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China talking with European Space Agency about moon outpost
- hownottowrite 10y ago"The discussions were confirmed by the ESA’s Pal Hvistendahl, speaking to Bloomberg on Wednesday" Pal Hvistendahl wasn't talking to Bloomberg. The original article is from the AP (which is noted in the byline on Bloomberg too). http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347ff7/china-talking-european-space-agency-about-moon-outpost http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347...
- hacker_9 10y agoI wonder, if the moon becomes a habitable location in my lifetime, will all those people who bought 'an acre of the moon' have their contract upheld? [0] [0] https://www.moonestates.com https://www.moonestates.com
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- charlesdm 10y agoOf course not
- kobeya 10y agoNo. There is absolutely no legal basis for that scam.
- JorgeGT 10y ago"Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means" Outer Space Treaty, Article II: http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/intr...
- stult 10y agoIt's actually unclear whether this prohibits private property, though it probably would because property can't exist without enforcement of property rights by a sovereign government. Which raises something of a difficult question for asteroid mining ventures. Personally I think we will see the OST revised or rescinded once these hypothetical situations start actually happening. We need more clarity on property rights for commercial exploitation of space resources to become viable. No one is going to invest $100bn to capture and mine an asteroid only to find out that they technically do not have exclusive rights to the asteroid and anyone who reach near earth orbit can legally mine it too. In any case, those BS certificates for moon acerage are definitely not enforceable, for about fifty different legal reasons. The most obvious of which is you can't sell what you don't own.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- adrianN 10y agoYou could probably shoot down anyone who gets too near to your asteroid. If there is no space police to stop them from stealing your stuff, there is no space police stopping you from defending your stuff either.
- icebraining 10y agoNot that I'm advocating it, but an alternative to rescinding the OST would be to set up an international organization responsible for allocating "space property", possibly under the umbrella of the WTO.
- SCHiM 10y agoSadly I'm quite sure that these issues are always solved by force. I simply cannot imagine that countries with the means to get to <valuable space resource> will abide by the decisions of a foreign organisation which has just given said resource to your frenemy.
- clarkmoody 10y ago
- ddalex 10y agoRights only mean something only and only if two conditions are held: you have the capability to defend them and you have the capacity to defend them.
- umanwizard 10y agoWhat's the difference between capability and capacity? To my (naive) understanding, those both mean the same thing as "ability".
- speeder 10y agoCapability: having the means of defense (soldiers, technology, weapons...) Capacity: having enough resources to use capability (manpower, food, ammo, money, energy) Brazil for example is great at the second, having plenty of resources, but sucks at first, having no national tank manufacturer, poor naval tech and so on... North Korea is sort the opposite: have tons od artillery, missiles, nuclear tech, but most likely nowhere near the resources needed for extended war, they can only hope people fear the damage they can output in their initial strike is deterrent enough.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- simias 10y agoAs for any territorial dispute the question you're asking is: will any of the people who've bought "moon estate" on this website be able to enforce the border (either individually or collectively)? Unless a superpower bought one of this estates, the answer is most likely no. I think those citing the "outer space treaty" and such are misled. The reason there's no private property on the moon right now is because there's absolutely no incentive to do so. If we start colonizing the moon, and in particular if we start mining it you can be sure that the story will be much more different. Look at the many territorial disputes around the arctic (and its valuable resources).
- nkrisc 10y agoI see no reason that anyone except the people who paid into it would ever recognize such claims. I can claim your house all I want, doesn't mean anyone will recognize that I own it.
- jlebrech 10y agoelon musk just needs to send his boring machines to build an underground base, hey presto.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoBut if the machines did something that cool, then would they be boring any more?
- Proven 10y agoAwful. More government where we don't need it. And the associated public spending.
- jmadsen 10y agoI thought the whole idea of "moon bases" were put to rest a long time ago? Not any categories I'm aware of where they are the best option, from mining, forward base to Mars, habitability, etc
- mwill 10y agoRule of cool? Its probably the best bang for the buck to get the general populace interested in space travel again. A Chinese / European moon base would probably breed a whole new generation of space nerds.
