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China Set To Launch First-Ever Spacecraft to the Far Side of the Moon, Will Attempt To Grow Plant There (scientificamerican.com)
AmiMoJo writes: Later this week, China plans to launch its Chang'e-4 spacecraft to the far side of the lunar surface. The aim is to land a rover on the dark side of the moon for the first time. Blocked from direct communication with the Earth, the lander and rover will depend on China's Queqiao communication satellite launched in May. If the landing is successful, the mission's main job will be to investigate this side of the lunar surface, which is peppered with many small craters. The lander will also conduct the first radio astronomy experiments from the far side of the Moon -- and the first investigations to see whether plants will grow in the low-gravity lunar environment.
The ultimate goal of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) is to create a Moon base for future human exploration there, although it has not announced when that might happen. Chang'e-4 will be the country's second craft to 'soft' land on the lunar surface, following Chang'e-3's touchdown in 2013.
The ultimate goal of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) is to create a Moon base for future human exploration there, although it has not announced when that might happen. Chang'e-4 will be the country's second craft to 'soft' land on the lunar surface, following Chang'e-3's touchdown in 2013.
How will it grow with no sunlight?
No sig today...
No way they'll succeed. The secret moon base on the far side of the moon will blow up that spacecraft before it gets close. Gotta make it look like an accident though!
Your ad here. Ask me how!
They're planning on growing the same plant they were smoking when they came up with this idea.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First time in quite a while with a story about the far side of the Moon and not the "dark side" of the Moon.
Good job, you guys appear to be actually learning!
Hopefully this will start a new space race, and focus the US on kicking ass in space. We're the only ones to successfully land on Mars, but we shouldn't get lazy and stop boldly going where... Dammit. ST:TNG marathon is what I'll be doing now.
Should they manage to spot any stars from there, somebody's gonna be in deep shit. ;-)
it's going to need fertiliser.
The far side of the moon is where Sam Bell's clones are mining helium-3. It's already been claimed.
Better known as 318230.
If there's no communication with the far side of the moon, how will they know if the plant is growing?
Send out some auditors? A "take my word for it" kind of thing?
There are easier places on Earth to grow pot.
Right now would be a lovely time for someone to discover an alien spacecraft sitting on the farside of the Moon.
There's an International agreement in place for a long time now 'preventing' such a thing from happening, but that only works if every nation on Earth continues to honor it, it's not like it's a binding agreement in any way shape or form.
Considering the way China behaves overall, I wouldn't put it past them, though, to establish a 'colony' (read as: fortified military base) on the Moon, then try to claim the entire Moon as Chinese territory.
Definitely Bamboo
of the Dark side of the moon so that we could see what it looks like. https://www.google.com/search?...:
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
The first picture sent back by the Chinese lander will contain a sign reading "This spot reserved for Elon Musk's Tesla" and a set of tire tracks going to the horizon.
(yes I know the Roadster was not sent to the Moon...)
Seems like a long way to go just to grow some pot. Should just come over to Canada where it's legal now.
Remind me how many far away lands with no historical Chinese identity China has laid claim to, compared to say the USA or UK. China has shown little interest in being even a global military power, their interests are simply the South China Sea and Taiwan and other small islands they've long laid claim to but not had the power to assert the claim before.
If there were a reason to militarize space, you can bet the USA as the world's arms dealer would've done it already. The reason there's no military installation in space is that it makes no tactical sense. It makes your weapons more visible than they are on the ground, and it takes a hell of a lot longer for the weapon to hit the Earth target if you launch it from the moon than if you launch an ICBM from your home country.
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I can't speak for Friar Reimer (whoever the fuck that is). But I have some personal experience in running a grow operation in Oregon.
It will be harder for anyone to spy on a base on the far side of the moon and doing so would come at a higher cost.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
There's an International agreement in place for a long time now 'preventing' such a thing from happening, but that only works if every nation on Earth continues to honor it, it's not like it's a binding agreement in any way shape or form.
Considering the way China behaves overall, I wouldn't put it past them, though, to establish a 'colony' (read as: fortified military base) on the Moon, then try to claim the entire Moon as Chinese territory.
US has already proposed breaking that treaty by starting up the Space Cadets military branch that Trump already proposed. Besides, that, the Black Bird could be considered "militarizing space".
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Remind me how many far away lands with no historical Chinese identity China has laid claim to, compared to say the USA or UK. China has shown little interest in being even a global military power, their interests are simply the South China Sea and Taiwan and other small islands they've long laid claim to but not had the power to assert the claim before.
If there were a reason to militarize space, you can bet the USA as the world's arms dealer would've done it already. The reason there's no military installation in space is that it makes no tactical sense. It makes your weapons more visible than they are on the ground, and it takes a hell of a lot longer for the weapon to hit the Earth target if you launch it from the moon than if you launch an ICBM from your home country.
