from the take-good-flashlights-to-the-dark-side! dept.
China Launches Mission To Far Side Of The Moon As US Claims A New Space Race Has Begun:
On May 3, China launched Chang’e 6, its latest mission to the Moon. Similar to its predecessor, it is a sample retrieval mission, expected to collect up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lunar material from the far side of the Moon, the portion that is always facing away from Earth. The whole mission is expected to last 53 days.
China has already broken records on the far side by becoming the first and only nation to soft-land there with Chang’e 4 in 2019. That mission landed in the Von Kármán crater, which is 180 kilometers (110 miles) across and sits within the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Chang’e 6 is targeting another area of the basin: the Apollo crater, which is three times as wide as the Von Kármán.
The interest in this area lies in the distant past of the Moon. Underneath this region, there is a massive structure, potentially part of the colossal object that slammed into the Moon and created the basin 4 billion years ago. The jackpot would be to find portions of the lunar mantle and bring them back to Earth.
In an attempt to achieve this, Chang’e 6 is equipped with a scoop to collect soil and rocks from the surface, as well as a drill to collect subsurface samples. An ascent vehicle will launch the samples into orbit, where it will rendezvous with an orbiter and come back to Earth.
That is not the only focus of the mission, however. The lander and orbiter include scientific payloads from other countries too, which aim to understand dust and outgassing on the Moon, studying lunar magnetism, among other goals.
[...] In the US, China’s plans are being seen with increased anxiety. On April 17, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies held a hearing about the NASA Budget for 2025. Both the chair, representative Harold Rogers (R-KY), and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson made reference to a new space race.
“The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in 1958 in response to the so-called Space Race with the Soviet Union to land the first man on the Moon. Today we find ourselves in yet another space race, this time with China,” Rogers stated during the hearing.
“We are in a race,” Nelson replied to a question from Rogers on Chinese plans. “The latest date they've said they're going to land [on the moon] is 2030 but that keeps moving up.”
[...] Nelson also said that he believes that the Chinese civilian space program is actually a military program. The comments have been seen as venting a frustration about the comparatively limited budget NASA operates. Others have considered Nelson’s comments as coming across as hypocritical given NASA’s many links to the military-industrial complex and the Department of Defense.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday May 07 2024, @12:29PM
From TFA:
Is it in the shape of a giant swastika [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 3, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 07 2024, @12:49PM (1 child)
We're way ahead, Artemis 2 was scheduled for 2019 and we put our incredibly expensive(and therefor good) Military Industrial Complex private contractors like Lockheed and SpaceX in charge of launching it. I'm sure our time table moved up too, and we already launched in 2018. No need to worry.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday May 07 2024, @02:12PM
Without SpaceX the USA's space launch capabilities would be based on the SLS, which was designed to cost $1 Billion dollars per rocket . . .
My bad, I was way off, though, it's likely they said only 1 billion at some point. Cost per launch being $2 Billion according to the wikipedia page (Excluding! development costs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 07 2024, @02:07PM (5 children)
We won any "race" fifty years ago, then rested on our laurels, or poison ivy leaves, whichever. I resented those stupid space planes before the first one ever launched, because those effectively ended any further exploration beyond immediate earth orbit. Now, when a foreign government puts some money into exploration, we've got to get ahead of them? Governmental types are blowing smoke up all our asses. My money is on SpaceX and any other private enterprise space exploration. OK, so, the other private enterprise clowns appear to be just making a show, and stroking their e-peen with low orbital flight. They may yet do something meaningful. Maybe. We can hope.
Meanwhile, I'll back just about anyone who puts mankind into space. I won't exactly like it if it's the Chinese, but if no one else does it, I'll back the Chinese.
There really are no new frontiers on earth. Oh, yeah, the oceans. That's kind of a cul-de-sac. You can only go down a few miles, and you're done. I want us to go those few miles, but the future is in space. We can take our experience from under water exploration out to the next water world, that's great. But those water worlds are found in space, not at the bottom of our own oceans.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2024, @02:56PM
Then how about not turning it into an uninhabitable shithole.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Tuesday May 07 2024, @05:11PM (1 child)
People once said a similar thing (in the opposite direction) about flight, or flying faster than sound, and then leaving the earth's atmosphere, and then...
We do not know what we might find if we go down into the depths of the oceans. There are certainly challenges - but that can be said for almost any worthwhile endeavour.
The USA has not always been in the lead in space exploration. Sputnik wasn't an American satellite, Laika wasn't an American dog, and Yuri Gagarin was not an American astronaut. In fact the only place you were first was to plant a footprint and flag on the moon. Why should that have been the end of the race? The Chinese are looking at an area of the moon that nobody else has shown much interest in. It will still be a 'first'.
I'm looking forward to seeing the first footprint on Mars and the first flag to be planted there. I'm not betting on whose it will be, but if it is an American I'm sure someone will claim it as the end of the race and that the USA won.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 07 2024, @11:39PM
Well, let me phrase my idea differently. No matter how deep we go into the oceans of earth, we still have only one planet. Going outward, we double the number of planets at our disposal with the first one. I'm not trying to choose between up or down, I am pointing out that there is a finite limit to how deep you can go in the ocean. Let's do both, but I am far more gung-ho for space exploration, than I am for ocean exploration.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2024, @01:52AM (1 child)
If they want mankind in space then they should do those gravity experiments to figure out how much gravity humans and their favorite animals need.
What you learn from such experiments will remain relevant for as long as humans remain somewhat human. If you know the minimum gravity for young healthy males and females and if it's lower than 1g (likely), then for certain scenarios your habitats don't need to be as expensive - don't need to handle as high stresses.
Same for shorter term missions/work schedules- e.g. 1 month at even lower g is fine... Once the info becomes better the "pros" might even wear a gravity badge/watch to calculate exposure to gravity, just like radiation/depth exposure. Not getting enough "gravity"? Spend more time in the "puke wheel" or you get sent back.
For "humans in ocean" science and experiments were done, dive tables, etc were made. So for "humans in space" where are those "gravity tables"? Who is doing the science for those?
Those diving tables (max bottom time etc) didn't magically appear from nowhere ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_decompression_research_and_development#Haldanean_(perfusion_limited,_dissolved_phase)_models [wikipedia.org] ).
If the US wants to be first in space, then maybe they should do such experiments and develop those gravity tables, just like the US Navy were among the first to do the dive research and diving tables.
The corps might eventually do it if nobody else does, but that usually takes longer. Right now the money is actually not from space, but from the Earth. So the corps will just suck accordingly. That humans on Mars stuff? That's just for sucking from Earth even harder.
But once you can mine the moon or asteroids AND actually make money from it, then the mankind in space thing isn't just disguised sucking from Earth, and starts becoming a real thing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Wednesday May 08 2024, @07:16AM
SpaceX with Musk (like him or probably not), is on track for this. Full re-usability is the only way the goals you mention can be achieved.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Tuesday May 07 2024, @02:20PM
i can't even be bothered to capitalize.
sample retrieval mission. from the moon. never mind that japan recently brought back parts of an asteroid. where did nasa get its recent samples from? they had trouble opening the container..
NASA has been running ops on Mars for decades now. but hey, china is sending things to the moon now. finally. they're clearly in the lead in this so-called race. my mistake.