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China to Fly Lunar Samples to Earth

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the expensive-paperweights dept.

butthurt writes:

China has outlined plans for an upcoming flight to the Moon, The Guardian reports:

The spacecraft will consist of four distinct parts: a lander and an ascender, an orbiter and a returner. The lander will descend to the surface of the Moon, collect the samples and place them in the ascender. This will launch and rendezvous with the orbiter and returner, all of which will then journey back towards Earth.

The samples will be transferred to the returner, which will detach from the orbiter and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

Chang'e-5 is expected to be launched in November 2017.

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  • (Score: 2) by driven on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:39AM

    by driven (6295) on Sunday February 26 2017, @07:39AM (#471763)

    Tian said that China is in discussion with the European Space Agency and other countries "to build bases and carry out scientific investigations on the moon, which will lay a technology and material foundation for human beings' landing on the moon in the future."

    This is exciting. Nice to see progress being made!

    Some lunar photos [popsci.com] taken by China's Yutu rover before it died [space.com].

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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:18AM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:18AM (#471804) Journal

    Yup!
    Build a base on the moon, THEN go to Mars.

    Or is there a rush to Mars for...... Reasons?

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 26 2017, @03:39PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 26 2017, @03:39PM (#471880) Journal
      The obvious rebuttal is that a Moon base is not required for exploration and settlement of Mars. Personally, I think this sort of prioritization arguments will go away once moderately small groups of people can on their own muster enough resources to build a Moon base or Mars base. Then someone will just start doing it rather than arguing over it.

      Similarly, it would completely bypass Earth first people who want us to first perfectly fix problems that have been kicking around forever (like poverty and starvation) even though the societies that are able to do things like build bases on other worlds are also the societies that have made major inroads on these Earth-side problems.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:59PM (#472002)

        no.
        space is vaste. like YUGE! i mean huge!
        it is terrible single-minded to try and do it alone. everything iN space made by humans (on earth with earth resources) should, no! MUST! interact and be interface-able by anything else human made it encounter in space (afterall it was made by a part of the planet and it has been launched .. out there).
        the real challenge is to find THE PERFECT "system"(*) laid down by the universe for humans. the first to discover will rule the world .. albeit not by money but by idea : )

        (*) we have centimeters, something else, and then soemthing else again and then maybe inches? we have red, blue, yellow, we have, x64, x32, arm, mips, etc etc ... surely also alot over other things that paid money to be close to the source of standard creation but we can only cost along for so loong on a WRONG standard until the obvious becomes ... welll UNIVERSAL for HUMANkind because ... we are humans (not chickens or dolphine tho we might like them to survive also?) but we are flexible but we still strive for rigid.