India, China, and Japan Are All Planning Moon Missions (upi.com)

schwit1 shares an article from UPI: India will make its second mission to the moon in 2018, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced this week. The Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft consists of an orbiter, lander and rover configuration "to perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface," the ISRO said... Several other countries, including China and Japan, are planning lunar expeditions in the coming years -- partly to better understand the moon's environmental conditions for the potential of human settlements...

According to Popular Mechanics, the ISRO is attempting to make the lunar landing on a budget of $93 million, which is about the same cost of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket that's scheduled for launch by the end of this year. The Falcon rocket, though, is only going into orbit -- and a $93 million price tag for a lunar landing could have impact on other countries' space plans.
India landed a spacecraft on the moon in 2008, and plans to complete this second lunar landing by March.

Comments

Re:Thanks Obama

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Actually, the reality is that the USA has left space behind. If other countries feel the need to re-enact 50 year old Space Theater, that's their problem.

Good, America can't afford this nonsense anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many trillions wasted on war and entitlements. Human spaceflight cannot be justified based on its enormous costs and risk vs paltry scientific return vs unmanned missions.

Re:Thanks Obama

[kanweg]

"At least we have the electric car fad."

Please print your comment, and put it in a place where you'll find it back in 5-10 years.

Bert

Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Need more reparations, pride festivals and feminist outrage to destroy the West.

Why the Moon and Mars?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what I don't get about these plans to inhabit the Moon and Mars: even with temperatures and oceans rising, the conditions on the Moon and Mars will still be less hospitable than on Earth, and going there will still be more expansive than adpating for conditions here on Earth.

Let's say temperatures rise by 10 degrees celsius and oceans by 2 meters in the next 100 years, will conditions then be worse than the current conditions on the Moon and Mars?

I am all for space exploration, but is there really *any* reason to settle on the Moon besides enabling us to go further into the Solar System?

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[techno-vampire]

...is there really *any* reason to settle on the Moon besides enabling us to go further into the Solar System?

Isn't that enough of a reason? And, if we can learn how to build a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, it will be much easier to build one on Mars. Not only will we know what to do, we won't have to do all of the exterior work in hard vacuum.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[Brett Buck]

Depends - If that warming of the earth / flooding and all the other resultant changes have led to world wars, tribalism and human societal collapse then yeah, maybe I would rather be living in a biodome on the moon.

Of all the things that might keep me up at night, it's wondering what world my children may have to deal with when they're my age.

      You know what worries me? It's that we are going to have generations of children raised by people who taught them both directly and indirectly to be terrified of anything and everything. And by people who have absolutely no sense of perspective.

      You are here, a putative adult, expressing existential fear over the modern equivalent of the boogieman. Your grandfather might have been willing to storm out of a landing craft into a hail of well-planned machine gun and artillery fire, your parents had to live with the very real and immediate possibility that every airplane that passed over might just have dropped a 1 megaton bomb on your your school, and it was very close to happening on at least 3 occasions. Now, you are living in the lap of luxury and security, but are terrified by a computer simulation?

      Even if the most absurd climate predictions come true in every detail, you assume it will destroy human civilization? People have dealt with one problem after another, successfully. Human civilization survived The Plague, for Christ's sake, something that they had absolutely no defense for, and just had to sit around, hour after hour, day after day, for decades, not knowing if the next time they coughed it might mean they are dying in the next 48 hours. Now a slow, perhaps mythical, rise in sea level is going to reduce the world to chaos?

    Are you at all aware that people have worried about equivalent issues, all far more likely than this gibberish, for the entire span of human history and probably far before? Ever hear of Holland?

        Teaching your kids that everything is always on the edge of falling apart and we are helpless to do anything over trivial problems is the WORST POSSIBLE THING you could do for the future of civilizations.

      Your post is one of the most pathetic things I have seen in my 56 years. Grow the fuck up and learn to deal with REAL LIFE.

Re: Why the Moon and Mars?

[Namarrgon]

It's far from mythical.

It is not, however, an existential threat. It will not cause Western society to collapse (though some more vulnerable nations may not be so lucky).

It will be very expensive to deal with, and I expect that is what the GP is most concerned about (but not "terrified", as you seem to prefer to believe). Maybe look up how much the Netherlands has spent on its dyke system, and consider the cost of that for every coastal city on the planet. Have a look at what New York spent after Sandy's storm surge, and is now spending on new levees.

