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China Moon Landing.


barkis

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From the Daily Telegraph

China has declared it's Intent to send a man to the Moon, aiming to

become the first Nation to reach the Lunar surface since the last American mission in 1972.

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7:00AM GMT 30 Dec 2011

A white paper published on Thursday laid out the country's five-year plan for the development on new satellites, spacecraft and a space station and provided the official confirmation of China's lunar ambitions.

The landing is not expected until at least 2020 but under the government's blueprints "new technological breakthroughs" in human space flight will be achieved by 2016.

The country hopes to complete it first space station in the same year, a goal encouraged by the successful mission to dock two unmanned spacecraft in orbit last month.

“Chinese people are the same as people around the world,” Zhang Wei, an official with China's National Space Administration, told the Financial Times.

“When looking up at the starry sky, we are full of longing and yearning for the vast universe.”

Two Chinese flights are expected in the 2012, nine years after Yang Liwei became the first “taikonaut” to reach space.

The scale of China's plans come in stark contrast to those of the United States, the first and only nation to reach the moon in 1969.

George W Bush proposed an American return to the moon but the programme was halted by Barack Obama, citing the enormous cost.

In July, the space shuttle Atlantis made its final landing, ending the 30-year era of the American space shuttle.

No human set foot on the moon since December 1972 when American astronauts landed as part of the Apollo 17 mission.

Although the space programme is being run by the Chinese military, the white paper insists the country has no ambitions for weapons in space.

"China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes weaponisation or any arms race in outer space," it reads.

It also provides a long list of countries working with China on space research including Britain, France, Brazil and Russia.

Edited by barkis
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I fear that China and a few of the other emerging economies are the only ones who can actually afford a massive space programme at the moment, the US and Europe are in massive debt right now. Let China do some hard money-spending and lay the foundations for deeper space exploration, I say, it doesn't look like anyone can stop them anyway.

Edited by jonathan
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So I thought the US and Obama had ambitions to land someone on an asteroid by the end of the decade. Surely far more impressive than another trip to the moon? Ceres or Vesta perhaps?

There's also the James Web space telescope which is pretty exciting too, given what Hubble has given us.

However the downfall of global economy could put paid to many of these projects over the coming decade/s.

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So I thought the US and Obama had ambitions to land someone on an asteroid by the end of the decade. Surely far more impressive than another trip to the moon? Ceres or Vesta perhaps?

NASA are currently building the orion spacecraft which will take men to mars and asteroids, they have no ambitions to land on the moon again, dont blame them.

SLS rocket is meant to be finished by 2017 so if all goes to plan, we will be seeing men walking on mars in about 10 years time.

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Um, even the Americans don't expect a Mars mission to become a reality before 2030-35. Expecting such a vast undertaking to happen in 10 years time is unrealistic. It took about that long to realize a manned Moon mission, and there was actually a funded project underway to do so. Right now there isn't a real mission to Mars under development, just a bunch of maybes as the SLS is being developed. Which, by itself, won't be nearly enough to get the job done. Sorry to spoil the mood, but if you see man walking on Mars during your lifetime, count yourself lucky. Even the 2035 projections are pretty optimistic without a serious start, and serious funding, right now.

Also, as far as I know, the US manned Mars mission plan always entailed a return to the Moon first, as a sort of a proof of concept. Since most of the guys who worked on Apollo are either dead or retired, people with actual experience on missions that involve manned landing to another body in space are becoming scarce. A repeat of a Moon mission would be a pretty good dress rehearsal for the Mars trip.

Edited by newman
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I hope this give the politicos the kick up the preverbial to get some competition in place.

The moon is now a stepping stone, not a target, if Nasa play this right they could make it look like china are 50 years behind them.

Probably best not to get into a straight head to head, just aim to get a man on Mars. Perhaps a permanent moon base would be an alternative strategy.

Derek

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I somehow get the feeling that moon landings are a bit like halley's comet, once a life time. It would be nice to see Gerry Anderson's "moon base alpha" start, before I leave. But as in earlier posts, the western worlds financial state will be a very heavy lead boot....

I hope the Chinese do have a crack at it, at least the food will be better :p

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I kind of doubt any sort of mining is the goal behind the Chinese moon program. Anything you can mine on the moon you can find here at a much lower price. The problem is transporting 1kg of anything to and from the moon - the price of just getting 1kg of stuff into low earth orbit is prohibitively expensive. It would be exponentially more so with the Moon. And that's not counting the costs of building, maintaining and manning the needed infrastructure for such a mining operation. The only way a Moon mining operation would have any sort of sense would be if they either found something incredibly valuable up there that can't be found on Earth, or if they had a sustained colony up there and the resources went into maintaining it. Neither is the case nor it seems likely in the near future. Not sure where your friend's getting his info from, but I really doubt it's from any official source.

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Gentlemen,

I have cleaned up the political aspects of this thread, in the hope it can be kept alive.

I thought it would inspire comments by those intertested in Man revisiting Our moon, and by Our Moon, I mean the whole human race, not just a particular country.

There must be plenty to discuss without entering the political minefield some always seem to think is important. As far as this forum is concerned, Politics are outlawed. If anyone wants political debated, then please find a forum that suits you.

So, please respect the forum rules, and stick to the subject matter.

Thank You, and a Happy New Year to you all.

Ron.

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Not sure why politics has to be avoided on this issue the apollo missions were born out of political issues and without politics there wouldnt be a space race. However I hope we do get to see another moon landing in our life time.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

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Not sure why politics has to be avoided on this issue the apollo missions were born out of political issues and without politics there wouldnt be a space race. However I hope we do get to see another moon landing in our life time.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

Politics has to be avoided in this and all threads because that is one of the rules of the forum that we all signed up to when we joined.

If that proves impossible, the thread will be locked as has already been said by Barkis.

Thanks :p

Edited by John
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With any luck this could be the kick in the behind the Americans need to get on with their manned space programme again. Will we be looking at another space race?

Why does it matter that the Americans do it?

Is another space race a good idea? It didn't really leave either of the involved space programmes in a particularly good state.

It's good that there are possibly some actual plans to the return to the Moon. If the Chinese space programme has the inclination and resources, great.

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