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Moon Space Science

The New Moon Race 212

Posted by Zonk from the make-the-jump dept.
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has a pictoral and editorial look at the quickly-heating second race to the moon. A Japanese orbital probe is expected to reach orbit of the satellite sometime today, just one of the dozens of projects now aiming to exploit Earth's orbital partner for scientific and business gains. 'The next lunar visitor may come from China. The Chang'e-1 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off near the end of October. It is slated to study the moon's topography in 3D and also investigate its elements. Chang'e-3 is a soft lunar lander that is scheduled to fly in 2010 ... If all goes as planned, the United States and India will have astronauts on the moon by 2020, China by 2022, and Japan and Russia by 2025.'"
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The New Moon Race More

The New Moon Race

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  • Apollo's archives (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:38PM (#20859529)
    Does it really take 13 freaking years to dig up the notes from Apollo program, dust off/refresh the equipment and relaunch? Did we take such a big step back?

    • Re:Apollo's archives (Score:5, Funny)

      by andy1307 ( 656570 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:42PM (#20859607)
      Maybe the original set is really really dirty.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      Yes.
      The notes on the Apollo are useless. They were based on technology and more importantly, process of the time.
      • Except, you see, if you produce a spaceship made with the exact technology of that day, you can fly it just the same.

        Of course, it would be so much better to upgrade most of the design, but at least no one can convincingly claim it takes so many years to go back to the moon.
        • No you can't, for the same reason you can't build a car from 1969, a stroller from 1969 or a power plant from 1969. Our priorities are so different now that virtually no product made in 1969 would pass all the various safety and regulatory hurdles required now. The car wouldn't pass modern emissions or safety regulations, not by a long shot.
          • In Canada, you can drive an old car with no seatbelts. If they weren't originally there, they can't make you install them. You can also drive these old cars, regardless of emissions standards. Basically, the reason is that there's so few cars that it isn't such a big problem, and most of them are used as collectors items, so people don't drive them hundreds of miles a day.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      Von Braun's body lies a moulderin' in the ground so we aint got the moon no more.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by isaac ( 2852 )
      The USA, like most countries, doesn't have it's shit together like it once did. Even the hot military-industrial-complex shit that enabled the space race is no longer together, having more or less collapsed under the weight of too much money to be made doing fuck-all. (Compare the UH-1 Iroquois to the V-22 Osprey.)

      The folks who still have their shit together, like Google, don't need to go to the moon. They've got other ways to make money - like knowing what kind of waffles you might like to buy for breakfas

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by oatworm ( 969674 )

        The folks who still have their shit together, like Google, don't need to go to the moon. They've got other ways to make money - like knowing what kind of waffles you might like to buy for breakfast.

        Wow. That definitely explains the Google Lunar X Prize [googlelunarxprize.org]. Absolutely. That said, I'm a little confused - no ads for waffles [google.com]? Huh. Weird.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      Well, it takes some time to perform necromancy rituals on the engineers that didn't totally document their part because "nobody will reuse that" "I have better things to do" and "I'll be around anyway"

    • Re:Apollo's archives (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater.gmail@com> on Friday October 05, 2007 @03:53AM (#20864857) Homepage

      Does it really take 13 freaking years to dig up the notes from Apollo program, dust off/refresh the equipment and relaunch?
      Pretty much, yes. There is not only no equipment to dust off/refresh, there are no places building the parts needed to build the equipment we don't have in the first place. We are pretty much starting from a clean sheet of paper and a blank plot of ground.
       
       

      Did we take such a big step back?

      It's not such a really big step back for two reasons;
       
      First, Apollo took much longer than most people think - some parts of it were started as much as six years before Kennedy's speech, though as basic research programs without specific applications. Apollo (the moon version) was only possible at all because the trade studies had already been largely done on Apollo (the general purpose earth orbiter version) and hardware design and development (not research) was already well underway. This is why the pacing item to the landing was the LM - which had to be started essentially from scratch. (The CSM was already well underway, as were the F1 engines.)
       