And that's just sea level. Have a look at all the other negative impacts described in the IPCC WG2 report, maybe read some of the many studies that attempt to count the net cost - and you too may be concerned for the sheer size of the bill any kids of yours will be stuck with.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[coastwalker]

Listen sonny (I am two years older than you). No one needs to teach their kids anything these days when we have 24/7 advertising telling them that they will die if they do not eat the right breakfast cereal, kill their children if they do not buy the right car, fail to breed unless they spray themselves with perfumed stuff. No wonder everyone lives in a state of existential dread when they are being told all the time that they are under threat. Most of what is wrong with the world can be blamed on the psychological damage that advertising causes. Of course they are bloody scared of everything, they spend their whole lives being deluged with button pushing threats to make them buy stuff they do not need. No wonder they have no sense of perspective. As for moon landings, who cares? they don't make hedge fund managers any richer so we don't do them any more.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[phantomfive]

Actually it did not. It collapsed and stagnated for 500 years and more.

The plague was in the 1300s, coinciding with the start of the Renaissance, one of the greatest flowerings of society in history. I'm not sure why you think it collapsed, especially stagnating for 500 years or more (Goethe, Mozart, and Kepler all fall into that time period, for example).

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[thinkwaitfast]

Wouldn't a biodome on the Earth be better? Even with a 20 degree increase, it will still be hundreds less than on the moon.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[thinkwaitfast]

You know what worries me?

This worries me the most too. You do realize that critical thinking is discouraged in education these days and consensus building encouraged. Read up on Morley Winograd, Senior Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore. and Director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[thinkwaitfast]

Population and technology increased during the middle ages, if that is the time period that you are referring to.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[thinkwaitfast]

Why not start out someplace much easier, like Antarctica? You can make many more and significantly cheaper mistakes, then maybe try moving to the moon.

I'd really like to know what the economy of a moon colony would look like. Would it be a bunch if unemployed people sitting around watching netflix in 1/6th g while waiting on their resupply ship from Earth twice a year?

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[DNS-and-BIND]

It raised later again, but that is not what I would call surviving.

This is literally what surviving means.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[thinkwaitfast]

because most of them would be busy...

Why can't that be automated? We're bombarded almost daily with stories about how there's no more work on Earth because all of that stuff is about to be automated here.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[angel'o'sphere]

There where several plagues.
The first one around 500, and between roughly 500 till roughly 1400 there was not much progress.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, I would say technology more or less stagnated, except for firearms and a little bit bigger ships.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[angel'o'sphere]

So dying and getting reborn also means surviving?

Mankind survived, single humans did not.
And neither did civilization, just because a new civilization rose up again.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[techno-vampire]

Some of it may be, eventually, but at first, they'll be too busy building and expanding the colony to automate everything. And, I doubt that automated equipment like that is going to be a high priority import from Earth for a very long time. Of course, I could be wildly wrong here, but that's how I see it, especially if they're planning on using their experience by building a colony on Mars, where rapid resupply isn't practical.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[phantomfive]

Aw if you want to go on like that, plagues are basically a constant. Look at what happened in Islam and Persia during that period, humanity as a whole went forward.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[DNS-and-BIND]

I feel you don't know what the Black Death was. It did not destroy civilization. Whole parts of the world were completely unaffected. In Europe, only 30-40% of the population died, there were plenty left to repopulate afterwards. It did change the nature of their culture, for the better. Fewer workers meant better terms for them, and Europe thereby avoided a Malthusian famine catastrophe where the population outpaced the food supply.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[Agripa]

And, if we can learn how to build a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, it will be much easier to build one on Mars. Not only will we know what to do, we won't have to do all of the exterior work in hard vacuum.

Mars atmospheric pressure is 99.4% of a vacuum compared to Earth so there is no practical difference.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[angel'o'sphere]

I did not say, it destroyed civilization.
The parent said: civilization survived.

Which it did not. Civilization stagnated between 500 and 1500, with various drops in level, for what ever reasons.

Re:Why the Moon and Mars?

[RockDoctor]

maybe I would rather be living in a biodome on the moon.

Of all the things that might keep me up at night, it's wondering what world my children may have to deal with when they're my age.

If you're living in a biodome on the moon, accept that you wouldn't have any meaningful control over your reproduction. Probably "unauthorised reproduction results in death for child and both parents", for whatever authorisation standards your society comes up with.

Re: Why the Moon and Mars?

[Namarrgon]

The biodome mention was obviously hyperbole, so maybe don't take that comment too literally.

And as for cost - first, a few percent of GDP would cause another recession, and that cost every year adds up pretty fast. Second, climate costs accelerate as we move further away from our norm so that annual cost would only grow. Third, those studies I mentioned all show that mitigation costs a lot less than adaption, so financially we'd be foolish not to act. Fourth, we'd avoid a lot of the more existential risks that become significant when climate changes this rapidly, and those are hard to plan for. And fifth, getting off fossil fuels has the added benefit of saving the hundreds of billions that the US currently spends each year on pollution health costs - that should also be factored into any real accounting of costs and benefits.

Re:Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Justi

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Yes, Mother Nature is flawed. After all, what are hospitals, antibiotics, central heating, surgery, air conditioning, sewers, treated municipal drinking water for? For that matter, clothes?

What about cancer? That's a flaw.

So what are you really trying to say?

India's mission

[OneHundredAndTen]

We'll see how they tackle the toilet problem - a technology that they have yet to master here on earth.

Re:India's mission

[sysrammer]

Butt-a-boom!

Re:India's mission

[blindseer]

The captain goes on his head. The rest of the men go over the side, because they don't have any heads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

To the Moon, Alice!

[turkeydance]

take India, China, and Japan with you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Thanks Obama

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Actually, the reality is that the USA has left space behind.

"From this moment on, it's going to be America First."

"For many decades, we've enriched foreign space industry at the expense of American industry."

"Subsidized the space armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military."

"We've made space rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon."

"I'm gonna build a big-ass honking wall between us and space!"

One Laptop Per Astronaut . . . ?

No space left behind . . . ?

Re:Thanks Obama

[murdocj]

Right... because visiting all of the planets of our solar system, orbiting some of them, landing rovers on Mars, sending probes into interstellar space... none of that counts if we don't occasionally drop a lander on the moon.

Big deal!

[Ol Olsoc]

You go to the moon. We're doing the real high tech work of re-opening coal mines.

Re:Big deal!

[sysrammer]

There you go. We'll still need coal-mining techniques for the moon. You know, to extract all the remains from the dinosaurs that got blown off the planet from the last comet.

Plus, while everybody else is trying to shelter under their solar-panel farms because they forgot how to dig a hole, we'll be living in great underground caverns, housing all of our excess coal-miners from Earth.

Re:Big deal!

[Ol Olsoc]

There you go. We'll still need coal-mining techniques for the moon. You know, to extract all the remains from the dinosaurs that got blown off the planet from the last comet.

Plus, while everybody else is trying to shelter under their solar-panel farms because they forgot how to dig a hole, we'll be living in great underground caverns, housing all of our excess coal-miners from Earth.

I like the spirit of your post, but caution that most of what we do is strip mining or mountain topping.

Re:Big deal!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Man, Trump really triggered you with his sympathy for coal miners. You won't shut up about it, and I see it get injected into irrelevant conversations all the time, which means it's in your brain constantly. Boy, it sure bugs you that those oppressed rural working class people have someone to represent their interests now. Burns you up, 24 hours a day.

Re:Big deal!

[Ol Olsoc]

It was coal powered industries that took us to the moon. Anyone that thinks we can return to the moon, or go beyond, using windmills and solar collectors is a fool.

I'm not certain where I said what you seem to think I said. You need to show me.

Or are you saying that we will not be able to go anywhere now if we don't increase coal production? I can play your game too.

We are reaching the physical limits of chemical rockets. We can use chemical rockets to get to the moon and back but if we expect to get people to Mars or Venus then we will need nuclear power.

We tried solar power on the moon, on Mars, on comets, and so much more. It turns out that solar power gets pretty weak out at Mars orbit.

Sure. But you've made a pretty big strawman out of a lame joke about where America's priorities are now.

Re:Big deal!

[Ol Olsoc]

Man, Trump really triggered you with his sympathy for coal miners.

Triggered is such an amusing word. As for sympathy for out of work coal miners, I live in the area and I have plenty of sympathy for the workers.. I'm also realistic enough to know that we could strip out every bit of coal around here, and they aren't getting their jobs back. Automation allows a few men to blast and strip huge amounts of coal. Hell, the post stripping land reclamation might employ more people.

You won't shut up about it, and I see it get injected into irrelevant conversations all the time, which means it's in your brain constantly.

While your concern for me is touching, it appears you pretty much exemplify the concept of being triggered. Hard to imagine anyone taking my one liner as anything other than a joke, but it has angered you quite a bit. Relax fam. Life can suck, but there's no reason to make it suck worse by walking around looking for something to get outraged about.

Boy, it sure bugs you that those oppressed rural working class people have someone to represent their interests now. Burns you up, 24 hours a day.

I should make a study of the strange strawmen and bizzare and incorrect conclusions that some people can come to in support of self validation.

