Go China! As an american, I hope China keeps pushing the boundaries on their space program - maybe we'll then decide to invest in science and space exploration again.
I have submitted this as a separate story as I believe it merits discussion regarding the links between China and America's space program.
Bassically the Co-Founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was deported from the US to China during the McCarthy era and he became the "Father" of China's space program.
Wikipedia writes, "Under Secretary Kimball, who had tried to keep Qian in the U.S., commented on the affair to say: "It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go."
As I understand it, much of NASA was manned by Germans who had worked on their rocket program (weaponized rockets) and 'importing' that knowledge was the kick start to the American space program. Project Paperclip? Was that the name?
Yes (especially back then, because NASA did not exist until 1958).
I know of three strands of rocketry research that contributed to American rocketry. There was Robert Goddard's experiments with liquid-fueled rockets, as early as the 1920s, Theodore von Karman (a Hungarian who emigrated to the US in 1930) and his team at Caltech, and von Braun and the Germans.
Goddard never got significant US Government support, but he continued his experiments right up to 1940. Of course von Braun did get government support, and apparently his team learned from Goddard's experiments. The end result was that von Braun's team knew more about large rockets, and he went on to head the NASA center (Huntsville) that is most associated with rocketry, and of course to develop the Saturn V. And von Karman, of course, was the founder of JPL.
As @err4nt's comment hints at, there is a rough parallel between von Karman's emigration from Germany to the US (his family was Jewish) and Qian's emigration from the US to China.
Happen to run into his story while reading about the history of Rocketry. His story even takes a more bizarre turn with L Ron. Hubbard, and finally his death in a mysterious explosion.
Indeed. I first read the hints of that story in Mike Davis's book City of Quartz.
Another interesting co-founder (one of the original handful, along with Parsons) was Frank Malina, who was the second director of JPL (after von Karman).
Malina was also suspected by the FBI of having Communist sympathies. He eventually left JPL and went to live in France.
I was just trying to point out that it's not like the US's space exploration program was built from the ground up on US soil, it involved importing expertise. That's what China seems to have done here too - imported expertise to kick-start a program. I don't see anything wrong with it, just figured some people may not be aware of that part of US history.
No, it wasn't. America intentionally established Operation Paperclip with the intention of recruiting German scientists. The Chinese didn't have to do anything to get Qian (and most likely weren't even thinking about space in 1950) - America just handed him to them, thanks to the US government's enormous stupidity.
I honestly don't care whether the Chinese or the Americans invest in space exploration - as long as anyone start doing it in earnest again. It's good to see the Asian world push forward with these programs.
Europe may seem exotic to some but I think we should focus efforts into improving our knowledge about other planets instead of Earth. What do they have to offer, what are they named. etc
Anyone else a little surprised that we hadn't heard anything about this mission earlier? I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing probes on the Moon. Kind of a big contrast to SpaceX, say, who seems to publish a press release or at least a tweet about everything they have done and are planning to do. Not that I mind, it's cool to read about what they're working on. I suppose if the Chinese space program is publishing much about it's plans, it doesn't make it into English-language media most of the time.
Don't forget Google who got lots of media attention:
> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon.
> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon.
That sentence wasn't even correct yesterday, before Chang'e 3 landed. The last lunar soft-landing was Luna 24 in 1976 -- a Soviet sample-return mission.
What they meant is that nobody had done what the Google Lunar XPRIZE requires since 1973. The Google prize requires a rover, and the last rover on the moon was Lunokhod 2, in 1973.
I heard about it. But it has received pretty muted coverage. I suspect a combination of jealousy, the Chinese language barrier, and Chinese indifference or inexperience at promoting its space activities. Given that China has had some embarrassing and destructive disasters in the space program, they seem a bit reluctant to go for the live broadcast approach.
> Given that China has had some embarrassing and destructive disasters in the space program, they seem a bit reluctant to go for the live broadcast approach.
The launch and landing of Chang'e 3 were both broadcast live on CCTV English.
If American news networks decided not to cover it live, then you can hardly blame that on the Chinese.
When the UK's Beagle failed, the public reaction was "Oh well, better luck next time.". If the Chinese mission failed, the reaction would probably be "Ha, you guys suck, you need to steal and copy some more".
