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China lands rover on Mars
- ClosedPistachio 5y ago>Now that Zhurong has got down successfully, scientists will try to get at least 90 Martian days of service out of it, studying the local geology. 90 days, doesn't that seem short?
- hoten 5y agoSpace missions like to set easier to accomplish goals. Anything after that is viewed as a bonus. US space program did the same with the recent Mars mission.
- jagger27 5y agoSpirit and Opportunity both had 90-day official mission lengths as well and look how long they lasted. I think this is a simple case of underpromise and overdeliver.
- yumraj 5y agoAh that explains where the 90 days in the Chinese rover comes from. It’s per the original specs.
- montereynack 5y ago“Those darn Chinese! They’re also launching their projectiles at 45 degree angles! They’re obviously copying the techniques we invented when the laws of physics first came into being!” That’s you. That’s how you sound.
- azurezyq 5y agoOpportunity also has a 90 sols designed life. Designed, designed.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoIf you design something so that it has a 99% chance of lasting 90 days, there's a pretty good chance it'll last 6 months or even a year. Especially since failures tend to follow a bathtub curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoAll things considered, 90 days is pretty good for how harsh of an environment Mars can be. Also, there are dozens of ways to make the mission last longer but no ways of accomplishing that without adding more weight.
- k_sze 5y agoThis makes me think about the way we define “harsh”. What’s actually so harsh about Mars? Let’s imagine some alien civilization tries to send a probe to Earth, they’d be saying things like: “Dude, that atmosphere is gonna burn our shit up before it even touches ground, if we’re not careful.” “Holy shit, what are these huge animals with long noses and big ears? They’re gonna destroy our probe if they walk over it.” “Let’s avoid landing in that area where those bipedals are still waging war.” “The rain is acidic! WT bloody F?” “Ugh, those black-and-white swimming things seem like assholes who like to play with their food, let’s steer clear of them.”
- tomrod 5y agoMost of the dust is extremely sharp, not having water break up the edges.
- dandelany 5y agoNo it’s not - aeolian processes do a fine job of weathering it. It is very fine dust, and somewhat toxic, but it is not sharp like lunar regolith is. https://medium.com/@adammann930/the-problem-with-dust-on-the-moon-and-mars-2a916162b864 https://medium.com/@adammann930/the-problem-with-dust-on-the...
- tomrod 5y agoToday I learned! I thought it was effectively lunar regolith.
- bserge 5y agoWell, yeah, their technology would be mostly adapted for their home planet, Earth could be very harsh.
- zapdrive 5y agoIf it is anything like other Chinese goods, i doubt it will even last 90 days. Lol. But I'm sure the Amazon listing for the probe would have 100k positive reviews, even though they probably only made a couple of these.
- Dah00n 5y agoThey said the same thing of US goods way back in the day, later also about Japanese goods. The "good goods" are also made in China today. It is so widespread that it can be hard to even get English or German documentation on electronic parts these days. Please don't take part in nationalism. It's not very interesting.
- hliyan 5y agoNow that more and more countries are getting into space exploration, I wonder how long it will be before commercial companies start developing and selling space probe platforms (just like launch platforms now).
- HumblyTossed 5y agoSPAAS - Space Platforms As A Service
- spicyramen 5y agoWhere can I invest?
- postingawayonhn 5y agoThere's a number of private moon landers under development.
- hiharryhere 5y agoRocketlab is heading down that track already with their Photon satellite platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAUj-TQpn-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAUj-TQpn-A
- KuiN 5y agoThis is already common in the satellite world. Companies design & build satellite platforms (usually called "buses" for sats) that satellite developers build on top of. Usually provides the core physical structure, plus attachments for payloads or sensors; some more advanced ones also include stuff like avionics, power distribution etc. Wikipedia has some interesting examples [0]. Photon mentioned in a sibling comment builds on that idea by providing a bus with engines to make it into a simple spacecraft. I don't know of any off-the-shelf rover platforms yet but can absolutely see the same thing happening when there's enough demand / cost of access to places worth roving around is cheaper. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_bus
- pingec 5y agoIt's impressive how far China has come in just 2 decades. How significant is this achievement space technology wise? I still remember the first rover on Mars and it was a really big deal in my eyes back then.
- FooBarWidget 5y agoConsider that China is banned from the ISS and other kinds of space technology collaboration programs. China had to develop all space technology on their own. Some perspective on how significant.
