Top Chinese Scientist Questions India's Claim To Reaching Moon's South Pole (time.com) 91
Last month, India became the first country to put a spacecraft near the lunar south pole -- breaking China's record for the southernmost lunar landing. Now, the so-called father of China's lunar exploration program, Ouyang Ziyuan, said claims about the accomplishment are overstated. Time reports: Ziyuan [...] told the Chinese-language Science Times newspaper that the Chandrayaan-3 landing site, at 69 degrees south latitude, was nowhere close to the pole, defined as between 88.5 and 90 degrees. On Earth, 69 degrees south would be within the Antarctic Circle, but the lunar version of the circle is much closer to the pole.
"It's wrong!" he said of claims for an Indian polar landing. "The landing site of Chandrayaan-3 is not at the lunar south pole, not in the lunar south pole region, nor is it near the lunar south pole region." The Chandrayaan-3 was 619 kilometers (385 miles) distant from the polar region, Ouyang said.
"It's wrong!" he said of claims for an Indian polar landing. "The landing site of Chandrayaan-3 is not at the lunar south pole, not in the lunar south pole region, nor is it near the lunar south pole region." The Chandrayaan-3 was 619 kilometers (385 miles) distant from the polar region, Ouyang said.
and.... (Score:2)
Um, OK.
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Re: and.... (Score:2)
And China claims territory ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:3, Insightful)
Third world country super angry its lander (built entirely with stolen NASA and ESU tech) was upstaged by another third world country's lander (a country they have frequent shooting matches with at their mutual border), denies it ever really happened.
This is pure jealousy.
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landing in Juneau Alaska and claiming you landed at the north pole.
On Earth, the 69 deg South parallel runs within or just out the coast of Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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antarctica is Big
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antarctica is Big
Antarctica is big,
its Internet is dark.
It's hard to find
a place to snark.
BURMA SHAVE
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Not real coast, just ice that's there thanks to self-sustaining weather patterns. Disrupt them (just like human are doing right now) and it'll recede. There's nothing special about 69 deg south on Earth (in general, not right now) or at all on Luna.
Re: Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:2)
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Third world country? This isn't the 1980's.
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By the original definition of 1/2/3rd world, China is 2nd. And they have remained true to their, ehm, ideals.
Re: Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:3)
The original definition has very little relationship in terms of its common useage America and the USSR in the first world, Japan and Europe in the second world and China , (non Japan) Asia and Africa in the third. It was about relationships to colonialism (as perceived by the Chinese). That's not how we think of the term now (and frankly both senses are poorly theorised ideas that fail to capture the complexity of both colonialism and poverty
Re: Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:4, Informative)
You went full Maoist [wikipedia.org]. Never go full Maoist.
The three worlds model that everyone else used is this one [wikipedia.org], which is two decades older than Mao's version.
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The original definition has very little relationship in terms of its common useage America and the USSR in the first world, Japan and Europe in the second world and China , (non Japan) Asia and Africa in the third. It was about relationships to colonialism (as perceived by the Chinese). That's not how we think of the term now (and frankly both senses are poorly theorised ideas that fail to capture the complexity of both colonialism and poverty
I've never heard your definition of the three worlds. The Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] definition (including the original etymology) fits the common usage:
"The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Western European nations and their allies represented the "First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and their allies represented the "Second World".
And the third world originally representing the politically non-aligned nations and only later evolving to acquire the connotation of lesser
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Economic def, not political (Score:2)
By the original definition of 1/2/3rd world, China is 2nd. And they have remained true to their, ehm, ideals.
The original political classification has been superseded by an economic classification.
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That whole frame work doesn't make sense any more.
It was a way of describing the world of the Cold War -- the First World capitalist states, the Second World industrialized Communist states, and the Third World -- pathetic, unindustrialized pawns with no significant miltiary or ecnomic power of their own.
The entire foundation of that division is gone now. China is, perhaps, somewhat like WW2 Germany -- a capitalist society but one ruled by a party whose authority knows no bounds or limitation. Like many o
Re: Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:1)
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Depends on where you go. A major Chinese city is "mostly" very modern western if you ignore the horrible pollution. The Beijing pollution was off the charts but the modern conveniences, malls, transport options etc were all there.
Outside the big cities it very quickly turns verrrrry rural and super poor. One might even say "third world". My wife's ancestral village is basically a bunch of straw and mud huts, limited electricity via gas powered generators, no pavement, etc etc etc. Forget other things l
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Welcome to slashdot where a description of real world travel experiences gets flagged troll.
If we had real admins you'd get your mod points removed so be thankful this is an unmoderated zombie site.
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China 3rd world is a political farce (Score:2)
It's China who insists on having the status of a developing nation. Tax reasons.
US Trade reasons.
Pollution / climate change reasons.
And we are dumb enough to continue the farce. Originally the farce was accepted because there was an expectation that economic interaction would bring about political liberalization. That idea died at the Tiananmen Square Massacre. However the policy persisted because lots of people were making money off of China.
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Actually China's space programme started by cooperating with Russia, so their tech was built off that, not ESA or NASA gear.
