acid? Oops. All this we EXPLORED FROM RIGHT HERE.

There's nowhere to go, nothing to do. Grow up and look around you. There are so many things to explore right here, you disgusting navel-gazing autistic psychopath.

Re:cannon ball

[AJWM]

There are so many things to explore right here, you disgusting navel-gazing autistic psychopath. [bold added]

LOL! Who is navel gazing, now?

Re:cannon ball

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a radio transmitter packed into a cannon ball, just like Sputnik...not exactly 'space age' and certainly not requiring a modern computing device

Not "space age"? If you don't think Sputnik was "space age" then you have no idea what the term means. Sputnik is in the definition of space age. It's the start of it.

exploration vs PR

[globaljustin]

"hard landing" and "soft landing" is one way to think of it...

a better way might be "controlled landing"...but even that could be nitpicked

the difference is the level of control

think of it as the difference between a plane landing vs an object dropping by parachute

the implication is that if you're just doing it as a Cold War publicity stunt, you can get away with just flinging shit up there willy-nilly, whereas if you are actually trying to explore you use the landing sequence as an opportunity to iteratively improve mission capabilities for further exploration.

::yawn::

[globaljustin]

The US has to step up its game!

wake me up when one of them walks on the moon or has a bot/rover sending selfie tweets from another panet

Re:::yawn::

[cusco]

If Luna were in orbit around Mars, Venus or Mercury it's large enough we would consider them a double-planet system. It really isn't much smaller than Mercury, no other planet has a moon that is such a large percentage of its mass.

Although really, a tweet? Even GW Bush can tweet, it's not like it's hard. There are frelling security cameras here on Earth that do more complex things than that several hundred times a day. When it can decide, "That rock looks interesting enough to deviate from my pre-programmed path to investigate it," then I'll be impressed.

Re:::yawn::

[globaljustin]

the point is it's PR not space exploration...and if I'm wrong and it IS space exploration, it is for the purpose of mining and screwing up just like the Chinese ruined the environment in their country.

compare Luna to whatever double planet you want that's not the point, the point is we already did that whole thing

China is wasting untold Billions of dollars doing this crap for nothing. All gains could have been gotten other ways for much cheaper.

it's their money, they can spend it how they want, but let's discuss it on the merits not on the propaganda

Re:::yawn::

[cusco]

There is no 'environment' on the moon to mess up. About the best place possible for heavy industry.

What China is doing has very little resemblance to Apollo's list of objectives. You should look at the equipment it's carrying.

All gains could have been gotten other ways for much cheaper.

So how do you propose to do a spectrographic analysis of subsurface soils without going there? For the life of me I can't figure out how you plan on examining the underground structure from here.

And "untold Billions"? What are you smoking?

Obligatory Pun

[bradorsomething]

It is only a matter of time until they wok on the moon.

Greatest humanitarian stories?

[SuperKendall]

The rise of China is one of the great humanitarian stories in history

I think it's great the Chinese were successful at landing on the moon, but... greatest humanitarian stories in history??? Do you remember just how many TENS OF MILLIONS of people died during the communist takeover and resulting purges? Or the famines?

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Mister Liberty]

Dickhead! How many Americans got evicted from ther homes by way of the last financal crisis?
And that was by design.

Not that I care. I am not an American, so don't feel pressed to answer. It's your problem, just because of the
likes of you never noticing what transpires under you nose.

But maybe just maybe you should feel a little bit of inhibition and when raising your hand to point a finger.
So yeah: Dickhead!

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[the gnat]

greatest humanitarian stories in history??? Do you remember just how many TENS OF MILLIONS of people died [paulbogdanor.com] during the communist takeover and resulting purges? Or the famines?

I think the GP was referring to the post-1980 era, which really was a great humanitarian story, especially compared to the 30 years preceding it. The Economist magazine uses phrases like this all the time, and there's never any question about what they're referring to.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck You Faggot. America two fucking continents. Not the United States. Learn basic georgraphy before calling everyone in the United States Stupid. Fuck China. Long Live Tibet. I can't understand why my country gets involved in a decade long war against a tactic used by people who are relilgious conservatives who support family values while doing nothing against the hordes of Mexicans coming into the country bringing drugs and taking the jobs. Why the fuck are our leaders in bed with the Chinese? I guess the Chinese pay them. The war in Iraq / Afganistan was paid for by the Chinese. We have gone into debt. Three nations are torn apart by a 'war on terror', and the Chinese profit.

