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Space Science Technology

China Outlines Moon Project Goals 413

Posted by timothy from the step-4-profit dept.
Kulic writes "SpaceDaily.com is reporting that China has announced 4 scientific goals for their Moon project. There are three general goals - orbiting the Moon, docking spacecraft with one another in lunar orbit, and returning moon rock samples to Earth. Each step is outlined, with a detailed description of what they hope to accomplish during the orbiting stage. It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."
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China Outlines Moon Project Goals More

China Outlines Moon Project Goals

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  • Go for it! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:16AM (#7452740) Homepage Journal
    It's good to see another nation making a dedicated push towards space exploration. Perhaps it will help redirect US endeavors in that direction as well - at the very least, it's a good way to boost high tech education and business in the US, which is struggling in the face of global competition (i.e. software & IT outsourcing).
    • It's good to see China will waste billions on manned spaceflight just like the US.

      ON the downside, the derivative technology will mean better missles that can strike the US more accurately.

  • What?! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Walterk ( 124748 )
    Just probing? I mean, that's all fine and dandy, but NASA and ESA did plenty of that. We want moon bases damnit! With Chinese restaurants of course! What good is space tourism, if you can't have a nice walk on a different planet or satellite and enjoy a nice dinner by earthlight.

  • Wha? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:22AM (#7452777)
    "It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."

    Is this opposed to, say, the "do it all at once" approach?

    The Chinese have put a man into orbit. That's a great success for them, considering there ain't too many other countries that have done it. But just assuming that, hey, it's a short trip to the moon is naive. There's no way they would have been able to take another flight straight to the moon, if only for lack of experience.

    -Erwos

    • Is this opposed to, say, the "do it all at once" approach?

      Since this is the approach the US used from a similar starting point, the Gemini & Mercury era, yes, as opposed to the "do it all at once" approach!

      The Chinese have put a man into orbit. That's a great success for them, considering there ain't too many other countries that have done it...

      Only two other countries, the USA and Russia. Three if you want to count the now defunct USSR and Russia seperately. Nobody else has built the hardware

  • Researches on the shape, size, distribution, and density will be made on the crates on the moon.

    Crates, eh? Jesus; did these SpaceDaily people use Babelfish is something?
    • Crates, eh? Jesus; did these SpaceDaily people use Babelfish is something?

      Yeah, I think they used Babelfish or something, maybe a junior translator (sorry, you're on the hook for your grammar and word choice when you're criticizing others').

      For instance:

      This lays a foundation for the further estimates of the content, distribution, and quantity of helium-3 which is power generating fuel caused by nuclear fusion.

      where they meant:

      This lays the foundation for further estimating the content, distribution and

  • It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach.

    Well, of course they're taking an incremental approach! What did you expect? A light speed trip to Alpha Centauri, then the moon landing?

    Perhaps I'm being too literal. :-)

    z

  • Foreign Aid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dr_Emory ( 181130 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:29AM (#7452828)
    The Economist recently pointed out that China still recieved huge wads of international aid (premium content, no link, sorry). Sending men to the moon is a noble goal, but maybe it's something they ought to do on their own nickel.
    • Given their intentions, I'd say that if they manage to achieve their goals of profitable lunar mining then they will be able to return that aid with interest. Whether they will or not is another matter of course, but they could well become the wealthiest nation on the planet if they can pull this off.

      In a way it's kind of like how to spend aid in a country suffering from famine. Spending all of the money on food and water is a short term solution, but building a robust irrigation system will fix the pro

    • Re:Foreign Aid (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:00AM (#7453071) Homepage Journal
      China doesnt need foriegn Aid. The total US budget for forieggn aid is like 13 billion dollars. The US trade defecit with china is about 115 dollars. Thats 115 biullion dollars that go to build new chinese factories, start new chinese industries and go into chinese taxes. Chinas military spending is about 50 billion dollars a year. So youre right, it is being done thgouth international "aid" but that aid is in the form of people voluntarily buying products made by chinese companies.