      Second, because this time (nominally) we aren't devoting such a large fraction of the federal budget to the project. The Apollo era motto was 'waste anything but time', todays motto is 'waste anything but money'. (Even though they aren't doing too well at that.)

  • Sad? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by atari2600 ( 545988 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:38PM (#20859551)
    Did you even read the article?

    China is expected to launch its first lunar exploration satellite later this month; India has plans for a moon launch in April 2008; the next U.S. moon mission is slated for 2008; and Russia could be flying private citizens around the moon and back as early as 2009. All of those countries are making plans to land a spacecraft on the moon by 2012--with astronauts and cosmonauts to follow soon after. Reports say Germany is also interested in joining the space community. Meanwhile, Google is offering $30 million to encourage private teams to land a rover on the moon by December 2012.

    New energy sources...plain old space exploration progress...a moon base...the possibilities are endless and all you can come up with is "depressing"? Maybe you should consider therapy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Romancer ( 19668 )
      I don't want to put words in the posters mouth but I've got a sad feeling about the current state as well. It doesn't come from the actual current efforts though. More the past intervening years between. The depressing part that the other poster may be talking about is that we had all these possibilities before sitting in front of us. New technology that was amazing at the time and all sorts of recent advancements that were supposed to give us the same opportunities that we are looking for this time. But it
    • The depressing part for me is that the shuttle was such a dead end, and that the space program has been made into little more than science experiments and putting satellites in orbit. They've even considered decommissioning the hubble, the most influential telescope in operation. The depression and sadness isn't over the new prospects and the work in space, it's that we went to the moon decades ago and we couldn't go back right now if we wanted to. We allowed ourselves to fall behind, and now every other co

  • Made in China (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Romancer ( 19668 )
    Not to be too cynical, but I've not had too good of luck with the "Made in China" tools and equipment I've used over the years.

    Not that I'm saying they couldn't do it, jus tthat they might want to outsource the parts from their regular factories.
    • Yeah, my new iPod sucks too.
  • I mean, why? In the past there was the propaganda race for space and the moon. Now, it's pretty much useless to go to the moon.

    Moonbase? Big deal, it will be a huge waste of resources. I mean, what can you do on the moon? There's basically a lot of rocks there. Lower gravity? Who cares, we have the ISS for that and even that is a big barrel of pork. The cost to ship everything to maintain a moonbase is huge and the benifits are mostly of the teflon kind. I propose we stay on earth untill we find a way to do

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) *
      I mean, why?

      Well, I think I know why China is doing it. Their manufacturing sector has grown markedly in the last few years and they need materials. They're currently dropping a few billion $AU in our west coast up in the Pilbara region above Perth, just for iron ore. And I've seen research (from my own firm, a global engineering SI) that says there's more than He3 available. They're going to see what they can mine.

      • It would be far, far, far cheaper to buy scrap iron from other countries than to mine the moon. Ditto for pretty much any other material.
      • Not to mention that even if there are no mineral resources on the Moon (unlikely; it's made out of material peeled from the Earth's mantle, which is where we get all our mineral resources today), then it's still a great place for a base to go and intercept asteroids from. And we know that there's tons of resources in asteroids.

        Yeah, the Chinese will probably do it dirtier than the US would, and they'd spend lives to do it. Blood is the standard currency for these sort of endeavours - look at the lives lost
      • Look at how tough mining is even on earth: low cost labor, frequent accidents, huge production facilities. When a couple of miners get trapped, we fuss for weeks. And that's with huge amounts of water, air, energy, and oxygen available, and a complete infrastructure, hospitals, roads, trucks. I haven't seen any economically feasible proposals for doing anything like it on the moon.
        • Yes, but the moon has no EPA regs either; mine the away side and nobody will notice strip mines the size of a major western state. And whereas we might be a bit precious about such eyesores, I doubt if China would care. And as far as consumables go (air etc) well, if the enterprise is big enough that would become an unremarkable sunk cost. And if Chinese miners can feed their families by sending salary home from that far away, they'll take the risks and make the sacrifices.