Fuck China. Fuck politicians, Fuck big business, Fuck Mexico.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[knarf]

The rise of China is one of the great humanitarian stories in history

Don't you have that somewhat backward? China used to be pretty advanced compared to most other parts of the world for a long time. They lost this advance due to many reasons, eventually culminating in the wars which led to the communist takeover and the series of tragedies that followed (cultural revolution, etc). While the party in control of China still calls itself communist they don't have much in common with what Marx et al philosophized about. Maybe China will eventually be more advanced than the surrounding countries again, maybe not - time will tell.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[cusco]

Compared to what went before the Chinese Communist revolution and even the nastiness of the Cultural Revolution were examples of peace and tranquility. I used to hang out with a fellow who was born in China in the 1920s to some Methodist missionaries from the US. The Irish Potato Famine was a cake walk in comparison to the famines in western China when he was young, famines caused not by bad harvests but because merchants could make more money exporting the harvest to Shanghai or Tokyo. Do you realize that this is the first period in Chinese history when people aren't dying of starvation en mass somewhere in the the country?

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Smauler]

China has always been important, but since the Renaissance they'd been in decline in comparison to Europe and its colonies, culminating in their position at the start of the 20th century, when they had had war after war, and were in dire shape. When the US civil war was going on, so was the Taipeng rebellion... the former killed an estimated 3/4 a million, the latter 20 million.

They were still a massive powerhouse, and I think what the GP is referring to is that they are actually now managing to utilise that power. Mao Zedong did nothing but unify China into a coherent whole (no small feat)... his actual policies were mostly unmitigated disasters. China's recovery has been _since_ Mao died, and on the back of the unification and peace.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the party in control of China still calls itself communist they don't have much in common with what Marx et al philosophized about.

Neither did the Soviet Union, or any other "communist" country.
Marxism, Communism and Socialism are three different things. Two of them have never been implemented, and the other has been implemented in a variety of ways.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rise of China is one of the great humanitarian stories in history

I think it's great the Chinese were successful at landing on the moon, but... greatest humanitarian stories in history??? Do you remember just how many TENS OF MILLIONS of people died during the communist takeover and resulting purges? Or the famines?

At the same time you have to remember the tens of millions that China has pulled out of complete and utter poverty.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Cold Fjord, why did you changed your account name to SuperKendall? Not proud of something?

Here are some numbers to give prespective to your 60-80 million dead:

If 60 million killed between roughly 1950-1970 (prior to more westerners entering China, although there were plenty of foreigners in China during the period).
That's roughly 10,000 killed each and every day, for 20 years.
So you have 400 Sandy Hook-esque killing sprees in China, each and every day from 1950-1970. and the only record of this is in some obscure blog on the internet using non-committal language such as "It is now BELIEVED that as many as 60 million to 80 million people MAY have died"?

Furthermore, any famine (clearly didn't affect their population for starters, being the only major country to have a one child policy, yet it's still the most populous nation on earth) is passive not active killing (different category).

So Cold Fjord, sorry SuperKendall, you need to concoct your wet dreams a little more elaborately if your aim is to be convincing.
Besides, I'm not sure why you're itching to bring subjects out from the left field to a pretty cool tech story, perhaps your hands are restless from frustrations in groping for your too small penis?

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[guanxi]

greatest humanitarian stories in history??? Do you remember just how many TENS OF MILLIONS of people died during the communist takeover and resulting purges? Or the famines?

As someone else pointed out, when I wrote "rise" of China, I meant the recent economic growth since 1980.

I agree that the time before that was a disaster, one of the worst in human history. In fact, I find it absurd that China's Communist Party claims credit for the "rise". That's like burning down your own house, building a hut, and claiming credit for real estate development.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-Americans - not just Racist to the max, but homophobic too! Your true colors are too easily revealed.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[SuperKendall]

Sorry man, I don't know who "Cold Fjord" even is but I've been SuperKendall since before you were born. You may want to learn something about Slashdot UUID's...

And also some history too while you are at it. Then perhaps someday you can be brave enough to get a real ID instead of spouting your ignorance behind anonymity. But we all know you aren't really brave enough to do that, are you?

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[dbIII]

Mao is dead. Nobody is there to listen who doesn't already agree with you. Get over it.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry man, I don't know who "Cold Fjord" even is

Sorry man, you almost convinced me until you opened your mouth, you been here forever and you don't know who "Cold Fjord" even is?