Historically, yes... and you can include many other Europeans nations in that equation too. Of course the main difference is, when there is a territorial dispute nowadays they let the people living there decide. Tibet, Eastern Turkistan, Taiwan, etc, and other occupied regions wish they had that freedom. Noone living on the moon currently of course- and it wouldn't surprise me it nations did try to divide it up amongst themselves by setting up bases and declaring territory theirs... treaties against that now- but that's changing.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
This is only true if you are using missiles for weapons.
What about using a super-high-powered laser? Of course, that means that any any one time, only half of the planet is actually within firing range, but the time to hit any target that is visible at the moment would still be only about a second or so. The down side is that it might take up to 12 hours for a would-be target that has just swung out of view to swing back in.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Oh please, we all know that their REAL missions is to make contact with the secret Nazi base built on the dark side of the moon.
I mean, hasn't anyone watched Iron Sky?
No, I wrote duck. Like, fuck the duck. Asshole.
the Black Bird? The 1960s era reconnaisance aircraft that didn't go to space? No, that was not an instance of militarizing space.
Yeah sure, and historically speaking, how many warlords have done anything other than conquer their neighbors, then their neighbors, and so on, and so on, in building their empire? The Moon would be an exception simply because it's not part of the Earth, but I could also argue that the Moon is every nations' neighbor, since there's one step to getting there from your country: a rocket. You're not making a good argument for your point at all.
Correct. Although Apollo 8 took plenty of pictures of the far side of the moon it did not actually land there.
Ground based lasers are much cheaper, can be hidden, and can wipe out your orbital lasers before you even know you're under attack. They can also shoot down incoming cruise missiles and short range balistic missiles as well as ICBM's. Putting weapons in orbit is a disadvantage.
Explain how you come to that conclusion.... why do you think that the far side of the moon would be any harder to spy on than the near side? What about the far side of the moon makes it any more difficult for satellites to fly over?
Or do you somehow think that we'd ordinarily try and monitor things on the lunar surface from the ground here on earth using optical telescopes or something?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
That doesn't mean that the original post made much sense though. I'm not sure what kind of secret activities you'd conduct on the moon that you couldn't just as well conduct in a secret lab on earth.
Obviously, but even putting that aside, it still makes no sense at all how having something on the far side would supposedly make it any more difficult to spy on it than something on the near side.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Obviously, but even putting that aside, it still makes no sense at all how having something on the far side would supposedly make it any more difficult to spy on it than something on the near side.
Well the comment about secret bases on the moon was tongue in cheek based on the cliché of secret moon bases... but absolutely it would be much harder to spy on.
The US has a space spy plane that is capable of going beyond the moon but no one else does. There are no satellites or any other space craft that come with in line-of-sight of the far side (and even other electromagnetic signals would be harder to spy on due to the mass of the moon). The near side of the moon can easily be spied upon by satellites from any number of countries without even standing out.
Any intention to spy on the far side of the moon by anyone other than the US space plane, which presumably has other missions to conduct, would involve building and launching a craft to do so at considerable expense.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
My argument is that any intention to spy on even the *NEAR* side of the moon would involve no less of an expense, and so putting a base on the far side would not pose any greater of a barrier than any other situated lunar base.
It's not like you can spy on the moon from the ground or hell, even in earth orbit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My argument is that any intention to spy on even the *NEAR* side of the moon would involve no less of an expense, and so putting a base on the far side would not pose any greater of a barrier than any other situated lunar base.
It's not like you can spy on the moon from the ground or hell, even in earth orbit.
I think you're highly underestimating technology, and it depends on the level of spying that is involved. It's much cheaper and easier to put a satellite in orbit around the earth than around the moon. With no atmosphere around the moon and a powerful lense from an earth orbiting satellite you could definitely see basic structures being built, maybe judge activity too and fro the building (which buildings are being docked with), you could monitor for electro magnetic signals. A lot of this could probably be done with existing satellites in orbit.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
> The US has a space spy plane that is capable of going beyond the moon but no one else does.
Uh... citation?
There's this little thing called google that was invented a few years ago... this isn't exactly secret knowledge (google or the spy plane) - how about you give it a try?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I think you are overestimating optical acuity.
The absolute *maximum* that we could resolve even from very high earth orbit is at best something that is no smaller than about 50 meters or so on the moon... and even then, it would be just a single pixel in size using even the most powerful telescopes that we have today. The only practical way to resolve any appreciable amount of detail that would be required to effectively do any spying on what is happening on the moon is at best from lunar orbit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And I think it's important to point out that this limit is not technological but physical. At a certain resolution you start running into Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which causes refraction to increase as you focus more precise.