Photos Stream Back From China's Lunar Lander

After the successful soft landing of its carrier vessel on the surface of the moon, China's Jade Rabbit lunar rover has begun beaming back photos of the lunar surface. From the BBC's article, with links to video as well as several photos, comes this description: "Chang'e-3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1,900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod-2, which was kept warm by polonium-210. But the six-wheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust. The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour. ... The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night. According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise. It will also scout valuable mineral resources that could one day be mined."

Comments

Re:Ignoring China ?

[Teancum]

And if it weren't for the Nazi scientists, the US and Soviet space programs wouldn't have existed. The only mostly isolated nation is North Korea, and we know how that's working out for them (great, if you go by the Great Leader's and his buddies opinion).

Obviously Robert Goddard was a Nazi scientist. And Dr. Buzz Aldrin never wrote any papers about spaceflight that by itself would ensure his role in the history of mankind (ignoring his weekend camping trip he took in the summer of 1969 that was broadcast as a reality TV show). And of course Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Sergei Korolyov were just a bunch of stupid lab assistants who knew nothing about rocket science either.

This kind of stuff is pure BS. Yes, there were some German scientists who did some impressive things with rockets and their assistance was useful for perhaps pushing ahead the American and Russian space programs by about a decade or so in the 1950's. But to suggest that the programs wouldn't have existed at all is a bit of a stretch when it is patently clear there were plenty of both Russians and Americans who were active in trying to get spaceflight including manned spaceflight happening in their lifetimes. Werner Von Braun openly acknowledged both Goddard and Tsiolkovsky (together with Oberth.... who was never a Nazi either) by name in his autobiography as inspiration for his work.

Trends

[Uberbah]

What you call the "rapid growth" of those nations is basically just them trying their best to catch up to where the West was many decades ago. They aren't even doing that particularly well. India is, and this is putting it politely, still an absolute shithole. Brazil is only marginally better, and China only marginally better than that.

Developing nations are generally doing some or all of the three:

1) Building their industrial base
2) Providing free or low cost education
3) Providing free or low cost health care

The United States is doing the opposite of that. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our lack of high speed rail is a joke, as is our lack of mass transit outside of a few major cities, and our internet and cell phone networks are a decade behind Europe's. More job-crushing trade laws are being pushed (TPP), getting a college degree means five or six figures of debt, and the trivial detail that Obomneycare will still leave the U.S. with the worst health care system in the industrialized world.

How are those trends sustainable for the United States, where 80% of the population is in poverty or a paycheck away from it?