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Touchdown, Chinese land on the Moon


seeder

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The rover has now been deployed!!

China's Jade Rabbit rover rolls on to Moon's surface

China's Jade Rabbit robot rover has driven off its landing module and on to the Moon's surface. The robotic vehicle rolled down a ramp lowered by the lander and on to the volcanic plain known as Sinus Iridum. Earlier on Saturday, the landing module containing the rover fired its thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25384057

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Chinese technology is certainly coming on strong, what's next I wonder ?

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what's next I wonder ?

In lunar exploration Chang'e 4 in 2015, another lander/rover. Followed by Chang'e 5 in 2018 which will return sample to Earth.

In manned flight probably no flights next year. A second, more advanced man tended laboratory, Tiangong 2, to be launched in 2015 with maybe 2 manned Shenzhou flights to visit it. Then a modular space station with the modules being launched between 2020-2022.

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I think China have done extremely well by concentrating efforts on the Moon. They have clear objective and concentrating on it is showing it is paying off.

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That was very well done by the chineese colleagues but unfortunally they do not provide info + media about the mission in a quantity and quality as ESA/NASA/JAXA are doing this for their missions. Thats frustrating. The homepage of CNSA is a pain in the ^$ in general and I think we will get more visual informations from the mission generated by NASAs LRO than from CNSA.

Edited by toast
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What happens if they find something valuable up there and start mining? Will there be a Land Run to attain parts of the moon that start an unprecedented global Space Race?

And how long before people start seeing wires and shadows and fluttering flags?

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I think China have done extremely well by concentrating efforts on the Moon.

They haven't concentrated efforts on the moon.

The Chinese attempted to send a probe to Mars in 2011. Called Yinghuo-1 it was lost, along with Russia's Fobos-Grunt when the Russian launch vehicle's upper stage failed to send them out of Earth orbit.

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They haven't concentrated efforts on the moon.

The Chinese attempted to send a probe to Mars in 2011. Called Yinghuo-1 it was lost, along with Russia's Fobos-Grunt when the Russian launch vehicle's upper stage failed to send them out of Earth orbit.

Yes sorry not solely concentrated on the moon. But they have stated a clear objective which is to land a manned mission and possibly set up a base.

I am not going to get into the alarmist, conspiracy guys theories that they intend to claim the moon and its resources or set up missile bases. Effectively they are trying to achieve what Nasa did in the 60's/70's (please no Moon Landing conspiracy theorists repercussions you are busted and mad imo).

They do however have a clear objective of landing a Rover (now done), followed by a capsule to return moon material leading to a manned mission. I can't see a manned mission happening till at least 2025-2030 but they are certainly sowing the seeds.

I am probably really wrong but all other agencies and private ventures seem to be all over the place and not thinking together.

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Finally someone is going to the moon

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Treaties can be broken. History has shown that. Not saying that China will but anything's possible.

What would be the point?

How can you claim the Moon as belonging to you if every other nation on Earth just totally ignores you?

When are people going to stop with the paranoid, ill-informed nonsense and start thinking logically?

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China's moon rover, lander photograph each other

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's first moon rover and lander took photos of each other on the moon's surface Sunday night, a move that marks a complete success of the country's Chang'e-3 lunar probe mission.

Ma Xingrui, chief commander of China's lunar program, announced that Chang'e-3 mission was a "complete success", after the two successfully took pictures for each other.

arrow3.gifRead more...

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What would be the point?

How can you claim the Moon as belonging to you if every other nation on Earth just totally ignores you?

When are people going to stop with the paranoid, ill-informed nonsense and start thinking logically?

Read my last post again. And this time don't jump to conclusions.

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Read my last post again. And this time don't jump to conclusions.

Firstly, I did read your post carefully. Maybe you should re-read it to remind yourself of what you ACTUALLY said.

Treaties can be broken. History has shown that. Not saying that China will but anything's possible.

Since, despite your protestations and fence-sitting you have clearly not ruled out China breaking the treaty my questions still stand:

What would be the point?

How can you claim the Moon as belonging to you if every other nation on Earth just totally ignores you?

Are you going to answer the questions or just make another indignant post in order to avoid it?

Secondly my post was deliberately general:

When are people going to stop with the paranoid, ill-informed nonsense and start thinking logically?

If you want to leap to conclusions that's up to you, but you know what they say about people in glass houses...

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Scientific equipment aboard Chang'e-3 starts working

BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Five of the eight pieces of scientific equipment aboard Chang'e-3 lunar probe have started to observe space, the Earth and the Moon, a Chinese scientist said on Monday.

They have entered working mode and telescopes and cameras have produced clear images, Zou Yongliao, a scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at a press conference.

arrow3.gifRead more...

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What would be the point?

How can you claim the Moon as belonging to you if every other nation on Earth just totally ignores you?

When are people going to stop with the paranoid, ill-informed nonsense and start thinking logically?

Well, we are talking about a country who's government routinely kidnaps, imprisons, tortures and/or exectues its citizens for practicing what is essentially a form of philsophical yoga, I wouldn't put anything past a country's government that thinks that is an acceptable thing to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#Deaths

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Firstly, I did read your post carefully. Maybe you should re-read it to remind yourself of what you ACTUALLY said.

Since, despite your protestations and fence-sitting you have clearly not ruled out China breaking the treaty my questions still stand:

Are you going to answer the questions or just make another indignant post in order to avoid it?

Secondly my post was deliberately general:

If you want to leap to conclusions that's up to you, but you know what they say about people in glass houses...

Try Decaf.

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Are you going to answer the questions or just make another indignant post in order to avoid it?

Try Decaf.

I'll take that as a no then.

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Well, we are talking about a country who's government routinely kidnaps, imprisons, tortures and/or exectues its citizens for practicing what is essentially a form of philsophical yoga, I wouldn't put anything past a country's government that thinks that is an acceptable thing to do.

This is a non sequitur. The argument "China has a poor record of human rights and so would therefore break international treaties on space" is simply illogical. The one does not follow logically from the other.

It also does not answer the questions I asked:

What would be the point?

How can you claim the Moon as belonging to you if every other nation on Earth just totally ignores you?

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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As far as resources go, haven't we already detected deposits of Helium-3?

Hardly deposits and hardly a resource.

It exists in greater quantities on the Moon than the Earth but it still only exists at a MAXIMUM of around 50 parts per billion.

3He has limited uses at the moment. It is hypothesised that it could be useful in some form of nuclear fusion. Most experts believe commercial nuclear fusion to be at least fifty years away and even then there is no guarantee that the reactors which have commercial success will even use 3He.

At the levels that exist on the moon, to obtain 1 tonne of 3He would require mining 150 million tonnes of lunar regolith.

So despite 3He often being quoted as a reason to mine the Moon the reality is that currently its commercial value does not make that a viable option.

Wikipedia article on 3He

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