- economusty 5y agoThey also steal research, but, I understand the point you are trying to make.
- spicyramen 5y agoWhen you look at the history of space travel. One of the first space programs (NASA) originated from Germany developments. North Korea nuclear weapons from Soviet undercover collaboration. Not familiar with specifics for your claim above, but just stealing is a miniscule part of what is really required for this type of effort
- walrus01 5y ago"Hey NASA, can I copy your homework"? "uhhh..." "It's okay, I'll just change it up a little bit so it doesn't look like a 1:1 copy of Spirit and Opportunity" https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-tianwen-1-enters-mars-orbit/a-56524320 https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-tianwen-1-enters-mars-orbit/a-5... More seriously, there's probably only so many valid 6-wheeled rocker bogey suspension type rover designs that are possible, but the resemblance is uncanny. NASA also likely spent a lot of time studying photos of the Soviet Lunokhod rovers.
- agogdog 5y agonothing wrong with copying a working design, when you're in a high risk situation it's prudent to reduce variables
- Context_free 5y agoFrom 1947 to 1957 US media was filled with the idea that all progress in the Soviet Union was from stealing US innovations. Particularly the 1949 A-bomb, but other things as well. Then the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Then they put a dog in space. Then they put a man in space. And the narrative changed.
- walrus01 5y ago> Then the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. Then they put a dog in space. Our german rocket scientists are better than your german rocket scientists! Operation paperclip, and all that.
- krasin 5y agoOne of the best books about soviet rocketry is "Rockets and People" ([1]). My blood boiled at how badly German engineers were treated on the Soviet side and how inefficient the use of their skills was. They literally landed Germans on an island and gave an important, but a standalone task (multi-channel telemetry). Over time, it became redundant and 7 years later all surviving german engineers were let to go home. It's one sin to steal; it a bigger sin to not use what you have efficiently. 1. https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_deta...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hourislate 5y agoThis is good, there should always be friendly competition between Nations to drive Space Exploration. I hope this lights a bigger fire under the ass of the current US Administration and NASA to push ahead harder, faster and farther. The US doesn't know how lucky they are to have SpaceX and Musk.
- newacct583 5y agoSpaceX is no doubt cool. Nonetheless we're discussing China landing its first rover on a planet NASA's been flying a helicopter around for the last month. I mean, both are great accomplishments, but if you have to treat it as a competition and pick a winner...
- M_bara 5y agoNot to pour water on your statement, I'd say that the rate of change counts more. Nailing your first landing attempt on a powered descent (rocket-crate equivalent) is no mean feat. I'm actually pleasantly surprised given the high failure rate of Mars missions.
- idiotsecant 5y agoI'd agree rate of change counts more if both parties were at comparable technology levels. When you're still playing catchup there's a lot of opportunities to take certain engineering shortcuts.
- cdmckay 5y ago100% agree, like hiring Nazi scientists to kickstart your space program. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- aardvarkr 5y agoI went from earning $10K/yr as a student to a $120K income full time over the course of a month, why aren't you worshipping me and writing news articles about my accomplishment? Is it because rate of change doesn't count as much as you think it does?
- lettergram 5y ago> China had to develop all space technology on their own. It’s hard not to laugh at that statement. China runs the largest IP theft program in the world. To the point U.S. companies factor it in when doing business there. Just search this - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=china+steals&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=china+steals&t=fpas&ia=web They also had the “thousand talents program”. That’s not to say what they did was not impressive, it was. But it’s also a lot of stolen IP.
- tfcata 5y agoThat's funny. The thousand talents program is about attracting talents globally. Now who are you to say that those talents are 'yours' not 'theirs'? How about those talents the US attracted before because 'everyone likes the freedom here'? Are those not stolen simply because the US did it under a different political banner?
- chii 5y ago> Are those not stolen stealing is involuntary on the part of the entity being stolen from. Are those talents being enslaved to produce the IP for the US?
- tfcata 5y agoGood, are those who joined the thousand talents program the property of the US? If you insist on the 'involuntary' part, well, all of you stole paper from China.
- insert_coin 5y ago> China runs the largest IP theft program in the world. To the point U.S. companies factor it in when doing business there. This sounds pretty voluntary.
- aardvarkr 5y agoAh yes, voluntary theft. That's a thing that we can justify now, huh?