- eduren 10y agoI feel like it's a stepping stone in more ways than one. There's still plenty we don't know about how our own biology functions outside of Earth's gravity well, atmosphere, or magnetosphere. Long term studies will need to be done, and lunar studies are a much more approachable candidate (cost and mission risk). We could always go straight to Mars and do the research there, but that is the riskier strategy. We'd definitely learn what we need to, but it opens up more failure modes for any colonization mission, and managing the risk on Mars would be expensive. Mars colonization would already be straining our ability to engineer and fund, let alone doing it semi-blind.
- lorenzhs 10y agoESA's director general Jan Wörner spoke about ESA's plan for a lunar village at 33c3: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space_exploration https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8406-the_moon_and_european_space... "Refocusing on the moon as a platform for future deep space missoins". It's a great watch, but doesn't contain many details.
- DanielleMolloy 10y agoI have been there and this was indeed an extremely entertaining talk - highly recommended speaker :) The whole track was pretty good.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> ESA's director (...) at 33c3 I'm impressed by that fact alone. Speaks well about ESA.
- lorenzhs 10y agoYes, absolutely. There was another talk by someone at ESA on the feasibility of a moon elevator as well: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8407-an_elevator_to_the_moon_and_back https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8407-an_elevator_to_the_moon_and... , which is also quite cool. The gist is that while we don't have the materials to build a space elevator from Earth, today's materials are sufficiently strong to construct a moon elevator (from the moon into space). This would reduce the ∆v required for moon missions significantly (by around 2.8km/s iirc). Getting the materials to the moon and constructing the elevator are a different story, though :)
- Nomentatus 10y agoSomething I remember proposing more than a decade ago. But it's actually better to use it as an anchor for a station at the L1 earth-moon point and one-shot payloads there by ecannon from the lunar surface, since at the right angle such payloads actually climb up the gravitational saddle to the saddlepoint where the station is and come to rest there.
- smdz 10y agoI've always wondered why the US never went back to the moon. Or never set up a moon base for space exploration and experimentation. Even when countries like China and India are making attempts to mine the moon for Helium - why don't we hear such stories from the US? If it makes sense for China and India, it probably does make sense for US too. Or do the US elites know something much more fundamental and powerful that we might never hear of until the next world-war? I don't like the controversy theories, especially about aliens, but I don't like the arguments against the controversy theories either. I don't know if aliens exist and even if they existed and visited us few decades back, I believe they would disregard us as a sub-Type 0 civilization (like Michio Kaku categorizes). They would have found us similar to primitives - studied us and left.
- krapp 10y ago>I've always wondered why the US never went back to the moon. Or never set up a moon base for space exploration and experimentation. The US sent half a dozen crewed missions to the moon, and made numerous unmanned missions. There's no dark secret - space travel is complex and expensive, travel to the moon vastly more so than simply to orbit, and money is governed by politics. When the US had the prestige of possibly beating the Soviets to the moon , there was the political and popular will to do so. But eventually, the trick simply got old, and no longer seemed worth the expense. Now take that, and add the exponential long term cost of a habitat and mining operation on the moon with 1970's / 1980's dollars and tech. I remember there being numerous plans for a moonbase at the time, it was discussed by NASA often, but the thing is, no one could figure out how to actually make it work reasonably cheaply without seeming like a lavish and pointless boondoggle to Congress.
- Fifer82 10y agoI find it odd that in the 60s it was deemed affordable, but during the 2 decades of boomer super cycle, the female migration to the workforce, and spending money now which our grandchildrens grandchildren will be repaying... we could ill afford it.
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- thearn4 10y agoCount me among the "moon first, then mars" crowd.
- arunix 10y agoI agree. Both the Moon and Mars have a huge amount of sub-surface potential living space. I think a long term colony on either of these worlds would be much safer below the surface where it would be shielded from cosmic rays etc. If we can learn to build 'ant colony' style habitats on the Moon, we ought to be able to do the same on Mars once the cost of travel becomes lower.
- vkou 10y agoThere's another planet with a huge amount of unused sub-surface, and on-surface living space - the Earth. We don't even need to leave the gravity well! If you're concerned about civilization-ending climate/nuclear disasters, consider that even in that event, parts of the Earth will still be more hospitable for human life then the Moon or Mars.