The Chinese don't want to be humiliated thus I'm surprised there were live feeds. This must show increasing confidence in the space program and their abilities to execute successfully.
Because up until recently the entire space program was run by plucky Americans (with eccentric Brits/acceptable Euros and the occasional crazy Australian if needed) - anything else is Commie propaganda.
This is a massive accomplishment that might very well mark an inflection point for China. While countries like the US haven't really done anything in the last few decades to truly inspire the population --kids in particular-- here's China executing a feat of engineering that will surely serve as inspiration for their young. And, of course, this is probably the first of many.
Timing, of course, couldn't be better. The Chinese have managed their country admirably. No debt to speak of. Massive investment in infrastructure, technology and manufacturing capabilities. An environment where entrepreneurship is top dog and government seems to pretty much stay out of their way. And, of course, they are also ingesting massive amounts of intellectual and financial capital from the rest of the world.
Some have proposed this is going to inspire or push us to compete in this arena. I'll propose that will not happen at the same scale the Chinese are building-up to. Think of it this way: We have to actually borrow money from the Chinese to compete with them. I'll leave you with that thought.
"“Firstly, the moon is remote from us, and there is no clear short-term benefit for human beings,” says space scientist Yongchun Zheng of the National Astronomical Observatories in Beijing, by email.
But for China, he says, “the lunar exploration program is driven by its science goals. That is, to understand the history and prospect the future of the Moon, the Earth, and our solar system.”
...
“The implementation of China’s Lunar Exploration Program can drive forward the popularization, improve accomplishment of national science, and attract and encourage the youth to fall in love with science and seek after exploration and innovation,” they wrote."
Last few decades? I'm certainly not american, but there have been 3 mars missions in the last 5 years, an orbiter, a rover and a lander, the latest of which launched less than a month ago. Why are people so quick to write off their own achievements?
Not writing off achievements. These are simply not inspiring people the way the Chinese are being inspired today just by going to the moon. That's all.
At some level Mars is as intangible of asking someone to understand how a bird feels while flying. Outside of small circles there's no real appreciation for just how difficult these missions are. Therefore, the sense of awe isn't there. I'll bet most people in the US don't understand why you can't drive the robots on Mars like you do an RC car on the street. Yes, I am hinting at other problems.
I am not sure what the ROI of robotic or manned missions to Mars might be. And I am not necessarily in financial terms.
government seems to pretty much stay out of their way.
Not exactly - it's a low regulation environment, but there are huge centrally planned real estate developments and far less planning regulation or due process to stop the government building a road or a mall through your house.
Not to mention the capital controls, and the restrictions on foreign-owned businesses, the lack of free speech or free internet ..
And it's not just inspirational; the Lunar descent stage used today is completely over-specified for the job of delivering the small Youtou rover.
There is speculation that it is actually a common descent stage design which will be used in upcoming science-orientated Moon landings. For example, emplacing a substantial telescope.
The Chinese, as seems usual now, are playing the long-game.
It should be their top priority to drive over to the U.S. landing site and send back proof that we actually went to the moon. I atleast want to see what the flag and other things look like now. :)
I hope they stay away from the original landing site. It's the location of one of the most important events in human history, and it would be a shame to cause damage to it.
Not to diminish the significance of this accomplishment, but the Chinese space program is still in a catch-up phase, which allows them to make significant advances quicker than if they were at the frontier.
I wonder if China has the same level of waste that NASA does. Elon Musk is making great strides in space exploration because he is willing to embrace new technologies and do the work in-house, as opposed to NASA's way of using only "proven" technologies that are nested 5-6 levels deep in outsourcing, with each level taking a cut.
I'm certain SpaceX could make a dollar go a lot further than NASA can. Perhaps the Chinese even further.
When the lives of astronauts are on the line it seems like a pretty good idea to use proven technologies even if they are expensive. That said, I completely agree that new technologies are needed to make it cheaper to go to space and SpaceX seems to be leading the way here.
12 days of the budget for the entire us military sounds like a pretty damn good amount of money. Quick lookup indicates that's something like 21 billion dollars.
Thanks. And Cassini at Saturn, New Horizons on its way to Pluto, Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and Planck; STEREO and SDO looking at the Sun, and a host of Earth-observing missions (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/missions/), etc., etc.