"real ID" == SuperKendall?
Sorry your stupidity is beyond comprehension Cold Fjord.

And also some history too while you are at it

Says the intellect who cites as reference some blog by some nobody, featuring no sources, no bibliography, no pictures...it's amazing Hitler and Stalin combined kid's stuff in the turmoil of a world war produced far more evidence, images, artifacts than 20 year later in the blackhole of information of communist China.

Re:Greatest humanitarian stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, lets go at it. Best to add a little historical balance here.
American Indian Wars. American Civil War. Atomic bombing of Japan. American war in Vietnam. Failure to find chemical weapons in the Iraq War. Bombing of wedding parties in Afghanistan.

Its just not in the interests of any person or nation to wipe the historical slate clean with patriotic misinformantion.

National zones on the moon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully everything outside earth is managed peacefully with no single country laying claims to exclude others.

Wrong dictionary used

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey you! Look up name for space probe in dictionary!"
"Looks like a lot of these 'probes' are called 'Rabbit'!"
"Excellent!"

bookmarked

[globaljustin]

you disgusting navel-gazing autistic psychopath.

i came...

then bookmarked the post for posterity...it's like my own personal APK

Oh, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Women can't do shit.

Re:Oh, please.

[HornWumpus]

They just won't do anything with you.

Re:Oh, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some white knights think small, only defending a single damsel in hopes of receiving affection; I like your ambition, wizard.

Re:Oh, please.

[HornWumpus]

Are you kidding? This is /.

The closest thing to a damsel around here is that 'dude with with boobs' (girlintraining).

Rejoice!!!

[Mister Liberty]

Space is not the USA's!

wonder if..

[houbou]

it will find the US flag from 1969.. :)

Re:wonder if..

[Anonymous Coward]

What US flag?

The flags put up there by the Apollo missions are all white now thanks to the Sun.

Re:wonder if..

[HornWumpus]

So now they're french flags.

Re:wonder if..

[Zynder]

You've won the thread, I surrender!

Re:wonder if..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's "Freedom flags", you insensitive clod.

Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Chang’e is coming.

BTW, SciFri Ira Flatow interviewed David Shukman, BBC Science Editor, about a week ago nice coverage what Chinese are up to with their project, it was possibly best lay summary what I've heard up to this date.

ac

Sinus Iridium?

[Anonymous Coward]

My doctor prescribed that after my nasal cancer.

Um, orders of magnitude?

[SuperKendall]

Dickhead! How many Americans got evicted from ther homes by way of the last financal crisis?

Very few? And also BTW they could find alternate shelter in a number of other ways including just spending less on housing, or declaring bankruptcy and staying where they were?

I find it pretty ironic you are saying *I* am the one who is a dickhead for pointing out tens of millions of people being tortured or executed or starved to death, while you are pointing out people that number a few orders of magnitude less in number who have to move into cheaper housing... I mean really, if there ever was a dick move what you have just done is the very definition.

But who cares if 80 million Chinese die, right? Isn't that your thinking process? I guess non-Americans really are more racist.

I dub thee Super Dick. And I ignore all further communications from Super Dicks on the grounds that they are mentally incapable of defending their Super Dickitude.

Re:Um, orders of magnitude?

[dk20]

While i agree with you about the massive deaths due to Mao is not even in the same magnitude, you might have interest in reading up on the whole "robo-signing" thing.

"One out of every 248 households in the United States received a foreclosure notice in September of 2012, according to RealtyTrac. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure_crisis

Nothing else comes to mind post 1980???

[SuperKendall]

I think the GP was referring to the post-1980 era, which really was a great humanitarian story.

Oh yeah, that was Awesome!

Sorry, but pairing the term "China" with "Humanitarian" just doesn't jibe with any period of time you care to name. Any lifting of the Chinese people has pretty much been accomplished by their own efforts, not the Chinese government...

Cost and Benefit

[Phoenix666]

I don't believe we do lack any backbone, initiative, dream, drive, or balls. What we are is re-tooling for the future. The past was big, single issue drives. It was what we could afford, and what we could do. Now we have a crossover moment in the historical record when sweeping change goes from being a government- or big corporate-driven event, to a massively multi-polar, crowd-driven one. Look, it used to be you had to spend thousands of dollars to buy enough computing power to run a graphical display. Now it's so cheap it's throw-away. It used to be you had to have massive investment to manufacture things, now you can do so at commodity prices.