Well bro, I was born and raised in coal country. Many of my relatives worked the mines, and a few died in them. I could have gone to work in either the limestone mines or coal fields, but the writing was on the wall even way back in the late 60's. This was a field that was going to lose people. The draglines were getting bigger, and the archchetype of hundreds of coaldust covered men working away underground with steam drills was fading fast.

I got out. Turned out I made the right choice based on rational decisions, not inertia or thinking that everything was going to stay the same. Today in either field, a few men can harvest in weeks what used to take hundreds of them decades to remove. The jobs are not coming back, and the very few new ones will require moving away from family, which is not popular.

If we want to help these people, we need to steer them towards fields that are going to employ people. Makes sense maybe?

Unless you are encouraging a makework project the likes that old FDR would love, where we revert to pre steam drill days, and start shaft mining again, men using pick and shovel and donkey carts to remove the coal. Those little donkeys were cute for sure. That would be pretty socialist. But it would employ a lot of people.

Regardless fam, you should stop projecting your anger onto me. Simple jokes are meant to be laughed or groaned at, not to have you pretend I am angry and "triggered" when it is pretty obvious that person is you. Laugh a little at life, it is absurd.

Re:Big deal!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well if you actually have any sympathy, you might want to lay off taking cheap shots at them. Just a thought. DURR HURR COAL HURR in a conversation about India and China's moon missions. Super-off topic and inflammatory.

Re:Big deal!

[Ol Olsoc]

Well if you actually have any sympathy, you might want to lay off taking cheap shots at them. Just a thought. DURR HURR COAL HURR in a conversation about India and China's moon missions. Super-off topic and inflammatory.

You don't even know who I am taking the shots at. Just as a refresher, The present administration cynically used the concept of putting coal miners back to work in an effort to procure votes in the states that were affected by the downturn in the coal industry.

For anyone keeping up with the news - why it wasn't obvious that they were the ones I was aiming at is curious to me, but I guess you must know on some level, given your umbrage.

The fix for disappearing coal miner jobs is to enable employment opportunities for them in other industries.

It is not repairable by a return to the 1950's. Which is the crux of my lame joke, that other countries are going to overtake us while we're busy trying to relive the past.

That is all. Enjoy your anger.

Re:Big deal!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yeah! Because all a 54 year old father of three needs to do is move to New York City, call around to some friends, and get a job in publishing.

A lot of people there were really optimistic that the solution to technological unemployment was to teach unemployed West Virginia truck drivers to code so they could participate in the AI revolution. I used to think this was a weird straw man occasionally trotted out by Freddie deBoer, but all these top economists were *super enthusiastic* about old white guys whose mill has fallen on hard times founding the next generation of nimble tech startups.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017...

Re:Big deal!

[david_thornley]

That's true regardless of whether Trump or Clinton or Superman is President (OK, Superman's not native born...). Getting a new job is going to be hard, and technologically displaced people need serious assistance.

However, Trump's the one talking about getting the mines open again and the coal mining jobs back, and that very simply isn't going to happen, and Trump doesn't want it to anyway. That gives false hope, and diverts people's attention from what needs to be done to help these people.

Fundamentally, the ability of someone with few skills to make a decent living just by working hard is going away, and isn't coming back.

Re:Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Justi

[PopeRatzo]

So what are you really trying to say?

Brother, are you really asking an AC troll for clarification?

Re:Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Justi

[50000BTU_barbecue]

I am being silly, aren't I?

Re:Good, America can't afford this nonsense anymor

[Anonymous Coward]

So we spent too much on war and now we can't afford spaceflight? Or are you saying we should not spend the trillions on spaceflight, so that we can spend it on wars?

Come on, General; you can spare a few billion!

Re:Thanks Obama

[LifesABeach]

I'm planning on a trip to the moon. I'm just waiting for the price to go down, in the off season.

Re:Thanks Obama

[thrich81]

Thanks for that, it needs to be said every time an article like this comes up, it seems. And, it's not like the US has abandoned the moon; NASA has had the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter operating in orbit around the moon since 2009 where it is still operating and returning scientific observations. And NASA has the two ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun) spacecraft operating in orbits around the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 Lagrangian points (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/news/artemis-orbit.html)! So that makes three NASA lunar observing satellites currently in operation.

Re: Space is fake. Earth is flat.

[sysrammer]

Trolls are answering trolls now. We need to create a honeypot somewhere to distract them to.

India, China, Japan...

[wisebabo]

... and Elon Musk! I think I read that he might be sending a manned spacecraft around the moon (and back).

Seriously, I'm not too worried (or impressed) by other nations repeating something that the U.S. did fifty years ago and that now a private citizen is developing the technology to do himself (ok his company).

