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Taiwan Building Lunar Lander For NASA Moon-Mining Mission (blastingnews.com)
MarkWhittington quotes a report from Blasting News: According to AFP, the Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan is building a $47 million, 3.7 metric ton lunar lander on behalf of NASA. The vehicle is designed to carry a rover called Resource Prospector, which would roll about the lunar surface searching out deposits of oxygen, hydrogen, and water. The Resource Prospector mission is still being formulated but is envisioned to be a joint project with several national space agencies and commercial companies. The lunar lander is the first vehicle of its type to be built in Taiwan. "The Resource Prospector would take samples from about a meter beneath the lunar surface and then heat them in an oven to ascertain what the materials are that comprise it," reports Blasting News. The mission is part of the second stage to NASA's Journey to Mars program called "Proving Ground." "Should the Resource Prospector prove to be successful, the moon could be used as a base for space journeys into Mars," says Han Kuo-change, the head of CSIST's international cooperation program.
NASA is 100% civilian. The do fly missions for the dod (one of the spade shuttles belonged to the air force), but then so do a lot of civilian companies.
the moon could be used as a base for space journeys into Mars
It would be nice to use the moon as a fuelling station on the way to Mars, but that only makes economic sense if there are lots of high-payload missions.
And why would anyone do that? Science is getting smaller. The Chinese might want to do a few manned missions to show the world they are no longer stagnating in the 16th century. But once they've proved it, they'll be going back as often as the US goes to the moon.
None at all. The military runs its own space program. The last time the military was interested in cooperation with NASA was when the shuttles were build. However, the military bras saw how expensive, unreliable, and pointless were the shuttles and lost all interest even before the first shuttle flew. (Those things had basically no military, civilian, or scientific application that could possibly justify their cost. The NASA built them anyways)
It's not so simple: the initial investment is huge, and the returns are slow. It takes a visionary (like Musk), with a bottomless well of cash (like Tesla Motors) to enter the playfield. There are safer investments with higher and faster returns if one has that kind of money, and wants to multiply it. Without the "vision" it's simply not going to happen - corporations prefer easy, immediate profits over multi-decade investments, and the asian ones are more conservative that way than the western ones.
For this to happen, it takes a special kind of person in a leadership position. This *might* happen, but I don't see any candidate currently.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Save China the trouble of planting spies and hacking computers just give it to them directly.
You have to wonder if this was a parting deal for Obama or ongoing relations with the Clinton Crime Family(TM)(C)
(and russians) will blast
insightful words in your sentence
AFAIK Taiwan is involved here because of their fabrication and manufacturing expertise. If quality is guaranteed , the blue prints come from NASA , fab happens in Taiwan and it's a win win situation .
I don't think that's realistic. These countries don't have the high level of engineering scrutiny to reliably complete such missions.
Not to say they couldn't ever, given enough time they likely would gain competency, but it's probably more likely that well before they get to that stage they'll collapse into endless civil wars due to the sheer masses of the plebeian members of their states.
China hasn't even managed to make a decent aircraft yet, even with what technology they've managed to steal they can't match the west for technical competency.
because there is no money in it. its not a real market, there is only artificial demand. hence no free market and lots of crony capitalism and subsidies; eg spacex and nasa.
when there is money and its half way free, russians usually get it. even the usa airforce uses russian rockets now.
asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy.
That must be why the Korean launch vehicle uses a downgraded Russian engine? :D Not much competition there, apparently.
Ezekiel 23:20
Found the ignoramus. "Only artificial demand", right. (Unless of course you designate all demand as being artificial, because the rest of the animal kingdom doesn't have any use for it. But the designation loses all meaning in that case.)
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It should be illegal for American organizations to buy stuff from abroad?
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Unfortunately, money talks, bull$hit walks..
Perhaps, but...$47M for a four tonne lunar lander? Lockheed-Martin probably wouldn't even answer the phone unless you put a $100M deposit in first. :-p
Ezekiel 23:20
So who gets the mineral rights? Or is this like Milo Minderbinder: 'we all get a share'?
