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China and NASA Shared Data About Historic Moon Landing (nypost.com)

hackingbear writes: "China exchanged data with NASA on its recent mission to land a Chinese spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the Chinese space agency said Monday, in what was reportedly the first such collaboration since a Cold-War-era-like American law banned joint space projects with China that do not have prior congressional approval," reports New York Post. "The Chinese space agency's deputy director, Wu Yanhua, said NASA shared information about its lunar orbiter satellite in hopes of monitoring the landing of the Chang'e 4 spacecraft. China, in turn, shared the time and coordinates of Chang'e 4s scheduled landing. He added that while NASA's satellite did not catch the precise moment of landing, it took photographs of the area afterward."

In response to the question about why would China allow this exchange given that the U.S. has put technological obstacles to China's lunar exploration program and refused to issue visas to Chinese experts, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, "China could have chosen not to offer the relevant information to the U.S., but as a major country, we should act with the posture and bearing of a major country. I believe what Mr. Wu said has shown the confidence, openness, and broadmindedness of Chinese aerospace engineers as well as scientists and researchers and China's confident and open posture as a major country."

9 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Scientists should set a higher example by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Especially in space, countries should share everything they can and set an example for the rest of humanity of how we can all work together - a great reason for all nations to continue exploring space BTW.

    I realize there are very valid military reasons why some things like rocket technology maybe cannot be shared between countries that are at odds. However there's no reason at all we cannot all share data about what we find out there...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. There are reasons for the US prohibitions, and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    good reasons for the recent data exchange.

    Reasons for the recent data exchange:
    1. It serves the interests of all nations operating spacecraft within an area to exchange basic telemetry so they can, for example, avoid collisions.
    2. In this case, it would serve the interests of China to have the US publicly admit and even photograph (if possible) one of their space successes - giving obviously solid proof of a far away event to a wold mostly unable to verify it for themselves, much as the Soviet confirmation of the American moon landings in the '60s and '70s did.

    Reasons for the prohibitions:
    1. The Chinese science and military space programs are one-and-the-same; they're completely unified - so there's no way any sympathetic politician in the west can offer political cover when encouraging supposedly peaceful cooperation.
    2. The Chinese military has a long track record of thresatening to nuke the USA.
    3. In the 1990s, several American companies (Loral, Hughes...) wanted their satellite customers to be able to use cheap Chinese launch vehicles (which were failing at an alarming rate) in place of American and European launch vehicles, so they illegally transferred a bunch of launch vehicle tech to China. This had two major effects: [a] it enabled the Chinese aerospace industry to damage the American and European launch vehicle industries, and [b] suddenly Chinese ICBMs became far more reliable and accurate.

    An orbital launch vehicle is just a more capable ICBM. As anybody with an aerospace background knows, if you can accurately place a large payload into orbit, you can more easily place a nuclear warhead on a sub-orbital launcher and hit any city on Earth. What that transfer of tech did (in addition to making some executives and share holders of a couple of companies a bit richer) was to enable the Chinese military to more effectively threaten to kill all the American taxpayers who paid to develop the technology. As a military vet, I personally resent the fact that the executives involved were not tried for treason and executed by firing squad. The Chinese military, yet again, threatened to nuke the USA just within the past week - THANKS, Loral and Hughes!.

    The Unites States and Russia do not, to this day, exchange complete information with each other. They cooperate with the tech data needed to make systems interoperable (like docking systems, atmosphere standards, and such) and if the cooperation with China could be limited to that then there'd be nothing big to worry about, however too many American scientists and businessmen have spent 20 years proving they will not self-limit their tech transfers to China (see: Apple, Google, IBM, Motorola, etc) Nearly every major American company has sold-out to China, as have most American universities.

    All the "peaceful cooperation in space" drivel that is so often spread by idiots usually ignores the existence of nuclear warheads (which in the case of China are not constrained at all by ANY arms reduction or limitation treaties).

  3. The Chinese can do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They already have a wall.

  4. Who are the adults in the room? by nicolaiplum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The summary you need:

    "Why did you cooperate with the Americans in space when they are being so rude in other ways?"

    "Because we are sensible adults".

    --
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
  5. Re:Bing bong, derp derp. by Joce640k · · Score: 2

    Scientists unite the world, Politicians divide it up.

    (and guess what the human race is electing to run it)

    --
    No sig today...
  6. Re:There are reasons for the US prohibitions, and. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    I'm told that Mutually Assured Destruction is good for peace. In that case, shouldn't the US have simply given the Chinese their space tech? Just to keep everyone even, and dissuade anyone from launching.

    Seriously though, China got most of it's early space technology from Russia by simply buying it. Then they put vast resources into building their own talent and technology up too. Basically the same as the US after WW2, starting out with Nazi tech and expertise and then developing their own off the back of it.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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  7. Re:There are reasons for the US prohibitions, and. by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

    ...so they illegally transferred a bunch of launch vehicle tech to China

    FYI, the Clinton administration approved the transfer in 99.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1999/0...

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  8. Re: Bing bong, derp derp. by AlwinBarni · · Score: 2

    And this information is from ... ?

    US collected moon rocks were sent all over the world for research and as gifts - so far no country complained, including USSR (former Russia), which was at the time in cold war with US, which was able to monitor all the communication - yes, EM waves from the Moon can be received by anybody, and in 1970s there was no digital communication - all analog.

    Not to mention that there are photos of the landings.

    There is no discrepancies between USSR and US moon rocks - you're lying (in case you want to prove otherwise, please keep in mind that here everybody knows how much efforts it take to create any website with any lie, so any reference would had to be legitimate).

    Some technical knowledge would let someone check, that Saturn V was capable of sending payload to the Moon, considering it's size and burning times.

    There are instruments left on the Moon, and the laser reflector is used till this day to measure the distance, with proper equipment might be done by an amateur.

    conspiracy theories debunked

  9. Re: Bing bong, derp derp. by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2

    There are instruments left on the Moon, and the laser reflector is used till this day to measure the distance, with proper equipment might be done by an amateur.

    There was a short blurb about some folks doing this very thing.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower