Photos Stream Back From China's Lunar Lander 268
After the successful soft landing of its carrier vessel on the surface of the moon, China's Jade Rabbit lunar rover has begun beaming back photos of the lunar surface. From the BBC's article, with links to video as well as several photos, comes this description: "Chang'e-3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1,900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod-2, which was kept warm by polonium-210. But the six-wheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust. The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour. ... The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night. According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise. It will also scout valuable mineral resources that could one day be mined."
Burning Bush? (Score:5, Funny)
Those who think that moon landing was a fake ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time for those who insisted that the moon landing by the Apollo astronauts were fake to stop spreading their falsehood.
The moon pictures that the Yutu rover and the Chang'e 3 lander take look very much like the pictures that NASA provided us some 40-odd years ago - of course they can try to claim that these new batch of pictures are fake as well.
I do not understand why there are still people holding on to that kind of conspiracy theory. I just do not understand.
Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:5, Funny)
Pics or it didn't hap-... Uh, wait...
Will China share information with others ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, enough of the bickering.
There is a page claiming that CNSA (China National Space Administration) will share all the data it gathers from both the Chang'e 3 lander and the Yutu rover with scientists from all nations.
http://io9.com/heres-what-chinas-yutu-rover-is-doing-on-the-moon-1483746967 [io9.com]
I do not know if the CNSA really will share all the data it gathers with the world. Time will tell.
But if it does (and I hope it will), that will be a plus for humanity.
And I sincerely hope that the ISS will be open for China's involvement as well.
It is utterly stupid to play politics in space.
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Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
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That's a bad policy.
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Hopefully the Chinese will release some high quality pictures. I'm not suggesting the moon landings were fake, but given the overall cost and engineering that goes into such an endeavor, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect photos of the same quality I can take with my cell phone.
I read that the first images we see now are low quality to keep transmission time low. The high quality ones, including full video of the decent, will follow.
Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:4, Informative)
According to this page (which I do not know if the info is true or not)
http://io9.com/heres-what-chinas-yutu-rover-is-doing-on-the-moon-1483746967 [io9.com]
it claims the following:
A. The Chang'e 3 lander has a powerful HD science cameras that can send at a rate of one image per second.
B. The Yutu rover will be sending high-definition images, including panoramas, back to Earth.
and
C. Ouyang Ziyuan, one of the chief scientists on the Chang'e-3 mission, said the in an interview: ( @ http://english.cntv.cn/program/newshour/20131130/102473.shtml [english.cntv.cn] )
"Number one: space observation from the moon. This is the dream of many astronomers because atmosphere, wind, snow and pollution don't obstruct visibility as they do on earth. The result is also better because of the longer periods of uninterrupted observation from the moon due to it orbiting the earth. One day of observation on the moon is equivalent to 14 days on earth.
Number two: we have an ultraviolet camera on the lander to monitor the earth. This camera is different from the one used by America's Apollo 16. Ours can see the formation of the earth's plasmasphere and its density change. It's better than a satellite, which can only record data section by section as it orbits around the earth. On the moon it can observe half of earth at a time without moving. This is something people have always wanted to do.
Number three: we will be the first to learn the structure and layers of the moon 100 meters below its surface with radars installed at the bottom of the rover. As the rover drives on the lunar surface, it will be as [if] it can cut and see what's 100 meters below. "
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I'm sure looking forward to their findings!
Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:4, Funny)
I don't think the Chinese have the technology to fake a landing, so they had to do it for real.
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That seems strangely logical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw [youtube.com]
Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US propaganda machine behind Hollywood moon lan (Score:5, Interesting)
Big difference: China landings are driven by science and verifiable by high-tech equipment.
US Hollywood moon landings were driven by hate towards Russians who put first man in space.
Here I was expecting some troll to criticize the Chinese effort for being a copy of what was done 40+ years ago, or simply a stunt. Instead I find a troll saying "China landings are ... verifiable by high-tech equipment", thus implying that US efforts weren't. Are you a conspiracy nut suggesting the US landings were faked?
"China landings are driven by science ...". The science is great, but if you think that prestige and publicity aren't part of the reason for the Chinese effort, then I've got a bridge to sell you. I've also got no problem with that being part of the motivation.
