China Targets 2018 For Landing Probe On Far Side of Moon (reuters.com) 101
An anonymous reader writes: Despite all the time we've spent studying the moon, nobody has ever deployed a probe to its far side. Now, China has announced that it plans to land a probe there in 2018. The craft they plan to send is similar to the Chang'e-3 probe with its Jade Rabbit rover. They plan to study the geologic conditions on the far side of the moon. "China insists that its space program is for peaceful purposes. However, the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted China's increasing space capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis. In March, the Chinese government said it would open up its lunar exploration program to companies rather than simply relying on the state-owned sector as before, hoping to boost technological breakthroughs."
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The gobi desert is already part of china, I don't think they need to rule over more dirt. There isn't really anything precious on the moon, except perhaps the dust which can be used in fusion reactors one day.
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Guess we'll just have to park some satellites up there. So much for radio silence in the region.
Re:Would make sense for a military base. (Score:5, Interesting)
While I can only assume you are joking, isnt it insightful that the US DoD thinks it should raise issue with the Chinese having a space presence, when all they are doing is playing a long delays game of catch up to the US?
Surely by the same interpretations, the US has already pursued 'activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis'?
But no, this is after the CHINESE, not the people who are the defenders of goodness and freedom that is the US of A.
I can only imagine that the Chinese well know that destroying markets for their own produced goods would greatly advance their success..
Oh, wait a moment, that makes no sense at all. Silly me.
Re:Would make sense for a military base. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Chinese have tested anti-satellite weapons, which is what the USA has raised objections to, and the USA has not done though presumably could. Their moon program obviously has no practical military dimension.
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The US has tested anti satellite weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The US performed two tests with two different systems. The one above destroyed a satellite.
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"let's not forget that they [China] intentionally created a whole bunch of dangerous and unwanted space debris back in 2007 with an anti-satellite missile test. Nothing peaceful about blowing up satellites."
As in "no other country*1 would do that"?
*1 Except, of course, USA.
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"let's not forget that they [China] intentionally created a whole bunch of dangerous and unwanted space debris back in 2007 with an anti-satellite missile test. Nothing peaceful about blowing up satellites."
As in "no other country*1 would do that"?
*1 Except, of course, USA.
Well, the Soviet Union did it too. We and the Soviets at least had the taste to pick satellites orbiting closer to the atmosphere, so the debris wouldn't be around for a century or so.
Re:Would make sense for a military base. (Score:4, Informative)
It's easy to forget this which happened 1 year after the 2007 test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You got this right though, "Nothing peaceful about blowing up satellites."
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As the article you cite shows, the U.S. had as least the pretext trying to prevent an accident by an already de-orbiting satellite and the remains of the destruction de-orbited within a few months.
Now of course the U.S. could just have had its satellite de-orbit on purpose but even then this launch could be seen as a demonstration of U.S. capabilities necessary after the Chinese test to uphold mutual deterence ("If you kill our satellites, we will kill yours").
Re: Would make sense for a military base. (Score:2)
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Civilian and military work have been tightly linked since the very start of the space age. Half the purpose of launching Sputnik was to test a new rocket that had been developed for use as an ICBM. And even today, in the new age of the commercial space industry, they're still tightly linked. Notice that United Launch Alliance, one of the three companies that's been awarded a launch contract by NASA, is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing--both major defense contractors.
So if China is devel
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its quite strange nasa would not even send one prob or rover to the far side of the moon, or even have a perm satelite around the moon, like they have 3 around mars.
The moon isnt boring, they are just lazy asses.
Re:Would make sense for a military base. (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Presumably you mean dark like basalt. Otherwise, only half of the moon is in darkness at any one time. Several days ago the dark side was the near side, as I assume everyone here on /. knows.
BTW, this mission was widely reported in the press as aiming for a landing on the dark side of the Moon. At least here on /. they got it right: the far side.
Eek (Score:5, Insightful)
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Monolith Location (Score:2)
Isn't that where the monolith lies?
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No, now they use multi-threaded Lisp.
Good thing about landing on far side of Moon (Score:5, Funny)
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I think neither of you has ever looked up at the moon in the sky, or you'd have noticed you always see the same side.
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I think neither of you has ever looked up at the moon in the sky, or you'd have noticed you always see the same side.
Never seen the moon? Quick, do a google search.
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I have bad eyesight, you insensitive clod!
Re:Good thing about landing on far side of Moon (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. The "outer" side of the moon NEVER faces Earth. That's the whole reason why it's being called "dark side of the moon". Not because it's perpetually night there (why would it be, the Earth is not what illuminates the moon) but that we have NEVER seen it before we sent something behind the moon.
It's tidally locked [wikipedia.org] to us. Anything on the backside of the moon we will never see from here.
Re:Good thing about landing on far side of Moon (Score:5, Informative)
Partially correct. We get to see 59% of the Moon's surface at various times, but not all at the same time.
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First of all it is called "far side" of the moon.
