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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: 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.
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