"US Hollywood moon landings were driven by hate towards Russians who put first man in space." Wow, you've heard about the space race - a term that was coined at the time because it described the obvious. BTW, what do you think motivated the USSR? It wouldn't have been a race without at least two sides. However, "hate" is a ridiculously way to describe such a competition. Whatever you say about the motivation, the space race was a lot more peaceful than the arms race. A nice side effect was all the science done and the technology developed. Out of curiosity though, what was Hollywood about the moon landings? That they televised it? Not even Hollywood is that good - it got 125M viewers around the world. Maybe it had something to do with it being such an impressive and historic event, albeit a silly thing like the first time that people set foot on any body other than the earth.
P.S. You also overlook that this Chinese probe is more analogous to a Soviet mission of 40 years ago, than to the manned US landings, But hey, any idiotic excuse to bash the US, right?
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Space race was part of the arms race.
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Here's a clue: the space race was about sending both unmanned and manned missions into space, including earth orbit, the moon, and other planets. The arms race was about developing better ways to nuke the other side (though also likely suicidal).
Perhaps you meant to say that both were motivated by competition with, and hostility towards, the USSR, although it's hard to see how the space race was motivated by hostility, since it wasn't aggressive. Did they sometimes use similar technologies, like rockets? Ye
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The space race about using the populations' egos to justify spending immense resources on improving military space technology.
The US has since made it very clear that whoever controls the skies controls the battlefield (unless it's insurgents in urban areas). Space is just a sky above the sky, and controlling that was believed to be the key to beating the other guy, when ICBMs were in their infancy.
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Here I was expecting some troll to criticize the Chinese effort for being a copy of what was done 40+ years ago, or simply a stunt........if you think that prestige and publicity aren't part of the reason for the Chinese effort, then I've got a bridge to sell you
Ironically you ended up being the one to say what you thought a troll would say.
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No, read more carefully. Nowhere does it say I expected to encounter a troll who criticized the Chinese effort because it was motivated in part by a desire for prestige and publicity. Moreover I specifically said "I've also got no problem with that being part of the motivation." Now what was your point?
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What was your point?
Specifically? That your post is hilarious. And it still is.
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Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:4, Interesting)
I always begin these by saying that, yes, I believe the moon landings are real.
That said, I would imagine the radio signals from the Moon would be the easiest part. Land a receiver and transmitter that just takes what it receives on one channel and broadcasts it back to Earth. If you take the live feed from NASA and send it to the astronauts who reply immediately, it will take the appropriate amount of time for NASA to receive the signal from the Moon and no one at NASA would be wiser (except for the conspirator who was making sure the live signal went to the astronauts).
It's a neat thing to think about--not whether they were faked but how could they have been faked. How much of a mission would you have to go through? I mean, we heard from Neil, Buzz, and Michael the whole trip out and then we heard from Buzz and Neil on the Moon. You could conceivably use a similar technique for voice communication, but the weightless part inside the capsule would be pretty tough to do on Earth. Did they do TV broadcasts from inside the capsule (like was shown on Apollo 13)? The capsule could have stayed in orbit--either Earth or lunar--but that would be tricky to sync up the movements of the fake moon-walking astronauts with the voices from the capsule.
One of the questions I have for the conspiracy nuts is what missions were faked? Only the Apollo missions? Assuming it was only the Apollo missions, then the Surveyor missions weren't faked and that shows that NASA could land equipment in the Moon. Were all the Apollo missions faked? Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 sent men around the Moon. Were those faked?
Re:Those who think that moon landing was a fake .. (Score:5, Insightful)
The transmissions used were line of site, VHF, the transmissions to the moon were followed by replies from the moon.
Both sides of the transmissions could be monitored by other nations, including the USSR who would have been VERY fast to call phony.
Also, the USSR had spacecraft that could listen in and could tell where it was all coming from, so because of the time of travel and source of the transmissions, the only way to fake it would be to have the entire thing prerecorded before launch.
But you would still have had to land the recordings and transmitter on the moon as well as send back the images of the moon, which would have to be faked ahead of time and sent to the moon.
Except that much storage didn't exist back then.
So no, it couldn't have been faked, unless the USSR and perhaps several other nations were in on it. I guess that part is possible, but frankly I think in 1969 it would have been easier to just send men to the moon than it would be to fake the whole thing and get the USSR on board.
That, plus I've personally met two of the moon astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Gene Cernan. I met Buzz only briefly, however I've spoken with Gene for more than an hour about his experiences.