- reasonabl_human 5y agoWhile I totally agree, the US in turn enables people like Musk to do… well, whatever it is Elon does…. more readily than other countries. Entrepreneurship is hard and especially so if your system of governance isn’t onboard with it.
- justicezyx 5y agoSame for China enable someone who is in charge of the mission to do whatever it is that person does... Can we stop for a moment to label anything from China with political statement?... Things are built by people, not some random business man...
- xwdv 5y agoIt is hard to separate China from such statements because China and its people are tightly coupled to the government. Not like the United States.
- bobthepanda 5y agoThat's exactly the narrative that plays into the Chinese government's hands. That being said the Zhurong rover is funded by the China National Space Administration so it is actually the Chinese government. No one claims NASA employees act as private citizens.
- musingsole 5y agoSpaceX employees aren't USA employees. That makes all the difference.
- duskwuff 5y agoSpaceX is a civilian contractor to NASA, just like companies like Boeing, Grumman, and Raytheon were during the Apollo program. They aren't operating their own scientific missions just for the hell of it. (At least, not yet.)
- xupybd 5y agoI love that China is doing so well in space. I love that China has pulled millions out of poverty with an incredible economic uprising. However I'm terrified of the CCP. I'm terrified of the monitoring and suppression of dissenting views. I don't trust that they won't try to impose their influence on the rest of the world, and I'm not super happy about how they treat their own people. So news like this stirs very mixed emotions.
- justicezyx 5y ago> I'm not super happy about how they treat their own people Chinese people are certainly treated better from CCP than American people are treated. Look at the hate crimes targeted at Asian...
- xupybd 5y agoI'm not American so I don't really have a horse in that race. But you are comparing how civilians treat each other to how the government treats civilians. To me this is apples and oranges.
- haram_masala 5y agoI don’t think the Uigyurs would agree with that statement. Particularly the ones that are being raped and re-educated in camps.
- tfcata 5y agoThat's blatant slander. Think about the detergent presented as 'evidence of weapon of mass destruction' that led to the invasion of Iraq.
- haram_masala 5y agoHere’s your fifty cents, citizen. Your social credit score just went up too.
- 5y ago
- myrandomcomment 5y agoLook all the copy comments aside, the future of the human race is getting off this rock we live on. Congratulations on the success of this mission. It moves all of humanity forward.
- xtracto 5y agoYes!! Moreover, China has optimized the process of massively scale production of everything. This is good as it decreases prices. Seeing it as a global humanity achievement... this is great.
- mike_d 5y agoScale of production has never been the problem, achieving escape velocity is. We need to invent fuels that weigh less to have any hope of getting enough stuff into space to undertake any seriously large achievements.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoThe fuel cost means that almost all of us are destined to spend our lives here on earth. Only a handful will have the privilege of going up in a rocket.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 5y agoYes, but rockets aren’t the only way up. Musk’s million Martian metropolis is roughly where it starts to be worth thinking about developing Launch Loops and Orbital Rings. I can definitely believe China might give that a go. [0] https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop [1] https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_ring https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_ring
- 5y ago
- dartharva 5y agoUm.. why isn't this being talked about more? I remember the discussions were very lively everywhere from Youtube to HN and Reddit when India was attempting to land its probe on the moon. A rover on Mars is a huge thing! Why are discussions relatively tame now?
- magicsmoke 5y agoWhich India probe was this? I don't remember any discussion or news about India landing a probe on the moon in the past 10 years.
- xfer 5y agoThey failed to land it. It was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2 .
- coliveira 5y agoIt's the western media... They spent several hours talking about another rocket launched by SpaceX as if it was a big scientific advancement. But a major advancement by China is gonna be a little notice, or maybe they will say how this is a danger for everyone.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chrononaut 5y agoIndia and NASA went through concerted PR efforts in the lead up to the orbital insertion and landing respectively. In this case it was known that the rover would be on Mars sometime in "mid-May" -- and now suddenly it's here. No globally oriented, in-the-moment PR. You can't fault anyone for it not being as immediately recognized and discussed as the other two.
- eunos 5y agoWestern media are more interested on China's failure than her success. Example : Recent hyping of Long March uncontrolled reentry.
- andrewjm 5y agoCongratulations!!
- coliveira 5y agoCongratulations to China, it is always great to see advancements in space exploration.
