Chinese Moon Base by 2012 - or 2006? 978
apsmith writes "Former congressman and House Science chairman Robert S. Walker has written some rather striking conclusions about Chinese intentions in space over the next few years, based on information received for the recent Commisison on the Future of Aerospace. Walker is convinced the Chinese are going all-out for a permanent settlement on the Moon within 10 years; apparently some closer to the situation in Japan think the first landing will be in only 3-4 years. Meanwhile the Economist says IT people are starting to focus on space as the next high-tech venue. Fortunately, despite NASA's neglect, we do have a few private missions to the Moon in the works."
"Fortunately" ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought this was like Antartic : a Free (as in... uh?) place.
Why did we steer away? (Score:2, Interesting)
I touched it, I'm done..
I've seen countless reasons on why we should base to the moon but have never understood the reasoning for manning to mars before we've settled our closest orbiter.
-M-
Let's Help Them Out (Score:5, Interesting)
I really think space is not something that should be done alone by a nation, though. I think we should see how we can help or team up with China in some way. It could be the common bond that finally helps us get over this mini-me cold war that we have going on with them.
Space exploration should no longer exist as a competitive sport. Write your representatives and let them know that you support US cooperation with China in space.
Good! (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I'm hoping that only #1 will happen. Competition is good. See what's happened since we lost an 'opponent' in the space race? We've grown complacent. Having another space will be good for just about everything (national pride, the tech sector, the economy in general, innovation, etc).
Awesome! (Score:3, Interesting)
Long Term Plan? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoever has the moon, has the Earth. If anyone is thinking of entering an expansionist phase, it would behoove them to set up shop there. They are at the top of the gravity well, we're at the bottom.
I am sure there are
I like to maintain a positive outlook, but that is much easier with hindsight rather than foresight.
]3
ps - I didn't have anyone in mind when I mentioned entering an expansionist era - if you associated the remark with any particular geopolitical entity, that was your own doing!
Will a Sino-Lunar base be our Sputnik? (Score:-1, Interesting)
Most of the younger
The danger here was that any rocket large enough enough to loft a sattelite was also large enough to place an H-bomb (created with stolen American designs) right in Central Park, or the Pentagon. No longer could America depend on it's flyboys to protect itself against the Red Menace. Russia held a cocked and loaded nuclear pistol to the Free World's head.
Once any schoolboy with a Tandy radio kit could listen to the Commie Sputnik satellite circling the Earth, the need was clear. If America was going to regain the lead in the space race and keep the world free of the Communist menace, we must buckle down. Science became trendy, academics became more important, the nerdier geekier sort who inhabit
And it paid off, America was the only country to put a man on the moon.
But now, the Red Chinese are racing to have the first permanent Moonbase, and if you don't know how dire that is, reread Heinlein's "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress". Do we want to live in a world that's under the constant menace of Commie rocks from the Moon, cracking down on our religion, way of life and democracy? Do you want to live ina world where you can have only one child, and have to worship Confucius? Do you want to have you one child taken away to a creche, and be forced to live on a communal farm? Maybe this can spur more people into the hard sciences, and fewer into business and law.
No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
As a fellow dreamer, I can't think of a better outcome to the dotcom-dotbomb cycle than the kick-off of a vibrant commercial space industry. (Well, maybe the immediate cessation of world poverty and the industrial destruction of the environment. But the chances of that happening even with a couple of motivated dotcom dreamers at the helm, are probably close to nil. At least space doesn't have too much in the way of entrenched powers that prefer the status quo.)
Govt Paranoia (Score:2, Interesting)
If China do press ahead with this plan, we should expect tantrums from the US.
Re:Wakeup call (Score:2, Interesting)
My opinion: All the US (or the UK, Japan, the EU, Australia, etc etc) needs to do right now is rig up a space elevator and an orbital solar/microwave power station. Whatever country or collection of countries pulls this off will be able to play in space all they want, sell the experience to others (step 3: profit) AND get awfully cheap power. Not an easy task, but certainly more practical and IMHO much more beneficial than a moon base.
Get this rolling along and pull off a moonbase with more ease and better resources. I mean, it would be a real kicker to conduct research (the moonbase) off a profitable operation (elevator and power) instead of dipping exclusively into taxes.
What about #3? (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, this is a distinct possibility. If they have the willpower to do it, they WILL pull it off without US help or competition. Personally, I hope this or some collaborated(sp?) effort is the case because I really want to see more people in space and the expansion of the human race beyond the thin atmosphere between us and the rest of the universe. Granted the moon is just a baby step (and we're talking a baby atom here) on the cosmic scale of things, but we need to start somewhere, and if the currently most active space program on the planet will not do it, then let someone else. We ARE all human here anyway.