Some of the comments above are not very well-informed.
No we don't. We operate at a trillion dollar deficit per year. How does that translate into having plenty of money? Should we borrow from the Chinese to compete with them?
> The American public perceives the NASA budget as commanding a much larger share of the federal budget than it in fact does. A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA's share of the federal budget, far higher than the actual 0.5% to under 1% that has been maintained throughout the late '90s and first decade of the 2000s.[16] It is estimated that most Americans spent less than $9 on NASA through personal income tax in 2009
Not very true, in a way. Chinese government is not very wealthy, different from what the media portray. It might have a large pile of "money" in reserve, but they can't take that money out easily.
In particular, most of the local government is in great debt, tens of billions in some cases. The Central government has a lot of debt too. Just because there is a pile of money in reserve doesn't actually make the government wealthy.
So Chang'e carries a Jade Rabbit to the moon. The consequence of thousands of years of cultural fascination with the moon is that there sure are a lot of things to name moon-bound spacecraft after.
Current renderings are based on real-time telemetry data being sent back from the probe.
40 years is a long time and instruments have advanced. I guess now that the solar panels are engaged and the rover is active, we will get some decent footage. The moon in 1080p? Yes please!
It will be good to see actual footage from the Moon. Forgive my skepticism, but after the Chinese team faked their summit of Everest I am naturally skeptical.
Ah yes just as after that American Lance Armstrong was found guilty of doping all this time I am VERY rightfully sceptical of ALL American athletes from then on indeed.
That's understandable. You know even the fact that America's moon-landing has been challenged for a long while. I was hoping China to land their rover to exactly where Armstrong landed on the Moon. Supposedly, the USA flag and the rover should be still there, which would make a conclusion and silence the debate.
Apollo 11 didn't bring a rover, and Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the takeoff of the ascent module. (the flag would still be there, just thrown on the ground.)
No informed/intelligent individual would debate that the moon landing was faked. It's absolutely absurd to believe the tech was around to fake a landing, but not actually land on the moon. There's no point in trying to convince every single person we landed there.
In real-time perhaps not, but yapcguy didn't say that. You can bet they'll be recording major events in high resolution/framerate (deployment, first drive, etc) and transmitting them back later, if only for engineering purposes. Rad-hard nonvolatile memory is relatively cheap when you're sending probes to other planets — even old Spirit/Opportunity had 256 MB.
We also know the rover has some real-time transmission capability (at unspecified resolution):
>The rover will be capable of real time video transmission, while it will be able to dig and perform simple analysis of soil samples. For the real time video transmissions Yutu will use the PanCam. These cameras will provide stereo images in high-resolution and will eventually give three-dimensional imaging for the scientists on Earth.
There are two components up there: the lander, and a small rover. Their announced plan was that after the rover leaves the lander, these two would take pictures of each other and send the pictures back. Note, I haven't seen any of the pictures we're talking about here, so I'm not commenting on what they are.
I think that either the Chinese are culturally less inclined to label things as real-time or simulations, or some Chinese characters on the video I'm too ignorant to read DID say something about that.
Anyway clearly half of that video was a simulation.
How about liquid cooling? Assuming it brings a length of hosing. A motor draws the water away from the device, far enough for it to cool, but not to freeze. We would use a liquid that does not easily freeze but can get very cool. We shield the hosing away from the sun.
The ISS uses water cooling no? /edit, liquid ammonia cooling to be precise. And :
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/HeatRejectionRadia...
Assuming that your mining machine is a 10cm * 10cm * 10cm box with 100W power, while it is a black body, then according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature of your machine will be......
414K, or 285°F.
One of the hot-selling mining machines in China is the Friedcat Box, providing 38GH/s in 360W power. The dimensions of this thing is a 12cm cube. Using the data of this machine, and calculated with Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature will be...
Just when i thought quadcopters were cool ... I can see how, with a little chinese-fu magic the chinese could make space travel commodity. Or at least moon-droning. Certainly looking forward to pay a (short) visit to the first moon colony.
While America is wasting billions on waging wars and funding failures like Obamacare, other nations are advancing their science! China's next destination is Mars! I'm sure they will get there well before Mars One, which keeps pushing their dates further in the future!
