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China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon
- danielrpa 13y agoGo China! As an american, I hope China keeps pushing the boundaries on their space program - maybe we'll then decide to invest in science and space exploration again.
- yapcguy 13y agoI have submitted this as a separate story as I believe it merits discussion regarding the links between China and America's space program. Bassically the Co-Founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was deported from the US to China during the McCarthy era and he became the "Father" of China's space program. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862 Wikipedia writes, "Under Secretary Kimball, who had tried to keep Qian in the U.S., commented on the affair to say: "It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go."
- peterkelly 13y ago> It was the stupidest thing this country ever did That's a pretty big claim
- maxerickson 13y agoIt's probably more a figure of speech than it is a claim.
- err4nt 13y agoAs I understand it, much of NASA was manned by Germans who had worked on their rocket program (weaponized rockets) and 'importing' that knowledge was the kick start to the American space program. Project Paperclip? Was that the name?
- beachstartup 13y agonasa and jpl aren't the same thing.
- err4nt 13y agoI was just trying to point out that it's not like the US's space exploration program was built from the ground up on US soil, it involved importing expertise. That's what China seems to have done here too - imported expertise to kick-start a program. I don't see anything wrong with it, just figured some people may not be aware of that part of US history.
- w1ntermute 13y ago> That's what China seems to have done here too No, it wasn't. America intentionally established Operation Paperclip with the intention of recruiting German scientists. The Chinese didn't have to do anything to get Qian (and most likely weren't even thinking about space in 1950) - America just handed him to them, thanks to the US government's enormous stupidity.
- mturmon 13y agoYes (especially back then, because NASA did not exist until 1958). I know of three strands of rocketry research that contributed to American rocketry. There was Robert Goddard's experiments with liquid-fueled rockets, as early as the 1920s, Theodore von Karman (a Hungarian who emigrated to the US in 1930) and his team at Caltech, and von Braun and the Germans. Goddard never got significant US Government support, but he continued his experiments right up to 1940. Of course von Braun did get government support, and apparently his team learned from Goddard's experiments. The end result was that von Braun's team knew more about large rockets, and he went on to head the NASA center (Huntsville) that is most associated with rocketry, and of course to develop the Saturn V. And von Karman, of course, was the founder of JPL. As @err4nt's comment hints at, there is a rough parallel between von Karman's emigration from Germany to the US (his family was Jewish) and Qian's emigration from the US to China.
- sspiff 13y agoI honestly don't care whether the Chinese or the Americans invest in space exploration - as long as anyone start doing it in earnest again. It's good to see the Asian world push forward with these programs.
- merrua 13y agoSame. Any country at all thats pushing the exploration of space is brillant for everyone in the world.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mladenkovacevic 13y agoNothing get my nerd on quite like a successful landing on another rock. Next stop Mars, then Europa!
- Kequc 13y agoEurope may seem exotic to some but I think we should focus efforts into improving our knowledge about other planets instead of Earth. What do they have to offer, what are they named. etc
- to3m 13y agoEuropa. I'm not sure it counts as "exotic" by every definition, but it is probably far away enough...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoAll these worlds are yours, except Europa. Because I bought it a few years back off a nice lady who gave me a certificate. So keep off or I'll sue.
- mbq 13y agoMandatory SMBC reference: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1733#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1733#comic
- iDesignLaurent 13y agoThanks danielrpa, I am from China and now I feel very proud.
- beachwood23 13y agoAm I the only one who thinks that picture of the yellow spacecraft on "the moon" looks incredibly fake?
- 3stripe 13y agoThey were running simulated 3D graphics alongside the other streams to show what was happening...
- yapcguy 13y agoThere is an explanation in this video. Current renderings are based on real-time telemetry data being sent back from the probe. 40 years is a long time and instruments have advanced. I guess now that the solar panels are engaged and the rover is active, we will get some decent footage. The moon in 1080p? Yes please! http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131214/104460.shtml http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131214/104460.sh...
