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Not the top. At least not in US. At the time of Apollo program Americans became bored by news of Moon landings and new footprints in the Moon dust. One more Chi
by ordu 2y ago
Not the top. At least not in US. At the time of Apollo program Americans became bored by news of Moon landings and new footprints in the Moon dust. One more Chinese probe is not big enough news. China already did that, nothings really new.
- gravescale 2y agoIt is the first ever far-side sample-return mission ever (and I think only the second far-side landing at all, the first being Chang'e 4 in 2019), so there's certainly some non-trivial element of "doing something no one has done before". And the far side is somewhat geologically (selenologically?) different to make that a useful scientific thing rather than solely for bragging rights, not that those aren't in the calculus with these things. Chang'e 7 will be pretty interesting as it's going to Shackleton crater, which is a hypothetised water source (though evidence of surface ice is pretty weak) and has never been explored other than orbitally and an impactor from Chandrayaan-1.