In any case, he makes an arguable point. It's not what most laypeople would consider to be the pole, based on how it is defined on Earth. The real prize is finding ice, for which probes will have to get closer to pole. For other scientific purposes there are significant differences in things like the difficulty of landing there, the amount of sunlight available, and so forth.
I don't wa
Soviet stuff proven, not modern Russian stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually China's space programme started by cooperating with Russia, so their tech was built off that, not ESA or NASA gear.
The manned space flight gear, soviet era stuff is proven. More modern Russian stuff is not proven, actually proven problematic. The rovers are based on US and EU tech.
The successful Soviet Space Program was built upon the industrial power and engineering and scientific talent of all the Soviet states. There were many Ukrainians, Georgians, Lithuanians, etc leading key agencies and projects. The modern Russian space program was successfully cooperating with these former states for a while but the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine has denied Russia access to key industrial sites and institutional human knowledge. There isolated space program suffers greatly as a result.
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Go there and look around outside a major city. The rural areas aren't even at the "developing" stage.
Re:Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:5, Interesting)
Go there and look around outside a major city. The rural areas aren't even at the "developing" stage.
There you city boys go again, disparaging the traditional rural lifestyle. :-)
The state of the countryside is a political decision. It is kept that way to encourage migration to the cities. The CCP wants small family farms replaced with larger state owned enterprises. Industrialization is the plan, worker moving from farm to urban factory.
Farce for trade and climate change concessions (Score:3)
I don't think anyone would consider China to be a third world country anymore, or even "developing".
It's a political farce to enable asymmetric trade policies and immunity from climate change treaties. Politicians are paid well to go along with a once well meaning tradeoff. Once upon a time we believed economic interaction would lead to political liberalization. That theory died at the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
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On the flip side, is India showing us that it isn't democracy but rather capitalism that brings about the modern lifestyle? I honestly don't know the answer and if it's even relevant. I don't know how developed India is compared to China.
My info is a few years old, but my understanding is that there were two main problems.
Infrastructure - it is a pain in the ass to get goods physically moved from inland factories to the ports.
Tax jurisdictions - while moving goods from inland factories to the ports they may pass through numerous tax jurisdictions that will want a piece of the business.
These and other problems are well known internally and there was talk of fixing these things. They want more manufacturing but I don't know if talk
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This is pure jealousy.
This is China working to refute a competing claim on territory.
Re: Yeah, yeah, we get it, Cletus (Score:2)
Good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
What is this, a junior high student talking trash about another student's project at the science fair?
I think it's pretty cool India successfully landed on the moon. It's pretty cool China did as well.
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Yes. Pretty good for the school science fair, no?
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God damn it, I knew I should have built the warp driven space probe instead of the volcano! Fucking silver prize!
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Maybe next time.
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Everyone is gunna do space probes next year, I need to up my game to something like immortality or multidimensional travel.
The science fair standards are pretty rough these days....
China going to claim lunar territory (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this, a junior high student talking trash about another student's project at the science fair? I think it's pretty cool India successfully landed on the moon. It's pretty cool China did as well.
No, this is high level state policy. The scientist is just a mouthpiece of the CCP.
China is going to claim sovereignty over territory on the moon. As it has done with Indian Kashmir territory, Vietnamese territorial waters, Philippines territorial waters, etc.
Re: China going to claim lunar territory (Score:1)
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No china isn't going to as no country can.
China never ratified the outer space treaty. International law on the matter need not be recognized on the moon any more than in the South China Sea.
The person is merely stating facts because the media (or India) is not correct. Science is all about correct data. And to a scientist, stating something not precise, is just wrong. It has nothing to do with politics or mouthpiece to the CCCP or whatever.
The fact that the lander is outside 88.5 latitude, if that is the delimiter, is nothing more than a convenient fact in line with the political agenda. Making a big deal about it and tossing in a bunch of pro China rhetoric is very much political, very out of character for a renowned scientist in China. The politicians want to make it clear no one had touched th
no shortage of hypocrisy (Score:2, Insightful)
The Covidlander well of hypocrisy is bottomless.
Severe deficit of grace from this guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you sure about the key point? Previous article [slashdot.org] on the topic posted here on /. has the key point "India has become the first country to land a spacecraft on the moon's south pole", while they being the fourth (not third) country landing on the Moon lost in details.
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Hyperbole is a thing in news articles
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China must save face, so it's time for nitpicking.
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Of course, because China needs to WIN WIN WIN!
Winning is everything - having to deal with India doing something they haven't done means distraction. China needs to WIN in the world to show the world DEMOCRACY SUCKS.
It's a dictatorship thing, plus a national pride thing, plus well, a programming thing. China is superior to western fools like the Americans. After all, Chinese people are happy and well adjusted and living really well, compare that the USA where they can't even agree on how to govern. No one ne
Re: Severe deficit of grace from this guy. (Score:2)
385 miles away. And Blue Origin Karman Wut? (Score:1)
If you can't hit the target you don't win the prize. You still may be deservent of a prize for achievement!
India got a lander on the moon returning data. That's a win for science, humanity, and India.
China makes Kickstarter looks like an idea-fairie.