    • Re:Foreign Aid (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:33AM (#7453328)
      Everyone receives "international aid". Britain receives tons of cash from the EU to aid run-down industrial areas, to say nothing of the farm subsidies. The reason there's so much China hating going on at the moment is that they're running a positive balance of trade with the US; ie the US is gradually owing more and more money to China through normal trade relations. China is running its economy the model WTO way and is getting the rewards that an industrialized country gets for doing that. The US doesn't like it because it's being outcompeted.
    • International aid is usually audited and meant to go towards humanitarian and other noble projects. Space exploration is no doubt funded by tax money. Now, there may be ways that international aid goes into one bucket and empties from another. Bear in mind that in spite of that, "international aid" is often nothing more than a dressed up trade agreement. This makes it rather more akin to "we'll give you a billion dollars. You spend about 80% of it in our country, and we'll call it quits"...

  • To Americans and others (Score:3, Interesting)

    by L-s-L69 ( 700599 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:29AM (#7452834)
    Stop slagging china off for been "30 years too late". The US was driven to the moon in an attempt to show off superier tech to the russians. China on the other hand has a series of plans leading to mining the moon, or even settling on it.

    Whos knows maybe moonbases will become a relatity in my lifetime.

    • And also, don't forget that Chinese education is effectively 10 years behind, because of the Cultural Revolution in the 60's (when kids basically did not go to school for 10 years, and little scientific research was conducted).
      • Unfortunatly,the cultural revolution & xiafang movement set china back more than 10 years. When you stop doing anything for a period of years, then you can't just jump back in where you stopped. This is especially true for education, which relies on the knowledge of teachers being passed onto students. If the teachers have missed some education because it was interrupted, they cannot pass it onto their students. Unless there is a dramatic increase in the education of Chinese outside of China, then i

    • Re:To Americans and others (Score:4, Interesting)

      by spinkham ( 56603 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @12:16PM (#7453686)
      You apparently don't know much about China. China is a socialist country much like th USSR was. In China, everything is about appearances. For example, when the Olympic committee came to Bejing to see if it was a suitable sight for the olympics, the Chinese government ordered every factory in the area shut down for a week beforehand so that the usually horrid smog would die down.
      My in-laws live in Bejing at the moment, and the propaganda there is interesting... There's only one channel in English, and it's a government channel telling how wonderful China is.
      The Chinese government blocks CNN, MSNBC, and most all western media. All news comes through the government sponsered tv channels, or through the "rumor train". We often know about things going on over there before they do.
      When we were at war in Iraq there was nothing on but sad music and pictures of wounded children...
      In China, you are told what school you will go to, what you will study, where you will live, and until recently, where you will work. You need a permit to be able to move to a city, and many families(like husbands and wives families) are split up because they can't both get permits to live in the same place.
      Throughout school they have a class they call Propaganda(well, not really, but an equivelant word in Chinese) that is just that, all about how bad the west is and how wonderful China is. How Chinese medicine is so wonderful and western medicine is bad(My inlaws masters biology students don't really think that viruses and germs cause disease, and that if they opened their windows to let the Chi flow and excercised, they wouldn't get SARS. Most of them contuined to eat from a common bowl because it's the chinese way, and their strong chi would keep them from getting sick...)
      China is building the worlds largest ferris wheel and going to the moon purely to make themselves look good. If they can set up a moon base it won't be primarily to make money, though I'm sure they wouldn't mind that. It would be much like our space race, to prove that we're better then them.
      • When we were at war in Iraq there was nothing on but sad music and pictures of wounded children...

        Your world view is pretty fucked up. On our TV we had joyous orchestral, almost movie like soundtracks, with fancy computer graphics overlaid over a sanitized view of the war.

        And you slate their "propaganda"?

        Throughout school they have a class they call Propaganda(well, not really, but an equivelant word in Chinese) that is just that, all about how bad the west is and how wonderful China is.

        And you wer

  • new space race please (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kippy ( 416183 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:32AM (#7452852)
    This is exactly what NASA needs right now. A kick in their complacent, idle butts. As you can read in my previous post [slashdot.org] ,I think that NASA needs to have a similar goal-oriented approach to their mission. Perhaps if we get shown up by what had been a second world country, we will get back into the Apollo mindset again.
    • What "had been" a second world country? Unlike first world and third world denominations which depend on how industrialized you are, "second world" just means a socialist or communist state. They can be the most successful country on the planet and still be a second world country if they're communist, so I don't think that particular denomination will shame NASA.