He could be lying, but frankly, I believe him and I don't think you'd get those 12 men to lie about it for as long as it has been.
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No, the site doesn't become "unusable" with the beta. It's different, it takes a bit of getting used to, but it is definitely usable. I've noted elsewhere that member's user numbers don't appear on the beta. Some other things are odd. But you can use the site just fine with the beta. Good grief - this isn't 1999 any longer. If you're going to use a nerd site, act at least nerdy enough to make the site work for you.
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Shall I explain how the Shannon-Hartley Theorem shows that you can't transmit unlimited amounts of information in realtime unless you have infinite power, or shall we just agree that Americans are better than the Chinese at black magic and leave it at that? [wikipedia.org]
Reference, please? (Score:2)
As far exerybody can thrust the submitter =P on the matter, giving us some links for references would not had hurt anyone. :-)
Are they claiming more territory? (Score:5, Funny)
I heard that the Sea of Tranquility is now the South China Sea of Tranquility.
Re:Are they claiming more territory? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, they found living organisms and they are delicious.
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Oh I wish I had mod points today.
Spat my coffee all over my screen when I read that.
ROTFFL
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You jest but what do you think will happen globally if China starts planting flags and claiming the moon for their own personal use?
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First one do to so deserves to keep what they can keep a footing on, I'd say.
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Which would be nothing once our government drops a rock on their camp site and calls it a meteor strike.
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Don't you think any serious lunar presence would kind of plan for the possibility of large rocks? Us sending one specifically is just messing with probability a little.
Not to mention we would have to first find a rock to drop, and do all that without anyone noticing.
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Re:Are they claiming more territory? (Score:5, Insightful)
The treaty doesn't say anything about them not being able to mine the shit out of the moon. It just says they can't claim territory or place nukes in space (which you can be damned sure we've already breached) It also says the parties retain rights over whatever the launch into space, so should they start building mining platforms and shipping stuff back, we couldn't touch the equipment without breaching the treaty.
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Trade sanctions against china are another sort of Mutually Assured Destruction.
As they're basically the world's factory, trade sanctions would toast our economy as our factories wouldn't be able to replace capacity in China.
China also holds a huge chunk of US Assets and debt. It would be very disruptive to the US ability to finance the government if they decided to dump it.
And there you have it. We can't hurt they unless we hurt ourselves.
Re:Are they claiming more territory? (Score:4, Informative)
Then again that treaty has language which states all any signatory country needs to do (including China) is to give a one year's notification that they are withdrawing from the treaty. They China (or America or Russia) can do whatever they want to do with no need to worry about a pesky treaty that might get in the way.
Besides, there is really no enforcement provision that stops any country from claiming sovereign territory other than it might be causus belli (a rationale for war) for other countries to step in and try to stop them. That likely would happen with or without the treaty anyway so it is mainly window dressing and nothing more on that point.
If there was some extra-terrestrial real estate that some country really wanted to claim, I think that one year notification rule would be plenty of time before anybody else could get to that same hunk of rock in the sky.
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If China plants flags all the US needs to do is send a robot to the moon that finds flags and shreds them. Problem solved.
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but you are forgetting one thing: the deflagulators are all made in china! and now, they won't sell us any; now that we've revealed our true intentions.
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The Sea of Tranquility has always been part of China.
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Of course, if we in the US landed today, it would be the AT&T Sea of Tranquility.
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Mmmmm, Budweiser Sea of Tranquility
Also, Iran Claims 2nd Successful Monkey Launch (Score:2, Informative)
In addition to the Chinese moon-rover landing Iran is claiming a 2nd successful launch and recovery of a Rhesus macaque. [cnn.com]
And Slashdot has already reported about India's Martian expedition.
Rocks (Score:5, Interesting)
There are some rocks of significant size immediately behind the rover. Those are certainly large enough for the rover to get hung on or to flip it over on its side. I'm surprised the lander touched down within just a few feet of rocks like that. Either their hazard avoidance system looks only directly beneath the footprint of the lander, or it failed to properly detect those rocks. Had it landed just 50% closer to those rocks, the ramp the rover descended would have been right on them..
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You forgot the third option - the hazard avoidance system saw the rocks and avoided them. The fact the lander didn't hit them suggests this is at least a plausable option..
Re:Rocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Chiang'e 3 had a ~30 second "hovering" stage during its decent, during which it scanned the area it was over (using radar and laser IIRC), and itself made the decision where exactly to land based on that information.
