First Commercial Mission To the Moon Launched From China

mbone writes with news about the first privately-funded spacecraft to travel the Moon. Cold War competition between superpowers dominated the first decades of space travel and exploration. Individual governments took the lead, bankrolling most of the process in the name of competition and nationalism. Ultimately international cooperation and collaboration took root, and the landscape is already very different. The present and future of space exploration is more collaborative, more international, and involves both space agencies and private companies. One such project is the combination Chang’e 5-T1 and Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M), which launched together last Thursday. Both projects are testbeds for ideas: Chang’e 5-T1 is a prototype for a robotic probe intended to return samples from the Moon to Earth, while 4M is a simple communications experiment encouraging amateur participation. But the intriguing bit is that 4M is a project of the private Luxembourg-based company LuxSpace, while Chang’e 5-T1 is a Chinese project, and the whole endeavor was launched on a Chinese rocket.

Comments

China is more capitalistic than the USA

[Taco Cowboy]

I am from China. At the time I left China it was really deep in communism, so deep that the entire society went upside down and a lot of people died because of it

But the China of today is very different. China of today is much more capitalistic than the United States of America --- since I am from China and that I am a citizen of the United States of America after staying in the US for decades, if I am to compare the two I would say that the USA is becoming more and more socialistic (turning more and more pinko) while China has turned blue, deeeeep blue

Re: China is more capitalistic than the USA

[andy_spoo]

Let's just hope that the Chinese never find life on another planet, because the first thing they'll do is eat it!

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[macraig]

You don't say overtly that it's a bad thing that the United States has socialistic constraints on its capitalistic economy... and it's not. Socialism - NOT Communism - done well is a far better economic system for advanced societies than capitalism. Better to call it mutualism or voluntary socialism. In the context of any advanced society pure capitalism can never be done well; it reaches a peak benefit - the United States has passed that point - and then begins to cause irreparable harm that leads to eventual economic and social collapse. It's a cyclic process that repeats as long as capitalism is the economic law of the jungle. We must evolve our species to more naturally cooperate rather than compete and combat.

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[Dahamma]

You are equating socialism with communism ("pinko")? Really?! You'd think with a vested interesting in understanding the governments you'd have learned more by now...

Communism is a joke, there are no actual "Communist" countries. China is a capitalist totalitarianism (and interestingly Russia has basically become that as well, though through a very different path). The US is a capitalist democracy (and calling it socialistic is a joke as well - look to Europe for socialist democracies, some of which are doing pretty damn well).

And while the US may be poorly functioning with its democracy (as in deadlock), I'm still going to stand by a belief that mass idiots electing random idiots is still better than a few idiots telling everyone else what to do and imprisoning those that disagree with them.

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're quote correct that capitalism is not applicable to advanced society. And it's because a society with the modern level of complexity violates one of the fundamental precepts of capitalism: that individual actors are knowledgable about what they're in the market for.

It's difficult to speak of certain points (since the behavior of Society since the industrial revolution up to the present has been a highly dynamic, non-equilibrium process, unlike the feudal era preceeding it) but it is clear that once you reach early 20th century levels of technology, the variety of goods wanted and needed start to exceed the average person's ability to be informed. How can one speak of a market efficiently allocating resources, if people don't even know what resource requests to make?

Re: China is more capitalistic than the USA

[Tablizer]

Let's just hope that the Chinese never find life on another planet, because the first thing they'll do is eat it!

LOL! If this remark doesn't end up +5, I'm gonna eat slashdot (please, no Dice-already-has jokes).

Seriously, Chinese are obsessed with food and cooking. It seems almost half their conversations are about food. (I took Chinese language courses once.)

Maybe that's a good thing. In the US we typically ignore food until we are really hungry, then grab a quick Greaseburger to satisfy our hunger. It's not working well. Planning may do us better.

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[dwywit]

We've a lot of evolving to do before socialism can work on a national scale. At the point where it becomes a government function to weigh in and distribute the wealth (e.g. with over-generous welfare handouts) it becomes a disincentive to work, i.e. if I can get free money from the government, why should I work?

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[CRCulver]

At the point where it becomes a government function to weigh in and distribute the wealth (e.g. with over-generous welfare handouts) it becomes a disincentive to work, i.e. if I can get free money from the government, why should I work?

Even in the Nordic countries with their generous welfare states, the great majority of people get up and go to work everyday. Even among the people who don't work and get some kind of public support, many are pursuing a degree, or in fact working some small job under the table. A lot of people would be bored without some routine, and most people want the nice amenities they could buy beyond what a basic income scheme would provide.

In any event, as we move towards increasing automation, at some point we will have to stop thinking it a bad thing when a person chooses not to work, if the only jobs he/she could do would be artificial makework. In the past, retraining redundant workers allowed them to stay productive, but now so much of what people were retrained to do is being automated away. While the new "creative economy" or "internet economy" has offered some new markets, the world only needs so many Perez Hiltons, for example, and it would be unreasonable to expect the masses of unemployed workers around the world to become professional bloggers just for the sake of "not being unemployed".