- dang 5y agoAll: if you can't post anything but cheap nationalistic comments, or other obvious reactions, please refrain from posting. The goal here is to have interesting conversation, which is the opposite of reflexive generic stuff [1, 2]. If you're not sure whether you're facilitating interesting conversation, here's the key: what's interesting are the diffs [3]: the specific, interesting details that haven't been repeated before or elsewhere. Ask yourself whether your comment could appear in any thread on some generally related theme (e.g. space, China). If yes, it's probably not interesting in the sense we're shooting for here. The goal is to consider things we haven't before. Please note: this isn't about being 'positive' vs. 'negative' - it's about not being repetitive/predictable. That's different. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=reflective%20reflex%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... [3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- vmception 5y agoI had no idea they had a rover on the way, very cool! What is the objective and the interest in the Utopia site?
- porphyra 5y agoIt has a ground penetrating radar to see stuff 100 m below the ground, something that no other Mars rover has done before. I think that's pretty cool!
- zoomablemind 5y ago> ...ground penetrating radar to see stuff 100 m below the ground... Is this type of survey also possible from the orbiter? Though it would not be as hi-def as from the land level, but more extensive coverage.
- porphyra 5y agoI read that ground penetrating radar only really works well if it is really close to the ground. It also only gets a thin slice of the ground so you need a rover that can move in order to image a volume.
- publicola1990 5y agoIt had some coverage here, it was one of the three probes headed for Mars this year, other two being the US and UAE probes. The rover itself is not as larges as the Perseverance or Curiosity, but their orbiter seems a quite heavy probe. Hope we will get some detailed high-resolution images of the surface from the orbiter, so that we can have even better surface maps of Mars. Also the CNSA programs don't get as much coverage in the West. Their Chang'e 5 lunar sample return probe was quite a good achievement, with they being able to do an autonomous docking in lunar orbit. A video of the sample transfer in lunar orbit: https://youtu.be/iABFC9V3cPc https://youtu.be/iABFC9V3cPc
- HDMI_Cable 5y ago
- chmod600 5y agoDoes anyone have plans to land on Venus? Is that way more difficult or something?
- baggy_trough 5y agoYes because the lander will melt quickly.
- ardit33 5y agoThe USSR did back in the day. It is much more harder, not to necessary land, but for your lander to survive more than a couple of hours. It is hot like an oven, with 400F temperatures, and multiple ATM pressures. It is much a more challenging environment.
- smitty1110 5y agoNot that I know of, Venus is kinda crazy. 90 ATM pressure, -1 pH acid rain, about 700 K temperatures at night, it's pretty absurd. Unless you want to make a probe out of solid Tungsten, you're probably out of luck. And good luck getting that out of low earth orbit, that would be stupidly heavy.
- chmod600 5y agoWould it help to have a burrowing probe? What are the subterranean conditions like?
- bserge 5y agoI believe an airship would have higher chances of survival. If the surface has been that hot for thousands/millions of years, why would the underground be different? Unless you go really deep (hundreds of KM?), which is impossible.
- m4rtink 5y agoIIRC some designs have an airship with probe on a long cable. The airship stays in the relatively cool upper layers of the atmosphere and periodically lowers the probe to study the surface for a short while. That way you can cool the probe down every time you reel it in instead of making it withstand the hellish temperatures for extended amounts of time.
- Animats 5y agoChina Daily has a nice animation of the landing process.[1] So far, though, no live video. [1] http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202105/15/WS609f18aaa31024ad0babe089.html http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202105/15/WS609f18aaa31024...
- 4gotunameagain 5y agoAh, someone copied our homework again :) I hope that more things on Mars are a net positive anyway, regardless the nation.
- haecceity 5y agoYour homework? Thank you for taking us to Mars.
- 4gotunameagain 5y agoBeing part of the "western" aerospace industry and collaborating with NASA, I do consider it our homework, yes.
- sakarisson 5y agoCongratulations on the recent success of Perseverance! Best of luck with all of your future aerospace endeavors.
- onethought 5y agoHow did they copy it? Which parts did they copy? Given it arrived at Mars at around the same time as perseverance... (it left in the same transfer window right?)
- BelenusMordred 5y agoI wouldn't bother trying to tease anything rational out, it comes across as trolling, the grandparent commenter also says they are from an Islamic country. I guess we all stand on the shoulders of giants sometimes.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoDidn't happen until we have pictures. Sorry but I don't make the rules.