Like computers, clothing and almost anything else? What if it is made in the US, but the company is based elsewhere?
And what about companies who deliver to American organizations, because it would be easy to set up a company that has only US workers, but buys everything abroad for an extremely small fee.
What if the goods are better then what you can buy? What if the workers are in the US, but are not Americans? What if there is only 1 person working who isn't American, but Samoan pr Puerto Rican who has served in the military?
At what moment should you say that capiltalism is not good anymore and the people are more important (dare I say socialism?) and what if that means that youneed to increase taxes to pay for the extra cost?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If you look closely at the picture of the X37b, it says USAF, not NASA...
Sig?
if there is real competition(instead of crony capitalist control) and real money (instead of subsidies) is space transport and infrastructure business
Already there. I can think of a half dozen organizations capable of launching a satellite into orbit and I'm no expert at all. (SpaceX, ULA, Orbital Sciences, NASA, ESA, ROSCOSMOS, CNSA off the top of my head) Several of these are private companies and more are coming online in the near future (Blue Origin, Orbital ATK) Government money is still a thing but becoming less so by the day.
opened to private enterprises, asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy.
Based on what exactly? There is nothing preventing asian companies from getting into space now. It's not like the US can tell a company in India that they aren't allowed to launch anything into space. You pretend like the US is incapable of competing but so far the only private companies that are launching stuff into space are based in the US.
but usa is big on preaching free markets but bad at practicing them .
Believe whatever you want but the actual fact is that the US among the strongest advocates of free markets and global trade. Sometimes to a fault. This is unlike countries like China where there are very substantial trade restrictions on foreign companies and currency controls. I would argue that the US isn't especially good at negotiating favorable free trade deals but they keep trying.
So being aware of the fact that dozens of commercial satellites get launched every year makes a person "a space nutter"? Hmm, I guess being aware of the availability of cheap airplane tickets into many countries would make an air nutter? :-p
Ezekiel 23:20
Who said the US was paying for any of it? I read that this is part of an international effort, meaning each contributing country puts in a piece of the project. It's Taiwan's lander through and through. It makes perfect sense, putting things in space is expensive and if I were Taiwan, I wouldn't want to pay for the whole project either. But this late in the game you get just as much credit for contributing to a larger project as you would from doing an entire smaller thing all by your lonesome; see India as an example. Were you confused because the cost of the project was in USD? I for one couldn't even tell you what the currency for Taiwan is much less guess at the current exchange rate, that's why it was displayed that way.
Good. Glad to see you are for individual freedom and divorcing ourselves from dependence on the state. There are many Americans who are not hypocrites about such matters. Look at the revolt going on against Paul Ryan in Wisconsin.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Apparently, stuff built by Boeing/LM... for USAF/NRO etc. equals "NASA" for such people. ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
"capiltalism is not good anymore and the people are more important (dare I say socialism?) "
Socialism never works. Take a look at Venezula.
Crony capitalism is not capitalism. In the 18th C crony capitalism was called mercantilism. Laissez faire (which is not equal to caveat emptor) rose in opposition to mercantilism. Every proponent of the free-market has been against the merging of govt and business (you know all the "good" things that government does) because government involvement inevitably leads to crony capitalism / mercantilism. Everyone from Menger to von Mises to Hayek to Ayn Rand argued for small government because otherwise you get to crony capitalism.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I wonder if there will be a big gold oval sticker underneath it that reads; "MADE IN TAIWAN"
nonsense, space travel can not be profitable for the next 100 years but must be subsidized by government. someone will get the contracts. Musk is pissing away money, Tesla doesn't make a profit
Wrong, it is an agency of the executive branch of the government of the United States
There is no reason to open government funded R&D missions period. To fund a foreign company is just giving research dollars to other countries. The space program absolutely enhanced our technological capabilities in the 60's. An example of utter stupidity was the state of california giving the contract for the bay bridge to china. In the end, it was over budget, held hostage to pay for the overage and in the end all that expensive tooling to build it stayed in china. Giving that contract to a US company would have meant advanced tooling would be retained in the US, not to mention all the US taxes that would have been paid by US workers and companies, who paid the taxes to build the bridge. It is very short sighted to outsource government dollars.