In that context, let's re-ask the question, what does it mean that China has landed a probe on the moon? It's great for them, as evidence they have mastered the state-driven quest for achievement. But what's really got to blow your mind is that private individuals are about to do the same, and more. If you are old, and set in your ways, that's quite threatening. Me, I find it incredibly exciting. It puts a spring in my step. It means the era of nation-state primacy is coming to an end, and that the Age of Human Potential is about to explode. I am glad for it, and grateful I get to be alive to see it.

Re:Cost and Benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

What??? A 6 digit claiming others here are "old".......bwahahahahhahahhahahaahhahahahahaha

Re:Cost and Benefit

[Runaway1956]

" What we are is re-tooling for the future."

Yes, I can see that the United States is re-tooling. And, there is little if any room permitted for exploration or expansion.

Have you looked very seriously at the bulk of non-terrorism related legislation and treaty making lately? It's all about carving up the "intellectual property" biosphere among big corporations. Take a look at the neoconservative movement, which represented a moderately large part of conservative people and corporations. Their basic dream, was to have all the men, women, and children of the world working directly or indirectly for Wall Street.

Legislation related to terrorism tends to support that biosphere. Hacking into a corporate computer today is equated to terrorism. Reverse engineering some code is illegal, and can be deemed a criminal offense.

We live in an introspective society, dedicated to two goals: The accumulation of wealth in very few pockets, and preservation of the status quo.

Needless to say, I don't like what I can see of our future.

Re:Cost and Benefit

[Runaway1956]

Why not? Any number of bright young people* may have started accounts here while in their teens. A user number is no indication of age, maturity, or much of anything else. It only indicates that he/she has been a member of slashdot longer than most of us.

*I say "bright" because the not-so-bright didn't waste their time on slashdot. Instead, they were designing horrid eyesores in places like MySpace.

Re:Cost and Benefit

[Clsid]

Most meaningful post so far. I don't understand why people feel so threatened by China, when in fact the vast majority of young generation of Chinese are in awe of American culture.

Deniers

[CohibaVancouver]

Pity they couldn't have landed in Mare Tranquillitatis. Would have been fun to have the rover trundle over to the Eagle's descent stage to take some pictures of the flag and Neil and Buzz's footprints. Take that, whack-job conspiracy theorists.

Amazing success!

[Reliable Windmill]

Amazing! Congratulations to China, the whole world is proud of you! You will be at the forefront of space exploration, and if there is anyone who can establish a permanent base on the moon it is you. The 21st century belongs to China, no doubt!

Re:Amazing success!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sober up. Private space is already doing things the Chinese could only dream about

do not trust

[Anonymous Coward]

i trust the chinese as much as i trust the romulans

and NOAA reports

[nairatinu]

it was immediately surrounded by a cloud of smog

one child policy

[globaljustin]

China fucked up human procreation...their *whole population* is now 60-40 male thanks to their ridiculous culture...I think they can manage to fuck up the moon somehow given enough tie...

And yes...Billions...the Chinese have spent Billions on this mission of destruction...are you saying a moon mission can be done for LESS than a billion dollars?

NASA spends 1 Billion dollars on janitorial staff for crying out loud.

Stop commenting on this thread you're an idiot

Re:one child policy

[cusco]

India is currently carrying out a mission to **MARS** that cost less then what a steel magnate spent on his daughter's wedding. The Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2 missions cost 1.4B Yuan ($230M USD) and 900M Yuan ($148.2M USD), so even if Chang'e-3 cost twice what the previous two missions combined did they still aren't spending a billion dollars on this one. Much less "untold billions". It's not as hard to reach the moon any more, since much of the expensive and time consuming work, the baseline R&D, has already been done. Robotics, computation, and appropriate materials are now orders of magnitude less expensive than they were four decades ago.

Do you seriously think that NASA spends over five percent of its entire budget on janitorial services? Not even Halliburton would gouge them that badly. When you pull numbers out of your ass I wish you would at least have the courtesy to wash them off before you use them.

Re:one child policy

[cusco]

Mangled that sentence in the first paragraph. Meant to say, "so even if Chang'e-3 has cost more than the previous two missions combined they..."

A certain amount of luck was involved too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course.

If they had been American, it would have been careful planning by the world's best and cleverest country.

Since it was Russian, it involved a bit of second-rate agricultural persistence, and a lot of luck.

Now it's China, so it's bound to be cheating, spying and copying American ideas...
 