          I'm pretty sure a lot of weste

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DerekLyons ( 302214 )
        There isn't an element on Earth that would be economical to mine on the Moon. Not one. Not without a price drop in space acess a couple of orders of magnitude above and beyond the most fevered dreams of the most lunatic space enthusiast.
         
        China is sending a probe to the moon for the same reason it (just barely) has a manned space program; because sending stuff to the Moon is what Great Nations Do - and China badly wants to be seen as a Great Nation.
  • has massive implications for technological innovations for the rest of the century.
    When you consider how much modern tech was a byproduct of the space race, only good can come of another one, regardless of who "wins".
    Imagine if there were an open-source entry for such a project. The implications of an open-source license covering the emerging tech that shapes the next century are astounding. Could it ever happen? Not in the opinion of a hardened capitalistic cynic, but, if it did, it would cause a fund
    • Do you think that you could do it for $5 million?

      Oh please...

      You cant even design the landing camera for $5M

      The launch vehicle alone will be way more than $500M, probably by a factor of 2 or more.
    • "Now its just time to buck up and do it. Do it with open source. Now that's a picture I wouldn't mind seeing plastered all over the Associated Press, a picture of a lunar robot with a huge-ass penguin logo on it."

      Why the Penguin? Why not use the BSD Demon logo? It would go particularly well with a mission to the Moons of Mars.
  • If the US doesn't get there before the Chinese, they won't be able to install the flag and make all those foot prints that were supposedly left by the visit in 1969. Then everyone will know the US faked the moonshot.

    Seth
  • orbit running. you wont be able to get to moon by any means by 2010. forget it. youre stuck here.
  • Is that the US would probably have a base on the moon had Apollo never been canned. The space shuttle and ISS set the US space program back 3 decades.

    Maybe someone can explain why a proven and highly effective spacecraft like the Saturn V was retired for the space shuttle, which proved to be more dangerous, complicated, and expensive than NASA ever imagined.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by camperdave ( 969942 )
      Maybe someone can explain why a proven and highly effective spacecraft like the Saturn V was retired for the space shuttle, which proved to be more dangerous, complicated, and expensive than NASA ever imagined.

      The Apollo tech was abandoned because the shuttle tech was supposed to be cheaper, and more reliable. Not only that, but the Air Force was supposed to split the cost. Unfortunately none of these things came to pass. It's easy in hindsight to say we should have stayed with Apollo tech, but we wer
  • The current Administration insists that it is physically impossible to secure the U.S./Mexican border, because the illegal immigrant will find a way to get around any barrier American ingenuity can ever devise. On the other hand, Americans can't figure out how to cross the Earth/Moon border any more, despite having done it 38 years ago. The New Moon Race therefore presents an opportunity to solve, at very little cost, a stunning array of problems. Instead of fences, simply place a few billboards (facing
    • The US government doesn't want the border closed. It provides a huge source of cheap labor that keeps US labor costs down and that's what big business wants.
  • If they could send a person to the moon in 1969 with that technology, why, with today's technology will it take so long? Shouldn't there be some kind of Moore's Law in effect with regard to space travel.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Bad D.N.A. ( 753582 )
      Shouldn't there be some kind of Moore's Law in effect with regard to space travel.

      There is, the cost.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nyeerrmm ( 940927 )
      Moore's law works because they're not running into fundamental limits, but running into practical limits of manufacturing capability and cooling. Unfortunately, the cost of space travel is a pretty solid barrier based on physics (specific impulse, combustion chemistry, and delta-v), and the Apollo design was pretty well optimized; the main advantage we have now is lighter computers and better comm equipment. We can also do some controls stuff, but that will only help so much.

      Significant reductions in cost
  • It's only a race if there's more than 1 player, but China seems 2 B the only player in this race. For US, all the 2008 candidates are pledging to shift money back to aeronautics & Earth science after being wrongfully diverted to a moon program. Europe & Japan don't have any human moon mission plans.