      It worked well during the cold war, because there was the whole "capitalism must win over communism before communists take over the world" mind

      • What "had been" a second world country? Unlike first world and third world denominations which depend on how industrialized you are, "second world" just means a socialist or communist state. They can be the most successful country on the planet and still be a second world country if they're communist, so I don't think that particular denomination will shame NASA.

        True enough but they're jumping on the capitalism bandwagon so fast, it won't be long until they are a de facto capitalist state. Elections will
      • That definition of first/second/third world made sense during the Cold War, when the world was neatly divisible into three roughly equal blocs. I'm not sure it does any more. Russia is no longer communist*, but I think it's reasonable still to call it "second world," along with other nations that aren't desperately impoverished but are clearly not up there with the first world nations such as the US, Japan, and Germany -- a few examples that come to mind are India, Brazil, and the Phillipines, none of whi

    • Re:new space race please (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cyno ( 85911 )
      I agree, but I think we have more problems than just being lazy. We have a big problem with our culture. We seem to care more about money than eachother, which is why we let those astronauts die.

      This is a big problem, far worse than laziness. And it must be addressed. It cannot be ignored. Yet we're still in denial.

      Just look at how congress reacted to the report given to NASA. Look at the rhetoric we use when discussing these problems. We understand this, but have a hard time admitting it to oursel
    • Close, but not quite. This is what the world needs right now. NASA, USA, they're has-beens. Americans have all but stuck their collective heads in the sand, thinking they're the only superpower left, calling other countries "second world" etc.

      Hopefully this'll spark more action in other parts of the world, like the European Community, India, Brasil. You laugh at India and Brasil? Look at it this way... the more these countries start getting into complex hi-tech projects on their own, the more they will mat

  • Go China :) For humanity! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by POds ( 241854 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @10:32AM (#7452860) Homepage Journal
    >>It looks like China is serious about their space
    >>program, and is taking an incremental approach

    Well, at least someone is. Also incase anyone hasnt noticed :) China will be the most, without a doubt the most wealthy nation by far. Im not going to speculate when this happens, but im sure they're already only second to the all mighty USA. So looks like they'll have enough money to keep it going into the future.

    Exciting stuff!
    • Well, at least someone is. Also incase anyone hasnt noticed :) China will be the most, without a doubt the most wealthy nation by far. Im not going to speculate when this happens, but im sure they're already only second to the all mighty USA. So looks like they'll have enough money to keep it going into the future.

      Overall, yes, they are second behind the US. But per capita GDP, [photius.com] they're down around 129th. Just below Albania and Ukraine, and just above Paraguay. I think they still have some work to do.
  • Now I know how the vikings would have felt watching Cortez leave for the new world. Maybe we shoudl have stuck around there for a bit longer...

  • Rare metals? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MrKinkade ( 676107 )
    So, I'm not a scientist, but what are the chances that the moon habours a great deal of precious metals or minerals? I'm certain there's going to be a lot of abundant metals like iron etc but what about the stuff that could add incentive to the high cost of going to the moon and bringing the stuff back? If there was enough of it you could get some commerical interest from LUNAR PROSPECTORS.

    I don't know how easy it would be to get a pack mule into a space suit though.

    • Re:Rare metals? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:33AM (#7453331)
      So, I'm not a scientist, but what are the chances that the moon habours a great deal of precious metals or minerals? I'm certain there's going to be a lot of abundant metals like iron etc but what about the stuff that could add incentive to the high cost of going to the moon and bringing the stuff back? If there was enough of it you could get some commerical interest from LUNAR PROSPECTORS.

      Essentially zip. Even if there were huge deposits of anything interesting (there are some higher levels of rare earth elements in the lunar soil), the costs of getting there and back far exceed the costs of mining reserves back on Earth.

      Some people have postulated that since the Moon has no atmosphere, the very fine regolith has been soaking up the solar wind for billenia. Part of the solar wind is helium 3 (light(er) helium) which is essentially absent from Earth. He3 *might* be useful in the future if we ever get fusion working and commercially viable.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

  • Is there some kind of international agreement dictating ownership? Or is this like the new world - a first-come, first-served queue?

