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Israeli Group To Attempt Moon Landing
cold fjord writes: "NDTV reports, 'Israel plans to do what only the world's biggest countries have so far managed to do: land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon ... only Russia, the U.S. and China have soft landed on the moon, and India hard landed its tri-colour using the moon impact probe in 2008 ... The washing machine-sized spacecraft that weighs 121 kilograms is being readied by a not-for-profit venture called SpaceIL. ... The Israeli lunar probe had its genesis after the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize was announced as a competition which challenged non-state-owned space agencies to land on the moon, send back photos, and move 500 meters on the surface of the moon. About two dozen global teams are racing to win the prize- SpaceIL reckons it's in pole position. ... ex-NASA engineer Yonatan Winetraub and two of his friends conceived of the spacecraft in 2010 ... then used a Facebook page to promote the dream. Today, the dream has matured into a $36 million mission with 20 full time employees and 250 volunteers. ... Around 40,000 school students have been associated with this project.' Further details are available here."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
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Someone convince them the Muslims got there first, and are living in craters... then we'll get loads of colonists on the moon in no time.
Maybe from the US citizens not the the US gov't. Only 10% of funds can come from a government source to eligible for the Lunar X prize.
One thing about Israel, they've a long track record of finding dirt cheap ways to do things the US government/military or such like to shovel billions of dollars at.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He's just channelling his inner Shatner.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
moon colonies?
That would be moon "settlements" - Israel doesn't colonize, citizen.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
... than making peace with your neighbours. ;-)
Really? This garbage again? India launches a probe to Mars and the Luddites scream "IT'S AN ICBM!!" Now Israel. Utter stupidity. Do you think that generals in Israel and India do not talk to their counterparts in Pakistan and Iran? Is this actually a surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention AT ALL to the advancement of aerospace science over the last half a century? Targeting systems aren't even considered high-tech any more, you could program an Arduino board and a GPS receiver to do it.
Here's a headline for you: SpaceX and Virgin Galactic Can Produce ICBMs! Run And Hide!
Frelling idiots.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Personally, I find it somewhat sad that individual groups of people are all trying to accomplish the same thing or things which have been accomplished by humanity previously. What I'm saying is that I wish, rather, that the entire world would unite efforts in furthering human space-exploration technologies instead of countries keeping these "secrets" to themselves and ultimately slowing everything down from what they could be if we had one major, united world effort.
I suppose a lot of that behavior originates from from exactly what you point out in your post — though I do not understand said behavior.
The article starts off with "Israel Plans", except it's not Israel, it's an organization inside Israel? I had a salad for lunch. "America has salad for lunch! Later plans to visit restroom!"
Individual groups of people all trying to accomplish the same thing or things is absolutely essential to get stuff done. It motivates people to focus and work hard on the problem, because they know that others are working hard too and they will likely reach similar quality and are progressing fast. The competition between people means competition between solutions, which allows the soundest solutions to prevail (up to exceptions).
Competition can be friendly, especially if you are not too emotionally invested, and that's great especially for the people involved. Unfriendly competition is still great in the long run even though it introduces redundancies. The space race gave a big surge to the technological progress. Sport competitions give many athletes (or chess players or whoever) an incentive to improve. Computer Go programs evolved rapidly recently also thanks to competition. Recent Debian discussions about their next init system gave massive boost to openrc development.
Without competition, people are lazy and slack, since any effort is not worth it! Competition is awesome!
It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. -Douglas Adams
"sometimes-aggressive" as in Israel occasionally have to push back against the surrounding countries that want to finish what Hitler started.
The US gives Israel about 3 billion a year in financial aid, and Israel can only use this money to buy military equipment back from the US.
Israel's defense budget is about 15 billion a year.
Let's look at the subject in more detail. First satellite, first human, first successful lunar mission -- clearly the Soviets.
After that:
First successful mission to another planet: Mariner 2 flyby of Venus, 1962, USA. Your listing of Venera 1 as the "first to reach another planet" neglects to mention that the spacecraft failed before it got there.
First successful mission to Mars: Mariner 4, 1964, USA.
First communications satellites: passive, Echo I, 1960, USA; active, Courier 1B, USA.
First spacecraft rendezvous in orbit: Geminis 6 and 7, 1965, USA.
First spacecraft docking in orbit: Gemini 8, 1966, USA.
First manned spacecraft beyond low earth orbit: Apollo 8, 1968, USA
First manned spacecraft in lunar orbit: Apollo 8, 1968, USA
First spacecraft to orbit another planet: Mariner 9, Nov 1971, USA
First mission beyond the inner solar system: Pioneer 10, 1973, USA
First flyby of Jupiter: Pioneer 10, 1973, USA
There are many others.
Now let's examine some of the Soviet space firsts:
First soft lander on the Moon: 3 Feb 1966, Luna 9, USSR, a success by any definition, sent back pictures, operated for 3 days on lunar surface
compared to:, Surveyor 1, first USA soft lander, landed 14 July 1966, operated for nearly 6 months on the lunar surface
First soft lander on Mars: Mars 3, Dec 1971, USSR, operated for 14.5 seconds on the surface, compared to Viking 1, first USA Mars lander, July 1976, operated for 6 years on the surface.
So the story that the USSR was the clear leader in early space exploration is clearly false. Both nations had impressive 'firsts', anyone who doesn't acknowledge the accomplishments of both has poor knowledge of the subject.