- js4ever 5y agoDeepfakes have invalidated this statement
- ChuckMcM 5y agoProbably true. Even so, I found it remarkable that the very first thing the Lunar lander that China sent to the moon did was send a picture of the place where it landed. Same with the second one that had a rover. And yet the Mars one, more than 24 hours later, hasn't produced a single image? What makes this story even weirder is if the Chinese are lying about the successful landing, why? And how would they walk that back when no further data came from the rover? In about 4 days it looks like HiRISE will be in a good position to image the landing area where they landed and so we will get a picture, one way or another.
- eunos 5y agoWut? there's thing called telemetry observed by multiple receiving stations.
- thunderbong 5y agoFor me what has always been amazingly fascinating about all of these missions (even more so for the Voyager missions) is to be able to work with so much latency! In today's world, where we are used to working with millisecond latencies across thousands of kilometers, just to be able to do something with latency of minutes to tens of hours, boggles my mind! Amazing accomplishment of humankind!
- op03 5y agoWhen the Voyager missions were launched most of the world didn't have international calling. So making a call from lets say Somalia to the US, involved finding a post office with the only international line in town and "booking" a call. Which meant you had to walk over and write down your name (and if you were lucky enough to have a local landline your 4 digit phone number) in a ledger and then walk back home to sit by the phone, for two days to a week, before the operator would call up to tell you the line was available. If the exchange wasn't sophisticated enough to forward the call, you then had to drop everything you were doing and walk back to the post office to use the line. Now think about how anything worked with that level of latency :)
- ezconnect 5y agoWhen the voyager was launched, telegram was the dominant mode of long distance communication in my country.
- estaseuropano 5y agoSpanish colonies heard months after the event that the Spanish king(s) had abdicated. There were peoples fighting in the name of kings that didn't exist anymore...
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y agoIt makes me concerned thinking about what kind of biological contamination this rover might have brought to Mars that may seriously hamper the search for signs of past native life. JPL is very forthcoming about their cleanliness procedures, China not so much. And they don’t exactly have a great track record in this respect.
- nvalis 5y agoInteresting point. Do you have any examples of previous problems regarding cleanliness?
- totalZero 5y agoI may have an unorthodox opinion about this, but I believe our primary goal should be to propagate life rather than to search for it. Sooner or later, we will need to expand our horizons as a species. When that time comes, we will benefit greatly from a long period of study regarding the forms of earthly life that can potentially survive elsewhere. To me, finding evidence of past life would be fascinating and groundbreaking, but not particularly actionable.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoThat's what the spanish did with the native americans About 90% died as a result. If the objective was to propagate life, they definitely failed
- totalZero 5y agoThe Spanish knew Native Americans (humans) existed in the New World, and actively persecuted and enslaved them. This is a poor comparison. Have we found and enslaved humans on Mars?
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y agoIt would be an interesting experiment for sure to see if one could "terraform" Mars with some kind of life from Earth. But I don't see how it would be any more actionable than any discovery of past life. Both experiments will give greater insight into theories like abiogenesis and panspermia, but that's about it. Better to exhaust the first before trying the second, since you can't undo the second one. Also a bit more scientific rigour than just seeing what happens to piggyback on the spacecraft would probably be warranted.
- nixass 5y agoI love how they announced it to the world on Twitter, while regular Chinese citizen has no access to the Twitter (not the normal way at least)
- intricatedetail 5y agoIt's crazy that people downvote such comments. It seems like history repeats itself. When the West was getting reports about Nazi Germany running concentration camps this was ignored too. Why do we let China get away with this?
- onethought 5y agoDon’t worry they announced on WeChat as well. Kind of how NASA post stuff on WeChat even though most Americans don’t use it... wasn’t it also banned under trump?
- andrewnicolalde 5y agoI had no idea they did that!
- surgi 5y agoThis is so cool, imagine it would meet Perseverance and the droids would engage in some <strike>battle</strike> friendly cooperation! Q: Are the landing sites even remotely close to each other? Q: Had any of sides incorporated this somehow unexpected counterpart into their master programs? Can they update the programs at all? Edit: grammar
- upbeat_general 5y agoAt least JPL can certainly update the code in its rovers (at least the main programs, probably not various firmware). I doubt they incorporated the knowledge of another rover in their code but I believe JPL rovers are “driven” by humans and do not explore autonomously. Due to the delay, the commands are slightly higher level (short term setpoints) but the point is that a human would have to command the rover to drive into another; it wouldn’t happen automatically.