Why did NASA offshore it? Why not build it *here*... or are they saying that "we're not good enough any more", or was it, "they're cheaper, so we'll give them our tax dollars and technology".
It's not so simple: the initial investment is huge, and the returns are slow. ... There are safer investments with higher and faster returns if one has that kind of money, and wants to multiply it.
As with boats and swimming pools, one doesn't buy a spaceship to save money. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Instead of "Made in [mainland] China" I like to see "All made in Taiwan!"
mfwright@batnet.com
NASA is NOT paying taiwan to develop this. THis is a partnership with Taiwan in which Taiwan is paying for their half of this. Basically, they are supplying part of this mission, while NASA is putting it and other items on the ground.
IOW, this does NOT take away from American jobs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I hope none of the parts have been outsourced from China.
"Designed in USA, Assembled in Taiwan from parts Made in China"
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
What would you call Denmark, Sweden and Norway then? I often seem them blamed as socialist, but it does seem to go pretty well.
"Never" is a strong word and can be overstated. So let's say things have worked well there. France became sclerotic; USSR and China and Eastern Europe became hellholes with government led mass murders and starvation. And let's not mention North Korea, Cambodia, Mozambique and other places.
Yes. In the single culture nordic states things have worked out well for 60+ years. Let's see how it does now that they've become multicultural and lose their social cohesion.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
A "metric ton"? So that would be a tonne then. Come on, really.
I don't think anyone said anything about Mars here. I was simply responding to response to a comment about Russians, Chinese, and Indians trying to compete in space operations. Russians, the Chinese, and Indians, if you're not aware of it yet, have been vying for a piece of the launch business for quite some time, with varying results: Russians have lost quite a lot of trust recently in a string of launch failures, the Chinese do have general trust issues (as pointed out by someone else in this discussion) as well as a lack of heavy sat capability, and Indians have yet to develop a launcher capable of more than 2mt to GTO. (The Japanese have all technical things figured out and are reliable but they are also way too expensive.) What I mean I by this was that the argument that "asian companies (and russians) will blast american ones like spacex to bankruptcy" is silly and easily proven wrong because there already *is* a free market - one that was until recently dominated by Arianespace (that one is kept alive by subsidies, mind you!) - but then SpaceX came along and snagged a lot of the business. Indeed, it would seem that SpaceX is actually bankrupting Russians than the other way round!
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I fail to see the relevance of your comment. See the response above.
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Oh, and BTW, I don't have any religion - I'm an atheist - and I don't see how religions have anything to do with this. Furthermore, you're of course right about identical elements being present in other places that are also present on Earth, but you haven't yet explained the difference in their cost in both locations. I'll leave that to you as an exercise.
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Actually, there is one: to save money and get more bang for the buck. Of course you're right about the fact that one can not simply look at two price tags that are close to each other and decide that the foreign one, being marginally cheaper, is preferable, and ignore the other benefits. On the other hand though, the figure of $47M is so ridiculously low for this kind of project that I seriously doubt that even the advantage of getting domestic expertise and complete tooling at home would bring recurring costs to this level, even if the situation advanced to the point of repeated builds. US contractors are not exactly renowned for this kind of pricing. Just a single engine like the RL-10 easily costs more in the US than an entire Russian upper stage, for example. And that's despite the fact that they had the tooling for fifty years and manufactured hundreds of them - the prices are still ridiculous for many US-sourced components. (And a new planetary/lunar lander is effectively just that - a new upper stage project (just one with legs).)
Ezekiel 23:20