  • Where are the advanced technical plans? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @06:45PM (#20860365) Journal

    If all goes as planned, the United States and India will have astronauts on the moon by 2020, China by 2022, and Japan and Russia by 2025

    The US has fairly credible plans for man-rated lunar launchers in the Ares I and Ares V, spacecraft in the Orion vehicle, and a large lunar lander. It seems to me that if these other nations are to reach the moon in their stated time frames they should be presenting plans for similar very large launchers and space architecture. Yet none are forthcoming. Russia won't get to the moon with a Soyuz or proton. Europe won't get there on an Arianne V. China won't get their with a Long March 4. Japan won't get there with an H2. India will not get there with one of their satellite launchers

    • It seems to me that the US designs everything around eliminating any chance for failure no matter how minute. Engineers will spend months testing the tertiary backup pump for the toilet. Everyone else will just seal the damn thing and shit in a bag for a few days...

      The US is so encumbered by lawyers that it has become afraid of failure. Most Americans think it's better to not try than to fail. Why?

      I think most other places realize that you have to take risks and just do it. Spend a few months designing

  • Beyond the Moon, Looking Toward Mars (Score:5, Informative)

    by Polemicist ( 1166967 ) <thepolemicist@hotmail.com> on Thursday October 04, 2007 @06:52PM (#20860443)
    With the world currently racing to return to the moon, a goal which the US has already accomplished years ago, I think it would be wise to turn our sights instead to Mars. It would be a far greater test of our ability to expand into the universe, being the first possible human habitation on another PLANET.

    Unfortunately, with the current emphasis on returning to the moon, funding for possible Mars missions has been siphoned off (since NASA's budget is definitely not large enough to work toward both goals at once). The Mars mission would also be of great value scientifically, since the rovers currently exploring the planet cannot accomplish as much as a actual human in the same timespan, and being the first country to set foot on another planet would be an event worthy of space history books.

    Robert Zubrin and David Baker have already outlined an inexpessive, easy to prepare mission plan, which also minimizes the risk to the astronauts [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct]. The plan calls for Earth Return Vehicles (ERVs) to be launched unmanned with rockets no larger than were needed for Apollo, followed by a second with astronauts onboard. The ERVs would then make fuel for the return trip out of the martian atmosphere, saving payload costs from earth. If anything went wrong, we would also only lose the machines, not any astronauts, which should be a major selling point for NASA in light of recent tragedies.

    The pricetag: $55 billion for an 18 month stay on the planet, and it would leave one ERV on the planet's surface, enabling a continuous cycling of astronauts to and from Mars, a truly worthwhile investment.

    • I see a permanent outpost on the moon being a tremendously advantageous step toward not one, but regular trips to Mars. The moon's low gravity makes it an excellent jumping off point to other places in the solar system. You can launch a heavier craft with less fuel consumed leaving more for the trip. If fuel can be produced ON the moon (there may be various possibilities here), then it's more conventient than even an orbiting platform such as the ISS for "parking" given the extensive surface area on which t

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Polemicist ( 1166967 )
        You make an excellent point, a moon base would be a much better launch platform than the ISS, and would indeed be capable of large scale expansion on a stable surface. In regards to the production of fuel on the moon, if sufficient water were found in the craters, a simple solar array could produce enough energy to electrolyze the water into oxygen and hydrogen gas, which then could be compressed to the commonly used liquid fuels liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid hydrogen. The main problem with the moon base w

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khallow ( 566160 )
          Eh, you'd still need to get stuff from Earth to the vehicle. And if it requires a lot of zero-G assembly, then you'll probably rather do it in LEO where the Earth's magnetic field can shield you.

    • Re:Beyond the Moon, Looking Toward Mars (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Loke the Dog ( 1054294 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @09:13PM (#20862017)
      That's exactly the kind of thinking that NASA is trying to get away from, because it leads to a very uneven budget.