- njloof 13y agoIt will be good to see actual footage from the Moon. Forgive my skepticism, but after the Chinese team faked their summit of Everest I am naturally skeptical.
- beachwood23 13y agoThat sounds absurd. Do you know of any good articles? My initial searches only returned things like "Did the Chinese fake their summit???"
- cygwin98 13y agoThat's understandable. You know even the fact that America's moon-landing has been challenged for a long while. I was hoping China to land their rover to exactly where Armstrong landed on the Moon. Supposedly, the USA flag and the rover should be still there, which would make a conclusion and silence the debate.
- vyrotek 13y agoIt should be their top priority to drive over to the U.S. landing site and send back proof that we actually went to the moon. I atleast want to see what the flag and other things look like now. :)
- gngeal 13y agoThe flag is bleached and the other things are dusty, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood solar radiation.
- iamjustin 13y agoI hope they stay away from the original landing site. It's the location of one of the most important events in human history, and it would be a shame to cause damage to it.
- Houshalter 13y agoAlso the moon is huge. Whats the point of exploring the same area twice?
- ghostdiver 13y agoObserve changes
- maaku 13y agoThere have been many orbital images of the site. We know pretty well the junky state that it is in.
- vidarh 13y agoWhy? To give the conspiracy theorists another theory to add to their repertoire about how the Chinese government is in on faking moon landings?
- dontfall 13y agoAnti-male hysteria. That's why. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Just_Didn%27t_Do_It https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Just_Didn%27t_Do_It Comment referred to this story (where new accounts are not allowed to post): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904274
- be5invis 13y ago“我们的征途是星辰大海。” Our Conquest is the Ocean of Stars.
- wdan 13y ago翻译的太差了...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWhat would be a better translation?
- li-ch 13y ago求别逗。
- easy_rider 13y agoProbably just an ASIC BTC miner, capitalizing on cooler operating temperatures and free super effective non-atmospheric blocked solar power.
- be5invis 13y agoHowever there is no air on the Moon, so how to conduct the heat from the mining machines?
- jckt 13y agoIR radiation?
- be5invis 13y agoAssuming that your mining machine is a 10cm * 10cm * 10cm box with 100W power, while it is a black body, then according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature of your machine will be...... 414K, or 285°F. One of the hot-selling mining machines in China is the Friedcat Box, providing 38GH/s in 360W power. The dimensions of this thing is a 12cm cube. Using the data of this machine, and calculated with Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature will be... 520.6K or 477.5°F Bitcoins are really hot, I think.
- Havoc 13y ago>477.5°F Perfect. Time for a steam powered generator add-on. BTC generating perpetual motion machine. :)
- easy_rider 13y agoHow about liquid cooling? Assuming it brings a length of hosing. A motor draws the water away from the device, far enough for it to cool, but not to freeze. We would use a liquid that does not easily freeze but can get very cool. We shield the hosing away from the sun. The ISS uses water cooling no? /edit, liquid ammonia cooling to be precise. And : http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/HeatRejectionRadiators.html http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/HeatRejectionRadia... hmm hardware costs go up a bit
- zhemao 13y agoSo Chang'e carries a Jade Rabbit to the moon. The consequence of thousands of years of cultural fascination with the moon is that there sure are a lot of things to name moon-bound spacecraft after.
- xenophonf 13y agoThat's freaking awesome!
- return0 13y agoJust when i thought quadcopters were cool ... I can see how, with a little chinese-fu magic the chinese could make space travel commodity. Or at least moon-droning. Certainly looking forward to pay a (short) visit to the first moon colony.
- mingyuan 13y agogood news.