Along these lines, there have been some other posts to this story about the financial problems and the probable lack of commercial return from these ventures. I say to that, Who the hell CARES??? This is the future we are talking about here. This is the possible expansion of the human race. Personally, if I could be around in 20,000 years to see it, I would really like for the Galaxy to be much like Isaac Asimov wrote in his Robot Series and Foundation Series. There is still all of the good and bad of human nature, but we will be free of these earthly bounds and able to go just about anywhere we please.
Not to sound cheesy (and Trek-y) but Space really is the final frontier, and I think we (as a species) need to get off our lazy earth-bound asses and get out there to see what we can find. We really need to work harder to make science fiction into science reality, IMHO.
Of course, I really am just a clueless, idealistic dreamer, but perhaps if there were more people like me and less business-y, money grubbing, power hungry jerks in the world then perhaps we would already be out to Mars and on our way to Jupiter, Saturn, or even Proxima-Centauri...
Sorry for the huge digression and the rant, but whenever I see stories like this and people putting down those who try (not the parent post, but others in this story) it makes me a bit hot-headed (well...the beer helps too).
"Knowledge is power" - Sir Francis Bacon
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
I think the human race needs to take those quotes a bit more to heart. We need both more "small steps for man" and more "giant leaps for mankind".
Again, sorry for the rant. Goodbye Karma.
Re:why even bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless humanity explores and pushes itself, it will stagnate. Space exploration provides a unique focus for that talent, and for all we know there may be very tangible rewards for the effort. For starters we would learn an enormous amount about space habitation, oxygen and waste recycling, crop growing, genetics, be able to do proper drilling and geological surveys. And ultimately, perhaps even establish a colony on another planet. If that's something not worth striving for I don't know what is.
Re:Gosh, free speech? Freedom to assemble (Score:2, Interesting)
Ever been to China ? I worked there. The Chinese are doing what the Chinese have always done: been overwhelmed and absorbed the invader. Time after time, century after century.
Believe it or not there ARE problems with US and European "democracy"- like we don't have it.
Until you understand and see that nothing will change. No compulsion, just look at what folks like the EFF Amnesty and others are saying.
If they get a lunar base, bank on it that it will be heavily militarized and its top priority will be to learn how to drop rocks on American cities
How much notice would you get ? Quite long enough to launch a retaliatory strike before the rock even arrives. You read too much Heinlein.
Re:Wakeup call (Score:4, Interesting)
You might not want to live on the moon. Your kids might not want to live on the moon. But if the human race doesn't get some skills in living away from this little blue bubble, we're not going to be able to:
We will need to be able to live away from the Earth at some point in the future. It's going to cost money sometime, but we have the technology to give it a try now. To learn from our mistakes and do better next time.
It shouldn't matter what country does it. However, if we're going down the "but that's my tax dollar" path, I'd rather my tax dollars went towards space exploration rather than some stupid war in Iraq.
Re:Good for them! (Score:3, Interesting)
China has nukes and ICBMs. They could nuke New York tomorrow. They would suffer the same response whichever method they used.
Also, it takes a few days to travel from the Moon to Earth, so there would be plenty of time for countermeasures (the Pentagon would surely have lunar observation satellites in place long before).
Re:Long Term Plan? (Score:4, Interesting)
Get away from your science fiction books and your fake Seven of Nine porn and try to understand something instead of perpetuating the "ignorant American" stereotype.
There's a reason you posted AC.
Re:Good for them! (Score:3, Interesting)
I always thought it was to do with it being too damn expensive after the initial novelty had worn off.
I wasn't around at the time, but I hear the public got pretty jaded pretty quickly; for a very expensive one-shot system, why bother?
That's my inner-politician speaking, by the way, not how I really feel. Or is it?... I'm not sure now.
India vs. China -- the new Cold War (Score:5, Interesting)
Bruce Sterling wrote an interesting Wired column [wired.com] about the budding Cold War between India and China. Sterling reminds us that India is also interested in a space program, largely for the same reasons America was: symbolism and prestige.
As Pakistan weakens, India is starting to view China as its principal rival for South Asian hegemony. "India and China are comers with a lot to prove to the world, and especially to each other," Sterling writes. "Nuclear India versus nuclear China is Kennedy versus Kruschev, and Reagan versus Gorbachev, all over again. Now, as then, a space race is a sexy alternative to nuclear annihilation.
"China has openly declared its desire to colonize the moon. The world's most populous nation is unlikely to build lunar settlements, but that's not the point. China's motive lies not in constructing a lunar Hong Kong, but rather in luring India into a loud public competition. Later this year, if all goes as planned, China will become the third country to send a citizen into space. An orbiting taikonaut will be even more impressive if American shuttles are stuck in their hangars while the misnamed International Space Station limps along with a skeleton crew."