And yes, idiots call it the "dark side" because they don't grasp it is just like the other side: half of a 'month' it is 'day' there and the other half it is 'night'
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"Dark side" was used in the sense that it was unknown to us, like "Darkest Africa" (Africa also used to be known as "The Dark Continent"). "Far side" has become preferred because people misinterpreted "Dark Side", and anyways it's not unknown anymore.
Dark in the sense of radio silence (Score:2)
The far side is not always dark to sunlight, but it is dark to radio transmissions from Earth. Also "Darkest Peru" in the sense of unexplored wilderness.
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The Far Side? Moon? I thought it was this: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini... [pinimg.com]
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Achievements in ignorance. The Moon is tidally locked and always presents the same side to the Earth. Due to the fact that the Moon's orbit is not perfectly circular, there is some wobble, but about 41 percent of the Moon's surface is never seen from the Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The Soviets used to launch probes in secret, and if they failed, never acknowledged their existence. They'd number the probes only after they were successful. It would be like Microsoft saying, "What Vista"?
Vista was more like Hubble (Score:2)
Windows Vista was more like the Hubble Space Telescope. Both were launched successfully, usable in reduced functionality mode despite serious flaws, and ultimately repaired in the field. Hubble got a corrective lens, and Windows Vista got Service Pack 1 "Mojave".
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It's amazing how the Hubble scope went from being one of the biggest embarrassments (lens boo boo) to one of the greatest scientific instruments ever, including images that captured public imagination. It's a grand Second Chance story.
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L1 satellites [wikipedia.org]
L2 satellites [wikipedia.org]
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And today nobody has rockets powerful enough to prove you didn't land on the far side of the moon.
Re:Best place to fake a landing these days... (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, we have the LRO, which can image any location on either side of the Moon with 10 cm resolution.
far side of the moon. (Score:2, Funny)
they better bring flashlights.
Re: far side of the moon. (Score:2)
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yesterday it occurred to me that maybe I should think about voting for bernie. I'm feelin the bern!
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Hillary will really start feeling the Bern in just over two weeks!
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Surprisingly on-point.
Sanders campaign's OCILLA mistake (Score:2)
Hillary will really start feeling the Bern
Until his staffers mistakenly DMCA his campaign website off the Internet, like they did with his Wikipedia article [soylentnews.org].
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Why? Daylight last for two earth weeks on the moon.
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Oddly accurate.
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And if you count the other side of the moon, too, it is even four earth weeks :D
Worry about China? (Score:2)
I don't worry about China's space efforts. I worry about those of the U.S. Which nation has invaded countries and been at war for the vast majority of it's history?
Re:Worry about China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both, and China is far older.
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Both, and China is far older.
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that no nation has been at war for as great a percentage of its existence as the USA, if you count things we call "police actions" (we send the military, not the police, so we all know that's a euphemistic bullshit phrase) and whatnot. We've had like two years of not being at war with anything.
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Doing a quick Google search, I found some idiot claiming that America has been at war for 93% of its existen
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"Vision for 2020" https://fas.org/spp/military/d... [fas.org]
Kind of puts the comments about another science probe with interesting communications needs from China into perspective.
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Antarctica!
https://youtu.be/9ZlOhSt_qW0 [youtu.be]
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Sprout a brain. The US "warns" the world about China, Russia, Iran, and pretty much EVERY nation who dares to try to achieve anything unless they're a member of the "Five Eyes." The US is so fucking paranoid it is disgusting, and every single excuse that there is to post a "warning" about the achievements of other nations, Slashdot's "editors" do so.
Obligatory probe of the dark side post (Score:4)
Probe of the dark side of Uranus, looking for Klingons.
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The DoD and china. (Score:2)
First oh now they are worried about china activities in space maybe they can get some of that military cash sent to NASA We could have a rover parked there in the spot china has picked out before china even gets theirs launched. If anyone cared enough about space or space defense to fund it.
Second China is going to open up their lunar program to private companies? I bet their last rover having all its wheels lock up had something to do with that.
Re: Once you get in lunar orbit.... (Score:1)
The aliens stationed there storing the mutilated cattle parts might care.
But I don't think the Chinese are party to the agreements which forbid Americans going back to the moon.
Helium3? (Score:2)
One of the possible interesting things about the moon is the possible prevalence of Helium 3, a rare (on earth) isotope that could make nuclear fusion super-easy. Perhaps it is more common on the far side of the moon?
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I'd suggest that you actually read up on Helium 3, much harder to fuse then H2+H3 but cleaner, and very sparsely spread on the lunar surface, easy to make on Earth as Tritium decays into He3.
As it is deposited on the Moon by the Solar wind, probably same concentration on the far side as the near side.
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Actually, I believe the Nazis used it all up on the far side.
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How do these rumours get started? I thought everyone knew the Nazi's only used D+T fusion, which was why they stuck to the far side of the Moon, didn't want to be detected by the neutron emissions. Luckily they never knew about neutrinos which is how they were tracked down.
What about NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966? (Score:1)
https://tools.wmflabs.org/geoh... [wmflabs.org]
Why are people saying things (not only on slashdot) like "nobody has ever deployed a probe to [the Moon's] far side" Is there a joke I'm not getting?