- krisoft 5y ago> Are the landing sites even remotely close to each other? The two rovers are 1873 km away from each other. calculation and sources: https://gist.github.com/krisoft/4f06624a79f4a0df1107fb29be994a25 https://gist.github.com/krisoft/4f06624a79f4a0df1107fb29be99...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rasz 5y agoHere is the footage we were able to recover from the incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIx0a1vcYPc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIx0a1vcYPc "Sci-Fi Short Film “Wire Cutters" | DUST"
- rich_sasha 5y agoTo the (flagged) comments about China stealing research: I’ll abstract from lack of evidence. Just stealing isn’t enough. Russia, I believe, ended up admitting stealing research on the Space Shuttle, and despite that their own project never really materialised. Even. You steal, that lets you catch up, not overtake. So even if China is helping themselves (again, I don’t know), they still have to innovate and improve. Good on them if they do. And then, their own technology is also ripe for the taking if that’s how the game works. It’s all progress one way or the other.
- publicola1990 5y agoAnd of course USA had considerable influx of German manpower and know-how some of it very directly went into their space program.
- baybal2 5y agoThe stone cold fact is that China has n-times engineers than USA, mostly working for the same American companies who outsourced their RnD, and engineering decades ago, and working on mostly the same things. It strikes me every time hearing such argument from people completely oblivious to the above fact.
- noir_lord 5y agoIt's not just a numbers game (though as Stalin said - quantity does have a quality all of it's own). Life is rarely that simple - there are also sociological/societal causes plus the required surrounding infrastructure. China has made dramatic leaps in technological capability but they still can't make a good competitive jet engine and they've been pouring resources into that for literally decades. Even if you have the plans (and realistically they probably do) just the metallurgy alone is an absolute nightmare. There are a handful of countries that can do it reasonably well and only a couple of companies that can do it approaching the state of the art. General Electric and Rolls Royce (with P&W following behind) - there are a few other smaller companies and CFM International which is GE and one of the smaller companies, Safran (used to be Snecma). That is just one area - in the long term who knows but in the mid-term China will do well to achieve equivalency in a number of areas (and in fairness they know this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025)
- kstenerud 5y agoIt seems pretty silly to get all up in arms about copying other peoples' stuff. That's how humanity has innovated throughout the ages: Copy what works and innovate on top of it. None of our inventions arise from a vacuum. Cars are still as wide as Roman chariots for good reason. Power transfer uses the same base principles as were in play during the dawn of steam engines and before. Energy conversion has been an iterative process for centuries, with the odd leap and bound. Industrial espionage exists because it works, and everyone does it because it's a cheap way to come up to speed with the leading edge of human knowledge rather than unnecessarily duplicating effort. Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y agoThe absurdity of the "it's stealing" position is obvious when you imagine what the world would look like if everybody suddenly decided each country is doing only their own research and is not allowed to use any external idea. It would be utterly ridiculous. Copying-and-improving is the default, it's what makes us move forward as humanity. Everything else is just politics and national pride.
- Symmetry 5y ago"They're only copying" was also an accusation famously leveled by Britain against the US (see Lowell[1] and The Pirates of Penzance[2]) and by the US against Japan around the turn of the 20th century. Copying complex technologies is hard and countries that are able to succeed at it usually go on to become innovative. [1]https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-europe https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance#Backgr...
- tbihl 5y agoThe US would then turn around and copy Japanese submarines in 1940s and 50s after the war (admittedly a smaller amount than what they copied from German designs.)
- Dah00n 5y agoWhat I find very exciting and something that is totally lacking from any news articles and discussions I have seen outside space-geek circles is that China is actually very much open to cooperate with other agencies. The China Russia plan of a base on the moon is open to partners whom would like to join: International Lunar Research Station. https://spacenews.com/china-russia-open-moon-base-project-to-international-partners-early-details-emerge/ https://spacenews.com/china-russia-open-moon-base-project-to...
- ghhchjb 5y ago> The China Russia plan of a base on the moon is open to partners whom would like to join Including Taiwan?
- officialjunk 5y agoTaiwan is part of China.