  • how ironic, and foretelling. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:01AM (#7453078)
    the romanized spelling of their mission is simply 'change'. (Chang'e I)

    guess we oughta get used to the idea that only china has something left to prove politically in space, and the resources to do it.

    combine their drive, resources, and that they learned from the US situation and are sticking with proven technology specifically designed for the mission at hand -- and China will either meltdown or raise the bar outside our atmosphere.

    it's gonna be a different world when you have to learn Mandarin to vacation on the moon.

    • Re:how ironic, and foretelling. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zhenlin ( 722930 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:21AM (#7453240)
      Chang'e is the name of a princess, who, according to Chinese legend, lives on the moon with a pet rabbit - having jumped there after consuming the immortality potion, and obviously trying to escape the wrath of an angry husband.

      And now, the ship that will enable the Chinese to get to the Moon is named in her (mythical) honour... It isn't ironic - it's poetic.

  • And of course (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:06AM (#7453113) Journal
    Now we know where those 500 billion dollars in foreing investment in china have gone.

  • As usual... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zeux ( 129034 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @11:07AM (#7453138)
    when a new Chinese Space Mission update is posted on slashdot some people start to complain:
    - China has other problems and moon is not a priority
    - Been there done that they are 30 years late

    You have to know that China is not spending ALL the money on space travel. It's working on its own problems right now. It's a developping country but the thing is it's a hell of a developping country with almost a billion workers that are about to create the biggest market in the world.

    You did that 30 years ago... ok. And what ?

    What about doing REAL space and moon exploration instead of a big show off like the Appolo program was ?

    China is planning actual exploitation of moon ressources within the next 50 years. They could really become prevalent in the future just because of the bargain they are doing today. Imagine if they manage to set up a full moon base.

    They would become prevalent in energy, astronomy, vacuum manufacturing and space exploration. You should think about it and maybe the US government should try to spend less money on war and maybe a little more on space exploration...

    • Re:As usual... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by FroMan ( 111520 )
      when a new Chinese Space Mission update is posted on slashdot some people start to complain:
      - China is the bastion of freedom and support for all its citizens (put the blinders on and ignore the civil rights abuses)
      - They are the most advanced in space technology (minus the russian support and research and copies of russian tech)

      You have to know that China is not spending ALL the money on space travel (but everytime a US develops a weapon, its all the US spends money on, not research for AIDS and cancer).

  • So I guess China doesn't need foreign aid anymore (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eatb ( 644261 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @12:22PM (#7453749)
    I find it strange that a country that requires so much foreign aid ($1.8 Billion according to the Economist) can afford to have a space program. Perhaps it's time to cut them off...
  • Wicked! So when I finally get to the lunar colony (I plan on being immortal), there will be Chinese take-out. Way cool. :-)

    I'll take the #12, the MOON Goo Gai Pan. Hee hee!

    As Tom Cullen said in The Stand, "M-O-0-N. That spell's Chinese! Laws, yes!"

    Hey, can you achieve proper Feng Shui in a cratered environment?

    Just as long as the Indians don't beat them to it. Man, then even the vacuum would smell like curry.

  • "All your [moon] base belong to us!". ;-)

    -psy

  • NASA Goals (Score:3, Funny)

    by rossy ( 536408 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:27PM (#7454362) Homepage
    In response to China's 4 Moon goals, president Bush has recommended Outsourcing NASA [internetweekly.org]. The current 4 goals of NASA administrators: 1) Qualify JB weld for in-space repair of foam damaged wing leading edges. 2) Talk to Halliburton about constructing up ground based communications station and alternate shuttle landing site in IRAQ. 3) Do a google search, find out what this MARS thingy is all about. 4) Upload Resume's to monster.com see if China is hiring for space development work.

  • China vs. US (Score:5, Funny)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @03:47PM (#7456023) Homepage
    China:
    1) build spaceships
    2) launch humans
    3) launch humans to Mars

    US:
    1) build space ships
    2) hire venture capitalists
    3) hire managers to impress venture capitalists
    4) hire managers to impress managers
    5) rebuild space ship different way to impress managers
    6) file chapter 11 and close

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