Chinese moon landings

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
What defeat? Yeah, they got there first, we did the rest.

Erm, the only thing US won in the space-race was putting a man on the moon.


Anyway, Russian experience with MIR will be of great help with the ISS. Speaking of which, is China taking part in building the ISS?

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


Erm, the only thing US won in the space-race was putting a man on the moon.


Anyway, Russian experience with MIR will be of great help with the ISS. Speaking of which, is China taking part in building the ISS?

Pretty shitty deal if you ask me. We won the "Space Race" and all we got was some lousy rocks. Or so the T-Shirt goes.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Serb

May be for Americans it is the first Orbital station, for us it is 13th. We already have an experience of long space flight, you've just started to gain in orbital station.

What the hell was Skylab, chopped liver?

For the Record, the NASA Spacestation was going to be a "One-luanch" Skylab-type station, then Al "I invented the internet" Gore said that, in the interests of international relations, let's make it big and expenive!

[Shi Huangdi]

Easy- national pride. China now has become economically startified, as corrupt bourgeois, many of whom have made their fortunes through corrupt dealing, live in luxuries, at the same time as hundred of millions of Chinese barely subsist in conditions bad enough to rival anywhere else in the third world. They can no longer rely on communism credibbly as a justification for their brutal totalitarian regime. To gain support, they focus on nationalism.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Lonestar


What the hell was Skylab, chopped liver?

For the Record, the NASA Spacestation was going to be a "One-luanch" Skylab-type station, then Al "I invented the internet" Gore said that, in the interests of international relations, let's make it big and expenive!

An American spacemens lived for years on Earth orbit?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Serb


An American spacemens lived for years on Earth orbit?

Nope. Just like no Russians. Many Astronuats and Cosmonuats have lived for over a year in orbit, but not more than two. (in fact, the limit was 500-something days)

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Shadowstrike
The really alarming thing about this is the uncertainty of China's political system. Simply put it we don't know if the next strongman in Beijing will be a hardliner who recalls the days of the Great Leap Forward (a ultimately foolish endevour that killed millions), or a progressive Chinese Gorberchev.

Given how Gorbachev screwed up Russia, let's hope the next leader has the vision of Deng.

As for the Chinese space program, they're doing it for the same reasons as the Americans - to prove they have the technology to do it.

What I hope is that this spurs another space race and that that leads to further space exploration.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Lonestar


Nope. Just like no Russians. Many Astronuats and Cosmonuats have lived for over a year in orbit, but not more than two. (in fact, the limit was 500-something days)

Yeah, those record belong to Russian astronuat, don't remember his name. My point was that we have longer expirience with long space flights.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Serb

Yeah, those record belong to Russian astronuat, don't remember his name. My point was that we have longer expirience with long space flights.

Well no offense to Russia Serb, but I think having the ISS be jointly American-Russian run is the stupidist idea ever.


Half these spacemen were fighterpilots trained to kill each other, for crying out loud!

[Serb]

Originally posted by Tingkai

Given how Gorbachev screwed up Russia, let's hope the next leader has the vision of Deng.

China is doing much better then we are.

Damn, looks like we always shows examples to others how things should not be done.
I guess it's our fate to make really big mistakes, it is good that other countries learn from our mistakes and don't make the same mistakes.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Lonestar


Well no offense to Russia Serb, but I think having the ISS be jointly American-Russian run is the stupidist idea ever.


Half these spacemen were fighterpilots trained to kill each other, for crying out loud!

Absolutely agreed and always though alike.

[Giant_Squid]

Well, I think it's because America's always first in everything, and they want to point at the Americans and say "Whatever you can do, we can do to" as a prelude to being accepted as another superpower. Whenever you hear about why America's so great, it's always something like "We can put a man on the moon". If China could do that, it'd be a huge psychological boost for them

And I hope they do. That'd make someone in Congress sit up and realize that we haven't made a single real accomplishment in spaceflight since the shuttle program and maybe it's time to get off our collective rear end in the space department. And this is just the throw-money-away-at-insanely-expensive-and-seemingly useless-project-just-to-annoy-people-who-we're-technically allied-with-anyway administration to do it.

[Dauphin]

If putting a man on the moon is so important to be accepted as a superpower, then why didn't the Russians even attempt a moon landing? - Because they felt it was pointless.

If the Americans were the first to launch a satellite or man into orbit then we still would not have had men visit the moon. The only reason the US created the notion of the space race was purely a political consequence of the space-technology inferiority complex.

If Europe wished, it could plan moon landings, but it is not doing so, neither is Russia. We are both capable of researching and funding such projects, we just see no need for it. Hence I beleive any Chinese moves are purely political posturing - a response to NMD as many have said.

[KrazyHorse]

What I don't understand is the idea that eventually the moon should be used as some sort of forward base for the construction of long-range spacecraft. Given that there aren't any metals on the moon and only minimal amounts of water, you'd have to ship materials there anyway (either from the Earth or the Belt). Why would you expend all the delta-v to put something down on the surface when you'll just have to lift it all back off again when you're through with construction? Orbital construction platforms make much more sense (probably at the Lagrange points).

[Serb]

If putting a man on the moon is so important to be accepted as a superpower, then why didn't the Russians even attempt a moon landing? - Because they felt it was pointless. If putting a man on the moon is so important to be accepted as a superpower, then why didn't the Russians even attempt a moon landing? - Because they felt it was pointless.

If the Americans were the first to launch a satellite or man into orbit then we still would not have had men visit the moon. The only reason the US created the notion of the space race was purely a political consequence of the space-technology inferiority complex.

If Europe wished, it could plan moon landings, but it is not doing so, neither is Russia. We are both capable of researching and funding such projects, we just see no need for it. Hence I beleive any Chinese moves are purely political posturing - a response to NMD as many have said.

Agreed 1000%
It is not necessery to send men in moon. Any research on Moon's surface could be done with use of robots. It is much cheaper, the way Soviets choosed for Moon exploration.
Launch of men on Moon was the political action of US government to show the rest of the world that Americans have great space technology too.
Those guys just wandering on Moon surface awile, and of course put their flag , and flew back. They have done nothing that robots of that times could do.

P.S. If the last sentance sounds not properly,- I want to say that unpiloted moon stations landed on Moon surface done the same exploration job the humans do. There was no need to send humans, robots were/is cheaper.

[Az]

KH : you sure about those minerals points you made ? I heard the moon was pretty rich with , aluminium , f.e.

and also has that gas in the core ,that we already can use in fusion, with quite a positive energy balance.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm not sure about aluminum, which is often concentrated in regolith, but I thought the Moon was far less rich in the heavier metals than the Earth, giving it a much lower density overall.

[KrazyHorse]

The Earth's Moon is harder to explain. It's so large in comparison to the Earth (as you showed above) that it's very unlikely that the Earth could have captured it unchanged, or formed it in place from leftover material. We also know from rocks brought back from the Moon by the Apollo astronauts that the Moon's composition is quite similar to Earth's in most respects, but that it has much less metal than the Earth does. This makes the capture theory even more unlikely, since a body that formed somewhere else in the solar system is unlikely to have a similar composition at all. The currently favored theory is that a giant impact soon after the Earth formed splattered a large amount of molten and rocky material into orbit. Most of the material would have fallen back to the Earth, but if the size and direction of the impact were within a certain range, enough material could have remained in orbit to clump together and form the Moon. Since metals are heavier than plain rocks, the metal would be more likely to fall back to Earth, while the less dense rock could stay in orbit long enough to form the Moon. So this could explain why the Moon's composition is so similar to the Earth's in most respects, but depleted in metals. Scientists are still working on this theory, and all the details have yet to be fully understood

(emphasis my own)

Taken from http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo.../ssgraph4.html

[Az]

well, since when do you need heavy materials to build a spaceship?

I also heard it's got a s***load of quartz , for glasses for all those control panels .

seriously though , if the moon is made of light metallic minerals , it should be better , non?

[KrazyHorse]

a) No. Only good for light accel. vehicles. I suppose if you develop some sort of working ion drive this is moot, but even then you're going to need a reusable launch vehicle for the heavy lift at the start.

b) You still haven't shown me where you learned there are substantial aluminum deposits. Silicates are nice, but you need something to hold them all together.

c) You still need fuel, which the Moon most certainly does not have. Fuel makes up 99+% of a rocket's mass. Comets are a good source for this. Grab a few, put them at L-5, electrolyze the water with a big-ass nuclear reactor. Separate, pressurize and you've got a lot of boom saved up.

d) Delta-v is still higher off the surface of the moon than it is from L-5

[Ecthy]

c) I think that doesn't make any sense. ANY sense at all. If you electrolyze water with a nuclear reactor, you probably want to use the components for a fuel cell engine or something similar to it. Heh heh. Enery bilance is the key. Your fuel cell engine will put out water. Which you had just electrolyzed. And for that you needed energy. Heh heh. Heh. Why not use thenuclear reactor for gaining energy for the engine? I mean the way you put it, your spaceship system loses energy...

[Az]

didn't understand your a) point. what were you referring to?

b) I've read it in a number of books , and on TV . ( no , not star trek ). I am working on a nice link for you.

c) we're talking future propulsion systems here. It's quite clear that chemical rockets won't get us far away. And yes, I know that still , fuel will be the complete majority of the overall mass.

L-5 ? I am not familiar with the termin . Is this a certian round orbit around earth ?


after all said and done, moon is still a much easier launch , than earth.

In any case of INTERSTELLAR spaceships, we'd have to colonize an outer region moon. We'd also have to get the materials from there. This seems to be an unbearably heavy task.

But hey, I have a dream.

[KrazyHorse]

c) I think that doesn't make any sense. ANY sense at all. If you electrolyze water with a nuclear reactor, you probably want to use the components for a fuel cell engine or something similar to it. Heh heh. Enery bilance is the key. Your fuel cell engine will put out water. Which you had just electrolyzed. And for that you needed energy. Heh heh. Heh. Why not use thenuclear reactor for gaining energy for the engine? I mean the way you put it, your spaceship system loses energy...

i) Why would you take a nuclear reactor with you? Every pound is critical. Do the seperating first, load ready-made energy up in the form of a hydrogen compound and LOX, light a match

ii) Chemical rockets get you a lot more boom per second than any nuclear-propelled rocket on the table.

iii) I know I lose energy by travelling a circular path, but that's irrelevant.

[Ecthy]

You mentioned a nuclear reactor for electrolyzing water from asteroids.

[Az]

I am still not sure . Where do we want those spaceships to go?

[Ecthy]

(Sid Meier's) Alpha Centauri!

[SociableMartian]

China landing on the Moon? Give me a break, everyone knows China doesn't have the money or the will to launch a Lunar mission. Anyway what would they do when they get there, set up a chain of interplanetary Chinese restaurants???

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Dalgetti
didn't understand your a) point. what were you referring to?

For any heavy lifting you need strong metals with high heat tolerance. That means they have to come from lower down on the periodic table than Al.

b) I've read it in a number of books , and on TV . ( no , not star trek ). I am working on a nice link for you

Still waiting...

c) we're talking future propulsion systems here. It's quite clear that chemical rockets won't get us far away. And yes, I know that still , fuel will be the complete majority of the overall mass

And that means you need volatiles. The moon lacks those.

L-5 ? I am not familiar with the termin . Is this a certian round orbit around earth ?

It's a Lagrange point; a stable point in orbit around the Earth, at lunar distance but 60 degrees ahead (?) of the moon. You put things there and they stay where you left them. Due to the moon's grav. field all other orbits are inherently unstable.

after all said and done, moon is still a much easier launch , than earth

But not as easy as at L5.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
You mentioned a nuclear reactor for electrolyzing water from asteroids.

Yes, but you leave it at L5 when the spaceship goes. It's the Solar Sytem's biggest gas station.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by SociableMartian
China landing on the Moon? Give me a break, everyone knows China doesn't have the money or the will to launch a Lunar mission. Anyway what would they do when they get there, set up a chain of interplanetary Chinese restaurants???

Not even close to funny, and errant in its assumptions. The Chinese have significant heavy-lift capabilities. They've been launching unmanned stuff for decades, and are centralised enough to easily reach deeply into the public purse to do this.