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[dwywit]

Whoops, forgot about Scandinavia (blame my newly-acquired homebrew kegging system). I'm expressing dismay about the size of the welfare budget here in Oz, and my experiences with people who game the system. I've known professional tertiary students who were smart enough to claim and collect 2 or even 3 student allowances by using fake identities. They liked student life so much, it was preferable to going out and actually getting a job.

I receive some welfare myself, mainly an income supplement for dependent children, but I wish we could work out a better system.

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[drinkypoo]

Socialism gets a bad rap because humans aren't yet evolved to make it naturally work voluntarily on a massive scale; it works well enough at an intimate village scale, but not for an entire nation.

And that, friends, is why some of us fear a massive centralized government. I am not afraid of government, I am afraid of government not under citizen control. There is no representation in our supposedly representative democracy, and thus precious little democracy as well.

Re: China is more capitalistic than the USA

[ananamouse]

>I recall a Chinese proverb from some exotic cooking show. It was something like "if its feet are on the ground and its back to the sun, you can eat it"
In heaven you have American House, Japanese wife and Chinese food............

Re:China is more capitalistic than the USA

[AmiMoJo]

It's a trade off. The more checks and security you put in, the harder it is for legitimate recipients to claim what they are entitled to. While I'm all for reducing fraud, I'd say it's only worth it if it doesn't negatively impact the majority of honest claimants too much.

In the UK pensioners get a winter fuel allowance. It isn't means tested in any way, so even the rich get it. There were mumblings about making it only for people below a certain income, but then some people who need it wouldn't get it and might die in the cold, or at least need expensive medical treatment. Giving it to everyone probably saves money, by allowing pensioners to live in their own homes longer without going into care just to stay warm.

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary and article call it "the first privately-funded spacecraft to travel the Moon", but it appears to be nothing more than payload that will be dumped off a Chinese (publicly-funded) rocket in an orbit that will take it around the moon and then back to earth.

It would be more accurate to call it the first privately-funded piece of cargo carried to lunar orbit by a publicly-funded rocket, but I suppose that would kill the capitalism boner all the Randroids got upon reading this story.

Re:Regulations, regulations, regulations

[Tablizer]

But China is also getting all the bad sides of de-regulation: pollution, poor and unsafe working conditions, long work hours, growing inequality, and crony-capitalism. It's kind of like the USA during the late 1800's when the down-sides of unfettered big business started growing to extremes.

Correction

[wonkey_monkey]

It's the first deliberate commercial mission to the moon.

I forget the details but there was a commercial satellite that ended up in the wrong orbit, and the easiest way to fix it was to send it out around the moon and back. Okay, it didn't do any actual science or anything, but still.

Re:Correction

[wonkey_monkey]

ORLY?

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

Okay, the article's not clear if it actually went around the Moon, so it probably didn't do that, but it got to within 6,800km, which is 99% of the way there.

So, what was objection based on rudimentary orbital mechanics, then?

Re:Correction

[FireFury03]

Really? Considering normal moon missions need a significant boost to get to the moon, how did a commercial satellite do that?

Inclination changes are really expensive. By comparison, a Hohmann transfer orbit to the moon and back can be cheaper and can use the moon's gravity to change inclination. The Apollo missions used a free-return trajectory rather than Hohmann transfer orbit since they needed to get to the moon quickly (don't want a bunch of astronauts spending a few months in deep space), which is why they needed significantly more delta-V. Its worth noting that a commercial satellite generally has a significant amount of station keeping fuel since its expected to stay in service for many years - sacrificing a few years of service is reasonable if the alternative is to completely abandon the satellite because its in the wrong orbit.

I think in the incident in question, someone (Lockheed?) ended up patenting the manouver...

Crowdfunding

[pablo_max]

I would think that something like a moon hab or station would be perfect for crowd funding.
I think that space is one thing that tons of people are willing to spend money on. I would be willing to put up a few hundred bucks, even if I get nothing in return. So long as the idea is realistic and gets us going in the right direction.
Maybe I will never be able to go into space. At my age, it is likely I won't, but I can at least dream that my kids will go.

Re:Crowdfunding

[AmiMoJo]

Crowd funding will only get you a few million tops, you would need billions to do a manned mission to the moon, let along a habitat.

Lobbying your government is the best bet.

Re:Good to see China and India involved in Space

[jandersen]

Let's face it, without some competition, the USA would sit around with its thumb up its ass.

Well, what could we expect, when the space programmes of the US and USSR were, in large parts, no more than dick-waving? The Chinese are quite naturally milking their space program for its publicity value, but they have their eyes firmly on the commercial and political power objectives in the long term. I wish them all success with it - it can only benefit us all, if space exploration becomes sustainable or viable or whatever the word is. And hopefully this will spur the West and Russia on to try to do better.