- ceejayoz 10y agoYeah. Mars is important, but testing stuff out where the ride home is a couple days instead of months/years seems a lot more sensible. Sure, the Moon offers different challenges in spots, but it'll still let us validate things like growing crops, water reclamation, robotic construction, etc. with the ability to pop home if it all goes disastrously.
- stevendhansen 10y agoRobert Zubrin has discussed the "moon first" strategy, and has made the interesting observation that many of the pro arguments come from entrenched space industries looking to make a buck on existing hardware. The argument being "we already build parts to go to the moon, so let's just do that." Personally I would love to see both outcomes. But given a limited budget, going to Mars has the advantage of providing a (admittedly risky and uncertain) possibility of extending the survival of the human race, where as going back to the moon seems to provide more indirect benefits.
- rekshaw 10y agoReminded me of The Three Body Problem trilogy (currently on Book 3). Highly recommend it for any fans of Science Fiction as the author is incredibly detailed and comprehensive in the social implications of space/ET life.
- qd6pwu4 10y agoyes, very nice story
- mhb 10y agoIn order to calibrate your opinion of a book with mine, could you say what you thought of The Player of Games, if you have read it?
- smaps 10y agoI too am curious about this calibration and think that's a good book to use for it.
- 542458 10y agoNot the fellow you're replying to, but I've also read both books. I enjoyed The Player of Games very much. Three Body Problem was also good, but I found some characters to be frustratingly irrational (i.e., it feels like some people were doing things simply because the plot needed a character to do that action, rather than out of any meaningful motivation). Still worth your time - the Chinese cultural background was an interesting touch for me. I've not read the two sequels, but they also sound interesting.
- emptyfile 10y agoI absolutely hate the Culture series, I find it predictable, boring and unoriginal. The Three body problem and its sequels (it's a trilogy) I find absolutely fascinating. Be warned, this is very dry writing with very flat characters, mostly digestible because of the exotic Chinese background which is noticeable, but this book is all about ideas, so in many ways completely the opposite of the space opera Culture series. Despite its length, much of which I consider filler, these are one of a handful of books which really made me question our position in the universe. The second book, The Dark Forest, is my favorite. The Three body problem is actually my least favorite, written more like a mystery thriller rather than sci-fi. And yes, you absolutely need to read all three parts.
- campuscodi 10y agoSo you've shared this 3-paragraph reworded TechCrunch article instead of linking to the original Bloomberg report? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-26/china-talking-with-european-space-agency-about-moon-outpost https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-26/china-tal...
- mcjiggerlog 10y agoWell the original link didn't have auto-starting videos, at least.
- paradite 10y agoSo you've linked this copypaste Bloomberg report instead of the original AP story? It is literally written there on Bloomberg news page: > THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (MATTHEW BROWN) http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347ff7/china-talking-european-space-agency-about-moon-outpost http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347... https://www.apnews.com/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347ff7/China-talking-with-European-Space-Agency-about-moon-outpost https://www.apnews.com/c7d78ca284eb4347821fe2825e347ff7/Chin...
- sctb 10y agoThanks, we've updated the link from https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/chinese-and-european-space-agencies-in-talks-to-build-a-moon-base https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/chinese-and-european-space....
- sehugg 10y agoMethinks there's a little bit of political symbolism, too.
- remotehack 10y agoThe US should be in on, or leading, this.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoIf any part of the mission of this proposed station involves monitoring the Earth for climate change data, and it certainly will, then the US will not be part of it. I think if voters wanted the US to lead in space and science then they shouldn't have voted for someone who dismisses basic science. China will absolutely lead on this now that we've put in an anti-science government. Expect them to lead on other things that were traditionally our domain too.
- Arizhel 10y agoWhy is this down-voted? It's 100% correct. The US will not be part of anything that involves climate science at this time. We should be looking to China to lead the world in many things in the coming years. The US has shot itself in the foot, and continues to shoot itself in the foot.