AFAIK ground control could have interrupted and overridden the process at any stage, but did not.
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I'm saying the margin for error seemed needlessly minuscule given the stakes involved.
Polonium 210 is so versatile (Score:3)
Is keeps Russian probes warm and turns Russian spys cold [wikipedia.org].
Be careful... (Score:4, Funny)
They better be careful... We all remember what happened to the Tsien. Fortunately, this one is not manned...
Re: Can you be a little bit more specific ? (Score:4, Informative)
Arthur C. Clarke... Space Oddyssey 2010. The chinese secretly constructed an interplanetary spacecraft in plan sight... saying it was a space station.
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saying it was a space station
That's no space station! It's a moon.
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You really need to pay more attention. The Tsien landed on Europa three years ago. Unfortunately there was technical problems and contact with the lander was lost.
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Here's the guy Clarke named the craft after: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsien_Hsue-shen [wikipedia.org] (it's only in the book, not the movie, so you may be excused for not being aware).
congratulations to russia (Score:2)
Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
My congratulations to the scientists and engineers that made this mission work! A difficult job done well!
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That's way too simple, reasonable and straightforward for Slashdot, but I heartily agree anyway.
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How appropriate. If you watch video of Zhou Enlai, you can see that was his style of applause.
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Came here to post this. I'm happy for them - glad they are working on a space program.
Congrats to China (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I'm glad somebody else is going into space. NASA seems to be doing well in deeper space - Mars rovers, missions far out into the solar system, and deep-space satellites - but we still have plenty to discover in our own backyard.
Even though the rocketry task has been done before (putting a rover on the moon) there's a hell of a lot of difference between a 1960's Soviet rover and a 2010's rover, so they're going to be uncovering plenty of new stuff.
Re:Congrats to China (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's neat the ESA and China are working together to get the data back from their probes. It's another timid step towards international cooperation in space.
When you look back at our small blue fragile world hanging in the vastness of space, it's apparent we're all in this together. It's good to have friends. There are no borders in space.
Congrats! (Score:2)
Grats to China!
Please go take pictures of the U.S Rovers and launch pads so the sales of books and DVD's that the USA never landed on the moon make them look like the foolish people they are :)
Re:Congrats! (Score:4, Funny)
Please go take pictures of the U.S Rovers and launch pads so the sales of books and DVD's that the USA never landed on the moon make them look like the foolish people they are :)
Except, as we all know, this so-called Chinese 'lunar' rover is actually just driving around a sound stage in Mongolia.
Stage? (Score:2)
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What makes you think this is a stage in Mongolia?
They couldn't get visas to fake it in Arizona.
The Machinery Looks Chinese? (Score:2)
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A lot of steps to get there.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You have to get out of orbit...you need to get to the moon....you need to get into lunar orbit and then land....successfully. Read the history of the Ranger Program to see how much work this took the US, and they were crashing onto the moon, not trying to land a working Rover. Getting the insertions correct is not easy. China has done something difficult and laudable.
While I'm sure they had the full data from the US program, and the USSR program, making this happen is still a great achievement.
I have noticed how the US media is paying little attention to this......
Just as I was reading this (8:10am Eastern time, 12/16/13), the chinese rover was prominently mentioned on the Today show (NBC). They discussed the rover, made a quick reference to the manned moon landings of the US and finished with a summary of the future plans of the chinese for the moon. The segment ended with a round of "that's cool" from all the hosts. So it's certainly not being ignored and the achievement does seem to be acknowledged for what it is, not belittled or downplayed.
oblig (Score:4, Funny)
It was a soundstage on mars.
Mare Imbrium (Score:5, Interesting)
The lander did not land in Sinus Iridum, but in Mare Imbrium [astrogatorsguild.com] proper.
I do not think this was a mistake, as they could have waited a few more orbits and made the original landing point in Sinus Iridum. For some reason, a site in Mare Imbrium was chosen. As the actual landing site is on the border between the Titanium rich and Titanium poor [usra.edu] parts of Sinus Iridum, I suspect this was not an arbitrary choice, but driven by a desire to understand better the mineral resources of the Moon.
