Chinese Lunar Probe Lands Successfully 250
China's Chang'e 3 moon probe made its intended landing earlier today, setting down softly in the moon's Sinus Iridum, as reported by Reuters. From the article: "The Chang'e 3, a probe named after a lunar goddess in traditional Chinese mythology, is carrying the solar-powered Yutu, or Jade Rabbit buggy, which will dig and conduct geological surveys. ... China Central Television (CCTV) broadcast images of the probe's location on Saturday and a computer generated image of the probe on the surface of the moon on its website. The probe and the rover are expected to photograph each other tomorrow. ... The Bay of Rainbows was selected because it has yet to be studied, has ample sunlight and is convenient for remote communications with Earth, Xinhua said.
The rover will be remotely controlled by Chinese control centers with support from a network of tracking and transmission stations around the world operated by the European Space Agency (ESA)."
Kicking up the lundar dust (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, this landing may affect NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer operation:
http://www.space.com/23675-china-moon-lander-trouble-nasa-ladee.html [space.com]
Images from the surface (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a cool animated gif [postimg.org] of the descent imager pictures of the landing, and a false color image [twitter.com] of the surface.
Re:First (Score:5, Interesting)
Curiously, in my youth in the 60's, we referred to Luna-9 as a "hard landing", and the first "soft landing" was Surveyor 1 three months later. Now, it's clear that the Luna 9 lander really was a soft landing (similar to the landings of the Mars Pathfinder and Spirit/Opportunity rovers) and we were just ragging on the Soviets.
Re:They have the money to do this (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question is how the Chinese intend to continue their exchange rate manipulation (aka the peg) without buying lots of treasuries.
The exchange rate moving to a free market will change the world. In the meantime China will learn the downside of keeping it's exports cheap.
Re:First (Score:5, Interesting)
Luna-9's pictures were sent back using one of the standard encodings used for wireless newspaper photography transmission. During the transmission, the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in the United Kingdom was listening in (well, wouldn't you?) and the astronomers there recognised the encoding, phoned someone at the Daily Express, and as a result the first pictures from the surface of the moon ever were printed in a British newspaper while the USSR was still wondering what to do with them.
There is some speculation that the encoding scheme was picked deliberately to make sure this happened...
Re:They have the money to do this (Score:4, Interesting)
Not good enough. They would drive up the currencies in the gold producing regions, not the dollar and euro as they need.
Re:First (Score:5, Interesting)
The lander had a mass of 99 kilograms (220 lb). It used a landing bag to survive the impact speed of 22 kilometres per hour (14 mph).[2] It was a hermetically sealed container with radio equipment, a program timing device, heat control systems, scientific apparatus, power sources, and a television system.
If the whole thing weighed 220 lbs., where would you even fit a meaningful 1966 computer? Never underestimate persistent human beings.
Amazing success! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They have the money to do this (Score:3, Interesting)
The WSJ? Really, a bunch of conservatives writing about the demise of a country they perceive as a threat. LOL.
I'm in China and all I can tell you is that you still haven't even seen half of what's coming. The only issue I see is the high cost to acquire real estate, but the Chinese being what they are, just tackle the issue by making it a top priority or a must in a family to buy the house first and then get married. So the main thing is that they are used to a lot of hardships Western people would not be able to endure for a week, especially the jobs where they treat you like crap and only pay 3000 yuans. But by basically eating 10 yuan noodles every day and actually saving as much as they can, the Chinese thrive. Sorry but humankind need to go through periods of crap to become better and the Chinese had their fair share and now they will just keep going up for at least two more generations from what I see. Even the 1-child policy had the unintended effect of making a large portion of the population a lot more educated since families poured all the resources in their single child instead.
So again dude, you still haven't seen the half of it. If you want to get a glimpse, go to Chengdu, the New Century Global building and you will see what I'm talking about.