- T-A 10y agoJust guessing: maybe the down-voter thought it was an attempt to make an off-topic political point? I wouldn't entirely disagree - I can't imagine why you would want to go all the way to the Moon and set up a manned base there in order to observe Earth - but a reasoned response making that point explicitly would certainly have been better. There is plenty of peculiar-looking down-voting on HN. I am seriously beginning to wonder if that down arrow serves any useful purpose.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago>I can't imagine why you would want to go all the way to the Moon and set up a manned base there in order to observe Earth Why wouldn't you? You're all the way there and pointing a sensor at the Earth isn't a big deal. You know you can do more than one thing at a time, right? Climate science is probably one of our bigger planetary issues and perhaps the biggest issue facing humanity right now. You know Earth is a planet right? That's part of planetary science, that's why you explore space in the first place. It doesn't get an exception for purely political reasons. Studying the Earth is no different than studying Mars or Jupiter. Its incredible the hoops people will jump through to justify Trump's absurd climate conspiracy theories and asinine policies in regards to science.
- johnnydoe9 10y agoI can hear Clint Mansell music already, "I'm Sam Bell Too"
- jlebrech 10y agoSeriously, let's just send 100s of robots. You can send: digging, sintering, dusting, pushing, lifting robots, and you can build any structure. Just keep sending new robots till we can send humans, and the humans can repair what's there.
- sgt 10y agoI agree that you need to send robots. But robots right now on Earth are not capable of operating without a little human intervention now and then. That's why you need a moon crew - albeit a skeleton crew to start off with. They'll sort things out that need to be done on-site.
- pier25 10y agoNah we just send a couple hundred clones
- amorphid 10y agoI like the movie Moon. It deals with sending robots and people to mine Helium-3.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoWhich robots? We can barely manage to keep rovers alive on Mars and they aren't lifting 500lbs space rocks. The Chinese couldn't keep their rover losing its drive train on the moon after 48 hours. The ESA has never had a moon rover. We're very, very far from industrious robots on Earth, let alone on the moon or mars. We aren't even building mega-structures with robots here outside of trivial edge cases, why do you think we can do it on the moon? Also from a cost per lbs perspective, swarms of giant building robots will cost more than the GDP of most nation states. A handful of astronauts with powertools working with ultra-light materials won't. For example, a small team can raise up Bigelow's mostly inflatable moon base concept in days: http://spaceindustrynews.com/nasa-and-bigelow-aerospace-make-plans-for-moon-base/ http://spaceindustrynews.com/nasa-and-bigelow-aerospace-make... No 50,000 lbs space mechs required.
- ptero 10y agoThis to me is a good news as it help keep the topic alive, but I doubt that this effort will be very successive (I wish it the best). It will likely get too expensive quickly. Both participants are bureaucratic (afraid of failures) and suspicious of each other (secrecy, national pride) which will also ramp up costs. We probably can set up a base now at a huge cost to set up and operation, but it will likely fizzle soon to next budget crisis. I think to bootstrap a useful permanent base on the moon or Mars (that can grow, provides safe and efficient transport) we need to accept significantly higher risk to life, say 20%, at the initial setup / prototyping period to allow rapid development and testing of new technologies for all stages of the process (flight, space stations, energy, mining, etc.). I think enough qualified individuals will gladly accept this for a chance to fly, but regulators will likely kill this if they consider it not safe enough. Private companies are more likely to achieve this, especially if they are not hamstrung by regulations. My 2c.
- sidlls 10y ago> Private companies are more likely to achieve this, especially if they are not hamstrung by regulations. On what do you base this? If it's too expensive and dangerous for governments, with the ability to leverage overwhelming resources if they chose to and not care a bit whether any revenue were generated, how is it more likely that a severely resource constrained company likely limited by a profit (or at least constrained loss) motive will succeed?
- sevensor 10y agoNASA was talking about this in the '70s and '80s. Didn't go anywhere, but left behind a pretty cool gallery of concept art: https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/exploration/lunarexploration/ndxpage1.html https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/exploration/luna...
- cowardlydragon 10y agoFrom the moon you can more easily mine asteroids for raw materials. From the moon you can launch 1960s tech Orion pulse nuclear ships to the rest of the solar system with 1 month transit times. From the moon we can build out more space station infrastructure in earth orbit. From the moon we can build a space elevator.