Re:A certain amount of luck was involved too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful explanation, thank you, it is so much clearer now.

America is best?

[Anonymous Coward]

...You can hurl a wad of electronics at a world and send pictures back or you can **EXPLORE**

Guess which one this China mission is?...

Well, it looks like we're going to get the opportunity to find out pretty soon.

This mission could not fail = Hoax

[fygment]

In this day and age of breathtakingly realistic CG and China's intense desire to be viewed as a dominant first world nation, why would anyone believe this is real? A feasible achievement? Yes, but only at a cost too extravagant for even China.

Final argument: Do you think China would have reported a failed mission?
Answer: No. Even if real, they would have had a fake backup plan because this mission cannot fail.

First pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

The first pictures are in.
Count me "disappointed".
What we get is much like what we got 37 years ago.
Today I would have expected multi-megapixel pictures with good sharpness and colour.
The Chinese do know how to produce the camera's for that.

source

[globaljustin]

I gotta see a source on your figures...bigger the claim = bigger the evidence

Re:source

[cusco]

Chang'e 1 was estimated cost CN¥1.4B ($230M USD); Chang'e 2 cost CN¥900M ($148.2M USD). The cost of the Chang'e mission has not yet been revealed

It's actually quite an interesting article. I'm still wondering about your earlier statement. How would you map the underground structure of the moon without actually going there? To my knowledge ground-penetrating radar only works in close proximity to the ground being examined.

propaganda & science

[globaljustin]

hey thanks that was indeed a very informative and interesting article

about the figures, indeed you quote them correctly, but we're talking past each other...the figure for the one launch/mission may be under a Billion but the budget for the whole of their moon missiions is surely above $Billion but that's not the point.

about the ground radar...and China in general, I just don't take what a Totalitarian country bursting at the seams w/ pollution and population desperate for having "Good Face" on the world stage seriously. Their press is **fully** a propaganda arm for their government (which is only true of Fox News here)...imagine that...all the national news in a country is like Fox News.

god bless their endeavor...I don't begrudge their work, my negativity comes from the fact that I don't like bandwagon jumping or fake excitement over Public Relations and Propaganda of a Totalitarian regime

Re:propaganda & science

[cusco]

Ah, apples and grapefruits. Understood.

China has always been a totalitarian society, for at least the last 5,000 years. The current moment is quite possibly the most liberal period their culture has seen since the beginning of recorded history. While lacking by our standards, by the standard of much of the older generation of Chinese citizens the current social situation is absolutely libertine. I've heard older immigrants from Taiwan and China complaining to each other about how disrespectful and aggressive their grandchildren are. You don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime, Mao's generation had to die off before foreign factories could be brought into the country, the next generation had to be forced into retirement to allow a certain amount of domestic capitalism. Change will happen, but it will be on China's timetable, not ours. As it should be, IMO.

As for the pollution, you might be too young to remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire, the certainty of the extinction of the bald eagle, and lakes with massive rafts of foam and barge-sized globs of algae in the 1960s and '70s. Again, change will come, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Try actually reading what I've written this time

[dbIII]

Yep, thirty years ago is when the politics let us down thanks to Nixon's cuts to start with. It shouldn't be too hard to work that out from what I wrote above if you don't know enough modern history/current affairs.
There WERE enough bits of Saturn V as seen by the pieces which are now on display but were operational back then and there WAS a bit over four years between the final mission and when it was too late to boost the space station into a higher orbit.

Re:Try actually reading what I've written this tim

[DerekLyons]

I did read what you wrote, but what you wrote (both in that message as well as this one) is complete bullshit utterly disconnected from reality.
 

Yep, thirty years ago is when the politics let us down thanks to Nixon's cuts to start with.

ROTFLMAO. No. Nixon's cuts 'let us down' almost not at all, not after LBJ's cuts (almost 50% over four years).

There WERE enough bits of Saturn V as seen by the pieces which are now on display but were operational back then

No, there were not enough bits of the Saturn V - not only are most of the displayed bits non flight items to begin with there was no IU available.
 

and there WAS a bit over four years between the final mission and when it was too late to boost the space station into a higher orbit.

Your plan requires a time machine as well as more of the Saturn V than we actually had - because it wasn't until less than a year before it was too late that they knew it was too late.

Seriously?

[dbIII]

Sorry - epic fail on every count. I suggest your write about something you know about instead of making shit up.