- bilbo0s 5y agoChina and Russia don't consider Taiwan a nation. We do. But they don't. It'd be like the US saying that Ambazonia or Palestine can participate in the ISS program. I'm sure the we'd happily let any other African nation participate for instance, but we don't recognize Ambazonia. And we consider it irrelevant that anyone else does. Needless to say, participation under a Palestinian flag would be a non starter. I'm almost positive China would have the same sort of policy.
- sean1524 5y agoI'm curious, their landing vehicle seems to have less moving parts than the respective US rovers that use a complex sky-crane. Is there a particular benefit to using the sky-crane?
- walrus01 5y agoThe parachute + inflatable bouncy ball landing vehicle worked for the spirit and opportunity rovers. I recall seeing something from NASA that the spirit size landing was about the maximum size that was viable for that. They were explaining why re using the same design for the new much larger RTG powered rovers would not be possible.
- michaelwilson 5y agoThis book on Curiosity by it's chief engineer (who went on to work on Perserverance) covers that and other tradeoffs well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1588344037/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1588344037/
- publicola1990 5y agoI think overall they got a greater mass into Mars orbit than Perseverance. They have bundled a rather large orbiter and the rover into a single mission, whereas Perseverance payload is entirely the surface rover and related modules.
- publicola1990 5y agoIt appears it is about 3+ ton orbiter, and 400kg rover/lander.
- FatalLogic 5y agoI thought the primary benefit of the sky-crane method was avoiding kicking up high-velocity rocks and dust that could damage the lander, by direct impact or by falling, during the last moments of the landing? It might allow for more sensitive instruments and tools, with less protection on them. For example the helicopter was slung underneath the latest NASA lander, and though it had a protective shell, you still don't want a rock to whack that Arguably, though sky-crane is cool and clever, it isn't so much more complex than a system in which the rover must drive off a landing platform after it is safely down. That also has a lot of moving parts and opportunities for failure But if a sky-crane lander lands successfully, at least you can be sure it isn't already covered in grit and dust
- RocketMan9999 5y agoI'm a Chinese guy and I don't like this at all. Here's some Chinese perspective: 1. The CNSA is severely underfunded in recent years, to the extent that a considerable amount of space tech graduates went directly into other more "lucrative" fields such as the IT industry. 2. This landing operation was not announced beforehand. This is a bit unusual, when compared to the past operations, e. g. the first manned space flight, where the national news network kept broadcasting the whole event. The CNSA seemed a little unconfident about it. 3. This year is the 100th anniversary for the CCP. 4. Given 1, 2 and 3, and how things work in the PRC, this Mars landing thing is more likely a "present" for the CCP anniversary, intended to strive for more funding. If the operation failed, they'd probably postpone the whole announcement till a more "proper" time, since nobody even know they tried to land the rover. So, the current atmosphere in the CNSA may be a little tense. A failure may make them lose their already-tiny funding, and they did this (at this timing) to please the CCP in order to get more support. I respect all those engineers and scientists who made the marvel achievement, but this is not a pretty scene. And as a Chinese, I don't like it at all.
- BelenusMordred 5y ago> The CNSA is severely underfunded in recent years Source?
- qshaman 5y agoI thought “I’m a Chinese guy” was his source
- oefrha 5y ago> If the operation failed, they'd probably postpone the whole announcement till a more "proper" time, since nobody even know they tried to land the rover. What? Here’s CNSA’s official Weibo account announcing yesterday that the rover will land in Utopia Planitia between May 15 and May 19, depending on local landing conditions.[1] A brief Google News search turned up reports from before the landing, e.g. [2] quoting a speech delivered on the 13th by a Chinese Academy of Sciences professor at Beijing Institute of Technology mentioning that the rover will land on the 15th. [1] https://m.weibo.cn/7480894382/4636823021945182 https://m.weibo.cn/7480894382/4636823021945182 [2] https://ezone.ulifestyle.com.hk/article/2957353/中國祝融號火星車將於本周六着陸火星%20%20過程僅需%209%20分鐘 https://ezone.ulifestyle.com.hk/article/2957353/中國祝融號火星車將於本周... Edit: And here’s People’s Daily posting the same CNSA announcement yesterday: https://m.weibo.cn/2803301701/4636812058297556 https://m.weibo.cn/2803301701/4636812058297556 A search of “天问” there turns up regular updates too, pretty conclusively debunking the “nobody even know” claim. Given that your first piece of evidence isn’t sourced (yet) and I can’t find anything on it (maybe the space tech graduates flocking to IT part is true, but few sectors pay better to begin with, so that’s not a good indication of underfunding; it’s not like NASA pays anywhere close to FAANG), your second piece of evidence is easy to check and doesn’t stand, and your third piece of evidence is circumferential and akin to Kremlinology, it’s hard to take your conclusions seriously.