And even if India's effort is cheaper than a NEW falcon heavy, will it be cheaper than one of his reused rockets? One that's been flown a few times? A dozen times? Once these space powers make reusable rockets, I'll be more worried but I won't be (as) impressed. Why? Because as I think most engineers will tell you, just KNOWING that something that was previously thought impossible/extremely difficult is doable is half the battle (and that's assuming that these nations intelligence agencies haven't already stolen all of Space-X's plans). (That's why the Russian Concordski and Rutan weren't as impressive as the originals. However Sputnik certainly was!)

Can I join in?

[Gabest]

I am also planning a moon mission. My piggy bank is already half full.

Re: Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Just

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Obama for helping the commercial spaceflight companies get off the ground, investing in actual science rather than publicity and proving a Black man can be just as good if not even better than a White president. Also a big thanks to Trump for showing that White supremecy is a myth. I mean one look at that bufoon and people can no longer take the idea of "master" race seriously anymore.

Re:Thanks Obama

[iggymanz]

left space behind? I'm pretty we have a few missions in progress right now, with a few more exciting ones launching next year even.

Re: Thanks Obama

[yes-but-no]

I believe India crashed an orbiter onto moon; a far cry from "landing"

Re:Thanks Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have to start somewhere. Besides, it isn't as if the US has shared all of the data and experience they gathered 50 years ago with the rest of the world.

Good for India, China and Japan. American arrogance has left us with an Idiot in Charge, a crippled Space Program, and a dependence on Russia to fly to the ISS.

Some Earth zones are contaminated.

[slew]

In the Moon there are Plutonium traces from the past lunar missions.

On the Earth, there are Plutonium traces from the past nuclear accidents/tests.

At least on the Moon, we *know* that radiation exposure from any Plutonium contamination is orders of magnitude lower than exposure someone would get from *natural* radiation sources (e.g. cosmic rays, solar particles, etc) since unlike the Earth, the Moon has no magnetic field to protect it.

Re:We could be doing cool science like this too!!!

[thinkwaitfast]

Well, at least we traded it for the SCSC (twenty times more powerful than the LHC).

Re:Thanks Obama

[haruchai]

"More like the American People have other spending priorities right now"
Right now? When was the last time America didn't have "other spending priorities"?
Considering that it's in 31st place globally for life expectancy, right above CUBA, for fuck's sake, those "other spending priorities" need to be looked at.

Re:Thanks Obama

[ChatHuant]

Look, space is nice and stuff, but the country has finite resources and they must be used on the most urgent issues. Rich folks desperately need a tax cut right now, so let Japan or India go to the moon while American leaders focus on the important things.

Re:Meanwhile, America/Europe planning Social Justi

[KingBenny]

i, for one welcome our new competititve overlords but it always strikes me at funny how both the united lobbies and the free world actually never make the slightest mention of the EU (which is lol, and 15 years ago when i was shouting that i needed to get out of here they just chained me to the place somehow) ...
and thats the less funny bit ... (but we do have lenghty government sessions on wether you're allowed to listen to your mp3 in france if you bought it in americas)
thats a fact .... and i hear in Paris the terrorists have gained a sense of community too, they try shooting cops over civilians now for a while ... and STILL, it wasnt the chinese who invented them right, but you can't say that, cos that's anti-american and "ARE YOU ONE OF THEM PERHAPS" ?
and Trump had drones , right ? who cares about sustainaility, anyone remember colonel Santiago from the sid meyer game ? the apex of military power ?
well today the apex of military power is a base on the moon and a sattelite web cos if you can't even launch your nuke 100 meters far then what are all your fighter jets for LOL
but lets be PC, and lets kick those mexicans and trannies out, first, you're right

Re: Thanks Obama

[leslie.satenstein]

Sadly, because of the current USA foreign policy and the undoing of signed agreements, the. USA has lost it's number one position in the world. Countries are aligning themselves with the new number one. Number one today is China. China has a word, and keeps it.

Re:Thanks Obama

[iggymanz]

You are very ignorant of the U.S. space program's extent, plenty of missions have been recently launched. Plenty in 2016, plenty in 2015, etc. etc.

Re:Thanks Obama

[haruchai]

"Rich folks desperately need a tax cut right now"
Agreed. Give us your tired, your think-they're-so poor, huddled masses of triggered billionaires, yearning to be tax-free.
And what about that extra $1.5 trillion hole that will find its way into the debt as a result, while the Party of Fiscal & Personal Responsibility holds sway?
Er, well,erm... BENGHAZI, URANIUM ONE, LOCK HER UP....why, oh why, is the DOJ not investigating Crooked Hillary??