NASA and China's Yutu Rover Are Still Making Discoveries On the Moon (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: The last time men walked on the moon was during the flight of Apollo 17, 43 Decembers ago. According to a story in Forbes, lunar soil and rock samples returned by the last moonwalkers are still yielding new insights into the history and nature of Earth's nearest neighbor. In the meantime, the latest explorer to go to the moon, a Chinese robotic rover named Yutu has made some discoveries of its own.

Comments

I must have been sick that day.

[sims 2]

This is the first I have heard that china sent a rover to the moon.

Although I can't really say I am surprised that it only worked right the first few days.

I wonder why it didn't make the news here?

How about rovers on Moon instead of Mars?

[k6mfw]

Though everyone loves Mars and those rovers are exciting, I was thinking how cool it would be to have a modern lunar rover with the HD cameras. OK, Chinese placed Yutu which I haven't followed its news that much.

While US has spent billions on Mars rovers, why not use that expertise to deploy lunar rovers (oh wait, policy is to avoid talking about the Moon). Imagine a rover to go to those craters where the sun never shines to sample soil for ice? A rover to visit Saturn V third stage impact areas? Or better yet a rover to visit Apollo landing sites and take really good pictures (though quality will be so good many luddites will claim it's proof those landings were done at Area 51). It would be also interesting to see how solar radiation has changed composition of the Apollo hardware (how much of the colors are left on the flags?).

Paul Spudis commented rover visiting Apollo sites will be very interesting, however, US prohibits disturbing Apollo landing sites. But if rover was an international program?

Heh, I was thinking of a Kelly Freas painting, what if they visit an Apollo 15, 16, or 17 site and find the Apollo rover is not there. But its tracks go off into the horizon. So this new rover follows the tracks and then finds the Apollo rover (where it ended when batteries spent) up on blocks with all the good stuff stripped from it.