- robomartin 13y agoThis is a massive accomplishment that might very well mark an inflection point for China. While countries like the US haven't really done anything in the last few decades to truly inspire the population --kids in particular-- here's China executing a feat of engineering that will surely serve as inspiration for their young. And, of course, this is probably the first of many. Timing, of course, couldn't be better. The Chinese have managed their country admirably. No debt to speak of. Massive investment in infrastructure, technology and manufacturing capabilities. An environment where entrepreneurship is top dog and government seems to pretty much stay out of their way. And, of course, they are also ingesting massive amounts of intellectual and financial capital from the rest of the world. Some have proposed this is going to inspire or push us to compete in this arena. I'll propose that will not happen at the same scale the Chinese are building-up to. Think of it this way: We have to actually borrow money from the Chinese to compete with them. I'll leave you with that thought.
- yapcguy 13y agoBingo. It will inspire millions. Science wins. "“Firstly, the moon is remote from us, and there is no clear short-term benefit for human beings,” says space scientist Yongchun Zheng of the National Astronomical Observatories in Beijing, by email. But for China, he says, “the lunar exploration program is driven by its science goals. That is, to understand the history and prospect the future of the Moon, the Earth, and our solar system.” ... “The implementation of China’s Lunar Exploration Program can drive forward the popularization, improve accomplishment of national science, and attract and encourage the youth to fall in love with science and seek after exploration and innovation,” they wrote." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131214-chinese-moon-rover-jade-science-landing-space/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131214-chine...
- dingaling 13y agoAnd it's not just inspirational; the Lunar descent stage used today is completely over-specified for the job of delivering the small Youtou rover. There is speculation that it is actually a common descent stage design which will be used in upcoming science-orientated Moon landings. For example, emplacing a substantial telescope. The Chinese, as seems usual now, are playing the long-game.
- milesf 13y agoMy wife's comment: "That's because the Chinese are the only ones with any money to have a space program". Very true dear, very true.
- acadien 13y agoThe US has plenty of money to have a space program, we choose not to have a more active space program.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y agoJust to further this point: NASA receives for its yearly budget 12 days of the military's budget, not counting expenses in the wars.
- grannyg00se 13y ago12 days of the budget for the entire us military sounds like a pretty damn good amount of money. Quick lookup indicates that's something like 21 billion dollars.
- bad_user 13y agoThe real question is, what makes the military 30 times more important than space exploration, given that we are leaving days of (relative) peace?
- mynameishere 13y agoAt this point, the military is (in-part) a jobs program, both blue collar and white.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y agoMuch of the jobs money is coming out of the war money, which is not included in that figure.
- ufmace 13y agoAnyone else a little surprised that we hadn't heard anything about this mission earlier? I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing probes on the Moon. Kind of a big contrast to SpaceX, say, who seems to publish a press release or at least a tweet about everything they have done and are planning to do. Not that I mind, it's cool to read about what they're working on. I suppose if the Chinese space program is publishing much about it's plans, it doesn't make it into English-language media most of the time.
- maratd 13y ago> I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing probes on the Moon. There were rumblings for many years now, with various semi-official announcements. Nobody took them seriously, so they didn't get much play.
- yapcguy 13y agoDon't forget Google who got lots of media attention: > The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon. http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/prize-details http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/prize-details
- tanzam75 13y ago> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon. That sentence wasn't even correct yesterday, before Chang'e 3 landed. The last lunar soft-landing was Luna 24 in 1976 -- a Soviet sample-return mission. What they meant is that nobody had done what the Google Lunar XPRIZE requires since 1973. The Google prize requires a rover, and the last rover on the moon was Lunokhod 2, in 1973.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI heard about it. But it has received pretty muted coverage. I suspect a combination of jealousy, the Chinese language barrier, and Chinese indifference or inexperience at promoting its space activities. Given that China has had some embarrassing and destructive disasters in the space program, they seem a bit reluctant to go for the live broadcast approach.
- kolev 13y agoWhile America is wasting billions on waging wars and funding failures like Obamacare, other nations are advancing their science! China's next destination is Mars! I'm sure they will get there well before Mars One, which keeps pushing their dates further in the future!