If we are really lucky, the rover will drive the 120 km North to Montes Recti [wikipedia.org], a mountain range to the North. (These mountains are really islands of old terrain high enough to avoid being submerged in the Mare Imbrium lava flows.) At 100 m/day, it would only take 3 years...
photo quality? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps US geeks are not their target audience (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps delivering high resolution images to US/ Western geeks is not their primary mission. Perhaps a few low res snapshots to keep the western media off their back (see, we really did it, put away your conspiracy theory stories) is all they felt obliged to do.
Maybe there's a high res camera sending pictures back to their scientific research / military people and they just don't feel the need to distribute this material to the general public in other countries. The Chinese funding model might not be the same as the USA's, maybe they don't need to distribute high res holiday snaps to ensure continued funding.
Perhaps there's no high res camera on board because the science of the mission doesn't need any more than a few low res snaps. The real work might be elsewhere. I've read a couple of articles that note that the lander is much bigger than you might expect for a rover of this size, so it might be the real mission here is to test lander technologies in preparation for sending a manned mission. It might be that the real science is around testing that platform, and the rover is just supplementary, a nice addition for extra kudos and you might as well do it while you're there.
Re:SO, does it look the same as it did in 1969? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm really tired of the media and politicians dismissing our lack of investment in science and space exploration by belittling Chinese efforts. "Durp durp, we already done been to the Moon, you stupid backwards Chiners durp durp!".
It's a first step that they'll likely quickly capitalize on and while our media and government like to convince us that the Chinese are goofy little 50-years-later-runners-up, they're an economic and political powerhouse that will, if they decide to invest further in it, leapfrog our accomplishments by light years. And sooner rather than later.
If we don't get serious about doing it ourselves -- or even better, co-operating with scientists on an international scale for the betterment of everyone -- we're going to look like the back water yokels.
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I'm really tired of the media and politicians dismissing our lack of investment in science and space exploration by belittling Chinese efforts. "Durp durp, we already done been to the Moon, you stupid backwards Chiners durp durp!".
It's a first step that they'll likely quickly capitalize on and while our media and government like to convince us that the Chinese are goofy little 50-years-later-runners-up, they're an economic and political powerhouse that will, if they decide to invest further in it, leapfrog our accomplishments by light years. And sooner rather than later.
If we don't get serious about doing it ourselves -- or even better, co-operating with scientists on an international scale for the betterment of everyone -- we're going to look like the back water yokels.
Don't be too down on the US space program. Remember that they have landed (and continue to land) probes on most of the planets in the solar system.
It's great that China is getting into the game. But they are doing something that the US and Russia did over 40 years ago. So it IS 40 year old tech.
Any negative comments on the part of the US are probably due to integrated frustration over the years being on the receiving end of industrial espionage by China.
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No it's not 40 year old tech.
People drove a car on my route to work perhaps 70 or 80 years ago. But that doesn't mean my Honda Civic is 80 year old tech. While the outcome is the same and the principles are the same, the technology used to make that journey now is quite different.
Ignoring China ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The same goes for China. Industrially, they're getting to where the US was in the mid-1800s. Their space technology is in the 1950s, and early 1960s. Socially, they're pre-1750s in many ways. Militarily, they're in the 1910s, at best
I certainly hope that you are NOT an American.
If you are, please, I beseech you, please WAKE THE FUCK UP.
America is in a steep decline, and the rate of decline has quicken in the past 2 decades.
And America's decline is in stark contrast with the rapid growth of Brazil, India and China.
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What you call the "rapid growth" of those nations is basically just them trying their best to catch up to where the West was many decades ago. They aren't even doing that particularly well. India is, and this is putting it politely, still an absolute shithole. Brazil is only marginally better, and China only marginally better than that.
Merely doing what Western nations accomplished 50, 100, or even many more years ago just isn't impressive. I'm sorry to say that, but it's the truth.
Any decline happening in
Trends (Score:5, Interesting)
Developing nations are generally doing some or all of the three:
1) Building their industrial base
2) Providing free or low cost education
3) Providing free or low cost health care
The United States is doing the opposite of that. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our lack of high speed rail is a joke, as is our lack of mass transit outside of a few major cities, and our internet and cell phone networks are a decade behind Europe's. More job-crushing trade laws are being pushed (TPP), getting a college degree means five or six figures of debt, and the trivial detail that Obomneycare will still leave the U.S. with the worst health care system in the industrialized world.
How are those trends sustainable for the United States, where 80% of the population is in poverty or a paycheck away from it?
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India is, and this is putting it politely, still an absolute shithole. Brazil is only marginally better, and China only marginally better than that.