- drukenemo 5y agoFunny that all we have to go by in this article are animations.
- nradov 5y agoYes the Chinese should have sent some people with cameras to get good video of the rover landing.
- intricatedetail 5y agoWhile this is great, I can't support it because of the concentration camps and genocide this country is running behind the curtains. It's the same as cheering Nazi Germany. China should be a country non-grata until they abandon their vile anti human racist ideology.
- jacquesm 5y agoYou probably should have read Dang's pinned comment at the top.
- intricatedetail 5y agoI read it and I think racist countries should be always called out. Mods should pin articles about concentration camps at every post about China. It's a disgrace that they want to silence it just because the rich have China involved in supply chains.
- evidencebased 5y agoExcept for the fact that there is no solid proof of "concentration camps" and genocide... Meanwhile, certain countries are totally okay to support despite the documented million plus Muslims they have killed over past decades. Ironically these are the same countries that are throwing around accusations of genocide.
- raspyberr 5y agoWhat would happen law wise if one of the rovers had little guns and shot the other rover?
- cletus 5y agoWeird that people get upset by this. I wonder how anyone complaining about "copying" feel about software patents. Honestly, I didn't even know about this mission until now. Good for China. I like "monuments" that countries engage in. They're not new. This is what Apollo was too. Better this than an F-35. If bananas have taught us anything, it's that monocultures are bad (reinforced by the various COVID vaccines I might add). If SpaceX and all the "me toos" have taught us anything is that space (engineering) is hard. The longevity of the NASA rovers is almost legendary at this point. They too were originally designed for 90 day missions. It'll be interesting to see how long this Chinese rover lasts. If it's much shorter, which is what I suspect, I hope the lesson people take is just what an accomplishment the NASA rovers are rather than just cheap nationalistic shots at the Chinese space agency.
- d0100 5y agoI am very anti-CCP and try to be vocal about it (my sister no longer lives there). However I don't mind that China copies stuff, my biggest issue is how asymmetric their commercial policies are. Actually, pretty much any policy they have is very anti non Han Chinese If China had any flavour of democracy I'd be much more supportive, my views intersect with many different aspects of Chinese culture I wish my country would adopt some of the successful policies China has, without the absolute disregard for personal freedom/rights
- russli1993 5y agoAs a han chinese, I am curious to learn what policy is very anti-non han Chinese? What to hear from your perspective.
- twobitshifter 5y agoI feel rather awful about this, likely similar to how people felt about Stalin getting man into space, but to keep things positive, maybe it will ignite a new space race. The US has interesting things happening once again with SpaceX, I wonder if a private company will be able to keep up with a motivated nation state.
- dis-sys 5y agoThis raises a questions - as China's Yutu-2 moon rover is still operational on the far side of the moon, if Rongzhu mars rover could be successfully deployed, assuming those two rovers (Yutu-2 on the moon and Rongzhu on the mars) can communicate with each other, via some relies of course, will that make it the first communication between two planets outside earth? has that been done before?
- ttflee 5y agoIts name is Zhurong (祝融), not Rongzhu.
- LaMarseillaise 5y agoSo China has put a probe on the Moon, launched a space station, and landed a rover on Mars, just in the last few months? Asteroid sample return is the next logical step. Looks like the second Space Age is in full swing.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoI've waited decades for this. Game on!
- w0de0 5y agoNationalism is rife in this discussion. I don’t particularly welcome that on HN, but I _do_ welcome it in the general discourse of this new space race. It’s my opinion that the first space race served as a proxy for an even more expensive arms race, and a way to channel unavoidable nationalism/idealism into good for all humankind. The United States and China cannot avoid competition, as Thucydides would assert. A space race is a blessing in this context - I hope it heats up.
- amai 5y agoWhy do the engineers in the video wear face masks? Is Covid pandemic still an issue in China?
- thescribbblr 5y agoCorona Virus on Mars now