Sterling's conclusion sent a shudder of surprising revulsion through me: "A decade after the end of the Cold War, good old-fashioned space programs still matter. Not for exploration's sake, but to settle new cold wars. If you doubt it, imagine this scenario: It's 2029, and a lunar mission lands at Tranquillity Base. A crew of heroic young Indians - or Chinese - quietly folds and puts away America's 60-year-old flag. If the world saw that on television, wouldn't the gesture be worth tens of billions of rupees or yuan? Of course it would."
Re:The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Score:1, Interesting)
It's not just "We can destroy you." It's also "Look HOW we can destroy you."
Re:Gosh, free speech? Freedom to assemble (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All About New Technology (Score:4, Interesting)
BUT, that same researcher will be given money to develop a means of turning human waste into fuel so that a human can be sent to Mars and back.
It's about time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good for them! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is, of course, based on the precept of cheap, FTL star travel.
Bear in mind that one of Heinlein's other great novels, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress", featured a near-term Earth-Moon hostility.
It was based on the freedom-loving Lunar people rebelling against an Orwellian "Authority" on Earth....a not unlikely scenario. ;-) Um, that is unless the Chinese maintain an iron hand on the moon. :-/
Look at Antartica (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, possession is 9/10ths of the law. The only way to prevent someone else from establishing sovereignty onver something is to be there yourself.
Permanent base in 10 years? (Score:2, Interesting)
If anyone can do it, it will be the Chinese, but I doubt it will be that soon. I think rather that the time estimate is more of a way to spur the US into action.
What will they do? Throw rocks at us? (Score:2, Interesting)
America stunned the world by landing on the moon in the sixties. Think about that, in just the 1930's most Americans didn't have electricity or own a refrigerator, but in just about forty years we landed on the moon. We pushed our technology, and our engineering capabilities to reach out into space and touch something other than the earth. Now we can't even do that. Read Walker's statements in the above article and he confirms it. I can't help but think, how could we lose this capability in only 35 years, less than the time it took for us to go from a country without power to a world power?
Most of the technology in Sci-fi regarding the moon (2001 anyone?), we know to be possible in theory. If the Chinese get to the moon, and if they get their base built they will be the ones who either prove or disprove those theories. I can only hope they have the creativity to sustain their own research while there. I used to think if we got there we would start to find new ways to use or technology and develop more while we are there, now I am not so certain. But if NASA keeps going at things the way they are, then we will never know, but we will have more HBO's and MTV's than you can shake a stick at. As much as I love modern entertainment, it does not push our creativity.
Lastly, we need to have a presence there. As does the EU, Japan, India, Russia and China. It needs to be a free space, and be represented by all nations. It is the ultimate high ground. I saw someone else post about Heinlen, and quote Lazurus Long. I will now quote a different book, "What will they do? They have no weapons. Will they throw rocks at us?" (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) Yes that is exactly what they could do, and probably would. I imagine the damage a four or five ton rock could do dropped from orbit as far out as the moon. Not the best of pictures right there.
Well that's the end of my rant. Basically I feel that damn it I want my country to be better than it is. And we keep giving up on that which could make us great, and maybe even memorable in history.
The source is suspect (Score:2, Interesting)
An aerospace industry commissioner recommends investing in developing aerospace technologies. Surprise surprise.
Re:Good for them! (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, China could nuke the US. Thing is.... we can shoot back. A chinese colony on the moon? Is out of range by a hell of a long way.
There's also the cost factor to worry about. An atomic missle is an extremely delicate, precise and expensive piece of hardware.
Rocks are cheap.
'The first nation to establish a permanent presence on the moon will determine the course of human history.' - Robert Heinlein (paraphrased from memory so the quote may not be exact.)
Moon Resources? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:A Chinese Base? (Score:2, Interesting)
It took a Saturn V to get 3 men, a LEM, miscellaneous equipment (cameras, sample boxes, etc) and all the associated life support systems (water, air, food) to the moon. Then they also had to have equipment to get them back to earth (a large and heavy heat shield, for one thing).
According to this [cnn.com] page, the weight of the Service Module and the Command Module was about 63,500 pounds. You can fit a lot of cargo in to that.
Re:Water's not the only liquid in universe (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gosh, free speech? Freedom to assemble (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this current administration is quite capable of systematically persecuting atheists in a "roundup" scenario, and I believe that they would love to. The only thing that keeps them from it is the fact that most people in the country are more tolerant than they are, and they would lose too many votes by "rounding up" and brainwashing/executing/imprisoning non-Christians.
Ashcroft is entitled to his religious views, but I'm also entitled to think people that are that uptight are insane idiots.
Besides, the statue is government property, and thus, at least on paper, owned by the people of the USA and subject to the Constitution. If it offends his morals, tough shit.
The Bureau of Religious Conformity is called the Supreme Court, if you haven't heard. The justices appointed by republicans don't vote with the law, they vote with their bibles. God himself votes republican, at least, that's what every preacher in the USA would have you think.
Re:Gosh, free speech? Freedom to assemble (Score:1, Interesting)