I'm sorry but i dont think you travel much. Try it some time, it can be really eye opening.
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To Brazil, or to Michigan?
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Re:Ignoring China ? (Score:5, Interesting)
And if it weren't for the Nazi scientists, the US and Soviet space programs wouldn't have existed. The only mostly isolated nation is North Korea, and we know how that's working out for them (great, if you go by the Great Leader's and his buddies opinion).
Obviously Robert Goddard was a Nazi scientist. And Dr. Buzz Aldrin never wrote any papers about spaceflight that by itself would ensure his role in the history of mankind (ignoring his weekend camping trip he took in the summer of 1969 that was broadcast as a reality TV show). And of course Konstantin Tsiolkovsky [wikipedia.org] and Sergei Korolyov [wikipedia.org] were just a bunch of stupid lab assistants who knew nothing about rocket science either.
This kind of stuff is pure BS. Yes, there were some German scientists who did some impressive things with rockets and their assistance was useful for perhaps pushing ahead the American and Russian space programs by about a decade or so in the 1950's. But to suggest that the programs wouldn't have existed at all is a bit of a stretch when it is patently clear there were plenty of both Russians and Americans who were active in trying to get spaceflight including manned spaceflight happening in their lifetimes. Werner Von Braun openly acknowledged both Goddard and Tsiolkovsky (together with Oberth.... who was never a Nazi either) by name in his autobiography as inspiration for his work.
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Reminds me of my favorite part of Iron Sky [wikipedia.org] where the North Korean delegate stands up and ascribes credit for the approaching fleet of space ships to his glorous leader Kim Yong Ill.
Love that movie!
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I don't want to downplay America's decline, which is real, but let's not overplay China's rise. They're riding a debt bubble and they have whole cities of emptiness. Again, I'll grant you that some of the USA's cities are starting to empty, but we're talking about places that were never even inhabited, let alone filled. You can't just do that forever without repercussions.
What it says about both countries (and others as well) that these places are let go idle while in other cases people are homeless in the
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Why not? If people have food, clothing, and homes, all they need after that is something to keep them busy.
That is the antiquated mindset that leads to this type of unnecessary economic activity. But what you are forgetting is the externalities. Building a modern city produces a horrendous amount of pollution and waste. They've done this repeatedly to no end. Now take a look at Beijing, it looks like Blade Runner. If they'd spent half what they spent on building cities they don't need which are depreciating even as we speak (unmaintained buildings, which is what they are, lose value rapidly) on emissions control
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You're a troll.
Re:It's just like JavaScript or NoSQL. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their space technology is in the 1950s, and early 1960s.
China has over one million people working on their space program. They have so much cash that they've been buying US Treasury Bills despite their dubious value and have recently stopped being so silly. They're building a moon base in the next decade and will be landing men on Mars in the 2030's.
Buy lots of cheap stuff at Walmart - it's fueling humanity's journey to the starts.
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They may have a lot of people working on their space program but I find it hard to believe they have a million people working on it. SpaceX has been able to develop a launcher with capabilities similar to that of the Chinese launchers at a price that is also competitive and they've only got 2-3000 people working there. I know a space program is more than just a launcher but if the extra 997,000 people only gain you one lunar lander more than that you're doing something wrong.
Also, I'd like to see document
Re: (Score:2)
Buy lots of cheap stuff at Walmart
Well, according to the first picture of the link, probe from rover, they seem to have bought their camera at Walmart, and it was cheap.
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Only if they used the same Hollywood set NASA used in 1969.
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China needs a benchmark and this is one. That simple.
Re:assuming plutonium-238 is true (Score:5, Informative)
The radioactives used in RTG's are usually alpha emmitters that can be sheilded very easily - thin sheet metal is enough, let alone the whole carrier assembly. It's gamma rays that are the problem and require several feet of lead to shield fully. Chosing the right isotopes with a favourable decay chain reduces or eliminates gamma ray production.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Selection_of_isotopes [wikipedia.org]
Re:assuming plutonium-238 is true (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And where are we now? (Score:5, Funny)
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*Everything* and *everyone* is right here!
No, everything is not here, and quite possibly everyone is not here either. I will buy a ticket to see a sunrise on the moon, as soon as i can afford one.
But if you are happy with your seven continents and 2-dimensional map of the world, don't let yourself be bothered by the rest of us hoping to go see the stars.