      A direct mars mission would give them lots of cash, and then when its completed, interest will almost drop to zero because NASA has no proposals that are both cheap, fast and interesting enough. Going to the moon will generate a modest interest, and that will give NASA a modest budget. During this time, they can develop a lunar program and at the same time silently develop a mars program. When they've gone to the moon, they can immediately propose going to mars quickly and for a modest sum, since all the basic technology has already been developed. Then the mars mission will work the same way: It will have a current goal, but will also plan ahead for the next goal.

      This is really much better than just doing a fast mars mission now, because that will effectively end the current race that we're seeing. We're not even close to having the technology for a manned trip to the outer planets moons for example. Expecting a permanent mars base after a direct mars mission is just silly. It's the same kind of thinking that expected a lunar base after the apollo missions. The moon wasn't interesting anymore, and mars won't be either after we get there. Slow and steady achievements, that's what's good for NASA. Infrastructure and standard procedures are more important than individual projects and missions.
  • a new moon race? activate the quad laser!
  • Of all these nations, only the US and China have announced any plans for going to the Moon. My take is that humanity will be lucky if *anyone* returns to the Moon by 2025. I'm sure someone will get there eventually, but there's plenty of problems to delay the current contenders, such as they are.

  • Screw Space (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Thursday October 04, 2007 @10:05PM (#20862487) Homepage Journal
    I know what I'm about to say is anathema to many geeks, but just hear me out before you open the can of napalm. With our limited budget and socio-political 'attention span', I say that research money is much better spent doing research here on earth.

    Understanding the true nature of the heavens, getting off of our own planet, and traveling to the stars has been a dream of mankind probably since the beginning. But as we learn more about it, we also learn how inhospitable and impractical is it to make a living out there. The cool factor is off the scale, but the idea that we are going to colonize first our solar system, second the galaxy, seems a little bogus to me.

    I don't forsee any self-sustaining extra-terrestrial colony in the near future. The moon is dead; Mars is dead; those places have nothing to eat and nothing to breath. Our closest experiment, Biosphere 2, needed imports of oxygen. The vertebrates and pollinating insects died. Any people living out in space would be totally dependent on resources constantly shipped in from the earth. Anything they might mine and ship back would be extremely unprofitable due to costs of launch and shipping. Can you imagine the cost of blasting rocks off of Mars and shipping them to Earth?

    We would see a lot of cool things, learn a lot of great things, do some wonderful experiments, understand the solar system better, etc. etc., but with our limited budget, I think we might have more pressing needs.

    Here on earth, we are living in a cornucopia of biodiversity. We are living in the midst of a great library of genes, compiled over the past several million years. Sadly, there is a four-alarm blaze in the library, happening right now, and we are doing very little to stop it. We won't be finding any new medicines or genes on Mars. They are already right here on earth, right under our noses, in the rainforests and deserts.

    I know we need to get off this rock if we have any hope for long term survival. But I think, as Biosphere 2 showed, we also need to have an understanding of the biosphere in order to have any long-term prospects in space, especially in the case that convoys from Earth are not available. Mars and the moon will always be out there, quietly waiting for us... We are in the middle of an emergency, and those celestial bodies can wait another few centures.

  • Easter Island (Score:3, Funny)

    by managementboy ( 223451 ) on Friday October 05, 2007 @03:45AM (#20864819) Homepage
    Kinda reminds me of the "big stone head race" on Easter Island just before they ran out of trees. This planet is having a huge problem with global climate change and most rich countries are getting into a race to the moon... I hope the planet holds for another 60 years, then I quit!
  • While many people ask why anyone should want to go to the moon and just as many answer that the moon is a worthy goal because, uhm, yes, uhm, other nations are going there, there are many real benefits to landing on and having a permanent manned presence on the moon.

    Firstly, and most importantly, the massive national prestige for any nation that does this can not be emphasised enough. Even if the US were going there with no apparent competitors, the fact that the US can do this would do more for gaining res

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