Blue Origin boosts has been cowboy wannabes into not-space and pretends they are in space
and asttornauts. The Karman Line isn't flexible... nor is the polar region of the moon, nor is China
about what areas of the waters outside their coast they think is their
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That "385 miles" is not even to the pole, it's to some arbitrary definition of "polar region" whose size has been determined purely by rectal extraction (there's no weather barrier like on Earth).
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The pole isn't arbitrary. The "polar region" is. How close is "close enough"? There's no objective answer.
That said, the position of the Indian lander wouldn't be called the "polar region" is someone didn't find it in their benefit to do so. At least not without an "objective definition" of what the polar region is. You could do it by specifying some "maximum hours of daylight", though IIUC on the moon this could be a bit difficult to determine. Or specifying some specific number of miles from the pol
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???
If that statement has any meaning, I'd like a link to a better explanation. I really doubt that the position of the pole of the moon varies much within a century. So "polar region" has to mean something else.
Actually, I'm relatively certain that there is no such wobble, even over the period of centuries, as there is a serious search for ice on the surface in areas that are never exposed to sunlight.
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It's both. China had to throw shade on a regional rival. And they found a way to do it without being entirely foolish.
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American scientists and engineers probably wouldn't say anything publicly. As to whether historians credit India with reaching a lunar pole or not, that will depend on whether they're under Modi's direct influence.
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Compromise (Score:5, Informative)
I am Indian and the Chinese scientist is not wrong technically. But bad form. Sane Indians dont try to run down China's achievements (yes there are a lot of petty Indians too). Hopefully sane Chinese will not run down India's achievements. China of course is ahead in space exploration with a space station and a manned program and a nuclear equipped rover on the moon. But then China is also 5 times richer than India. India is where China was in 2000. Its 20 years behind but the gap is closing as Chinese economy expansion slows down and India gets its demographic dividend and speeds up. By 2050 both should be at similar levels of development somewhere around 30K/capita income. Us will still be ahead at 70k/capita income but at that point it becomes a Georgia vs California situation rather than Africa vs California situation.
Re:Compromise (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't read too much into it. It's journalists trying to stir up resentment between your two countries. Note how TFA doesn't actually link to the original source so that we can check exactly what he said. Most likely the quote is poorly translated and out of context.
I've learned to not believe this kind of stuff. Back in 2011 when the Great Tohoku Earthquake hit, I was in Japan. Reading Western websites, even the BBC, was pretty surreal. I heard people say one thing in Japanese, and then it get reported as something completely different in English. They'd take a word or two, ignore everything else, and then plaster it with unrelated photos of guys in hazmat suits.
It's well known I'm pretty anti-nuclear, but even in the face of a very serious accident, I could see first hand how ridiculous the foreign reporting was.
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It's not just foreign reporting. Anything that isn't local tends to be reported with ... it's as if they think the purpose of "news" is entertainment rather than information. At the times I've been on site they haven't actually *lied* (directly). They've cropped photos and taken words spoken out of context. Not, AFAIKT, for any reason except to make it more entertaining. But the result was a clear proof that one shouldn't trust the news for information. (One event was a big fire, and there wasn't ANY
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If you said 'the objective of news was to troll and stoke fear in the populace to attract eyeballs', you'd be very close to the truth.
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And of course, China will denigrate India. India is up and coming while China has partially stalled in their bid to control the world esp. undeveloped nations.
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I think it's just going after some incorrect claims. It's still an achievement, it's just important to talk about it accurately.
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India easily could have landed closer to the South Pole. But then the days of sunlight available would have been even lesser. Since the Indian lander and rover did not carry a Nuclear Heat Decay module they were not expected to survive the lunar night. So it was a compromise between having enough days to do some useful science vs being close enough to the pole to find some lunar ice.
Which is to say landing at the Lunar poles is hard. Claiming to have done it when you haven't will hurt the next group who tries to do it for real, because then people will ask, hasn't this been done already? Why are we spending money doing this again?
Correct, if true (Score:2)
Ah, academics (Score:2)
Ah, academics. If you can't succeed, denigrate others who have done better. It's a cross cultural thing then.
Give em a break, they got a 69, hit the sweet spot (Score:2)
It's normal some people are getting excited... they're feeling like they are over the moon
at the same time, some people are bitter feeling left out, like they didn't get any... life is hard
oh wait, are we still talking about space exploration :p
Chill people, chill, as the guru Bob Marley once said, don't worry about a thing, it's all gonna be all right
Guy is right. (Score:2)
He's right. "South Pole" was hype. Most US publications stated they landed AT south pole. Did they find water? Did they even look for water? Did they find anything? Ok, they can land a lander. Big accomplishment. Spare me all the hype.
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depends on definitions (Score:2)
69 degrees is close, and certainly near, but it is not lunar south pole. And it IS the closest that any nation/entity has gotten to it.
shouldn't the title for this post be... (Score:2)
There are still people who think (Score:2)
that NO one, and no rocket, has ever been on the moon. There will always be doubters.
So to clarify... (Score:2)
"So just to clarify, were they closer to the lunar south pole than your vehicles?"
"Well... yeah -- but still!!"
What do we really know? (Score:1)