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Space Forum / Astronomy / July 2008China 'could reach Moon by 2020'
China 'could reach Moon by 2020' By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7506715.stm Dr Griffin says the US and Chinese space agencies are co-operating China is capable of sending a manned mission to the Moon within the next decade, if it so wishes, Nasa administrator Michael Griffin has said. The US space agency plans to return people to the lunar surface by 2020 using its new Orion spacecraft. But it is just possible the first people on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 could be planting a flag with five stars, not 50. In 2003, China became only the third country to launch a person into orbit. Speaking to the BBC News website during a visit to London, Dr Griffin said: "Certainly it is possible that if China wants to put people on the Moon, and if it wishes to do so before the United States, it certainly can. As a matter of technical capability, it absolutely can." Chinese officials say there is no plan and no timetable for a Moon landing, and have expressed doubt that one could be made by 2020. Ambitious programmes But Sun Laiyan, chief of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told journalists last year that an eventual lunar excursion was inevitable. On whether it mattered who reached the Moon next, Dr Griffin replied: "I'm not a psychologist, so I can't say if it matters or not. That would just be an opinion and I don't want to air an opinion in an area that I'm not qualified to discuss." We do have some early co-operative initiatives that we are trying to put in place with China, mostly centred around scientific enterprises Dr Michael Griffin Nasa Administrator But there is a perception among some in the space industry that America's long-held dominance in space exploration is slipping as other nations enter the fray. A recent report by the US consultancy firm, Futron, found other countries were expanding their space capabilities at an astonishing rate, "threatening US space leadership". China has sent two manned missions into space over the last five years. The first, in 2003, carried "yuhangyuan" (astronaut) Yang Liwei into orbit for 21 hours aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. On the second, two spacemen flew aboard the Shenzhou 6 craft, spending nearly five days in orbit. Another manned mission is set to go ahead in October, just after the Beijing Olympic Games. Dr Griffin said the US and China were now making the first tentative steps towards collaborating with each other on space exploration. "We do have some early co-operative initiatives that we are trying to put in place with China, mostly centred around scientific enterprises. I think that's a great place to start," he said. Five-year gap "I think we're always better off if we can find areas where we can collaborate rather than quarrel. I would remind your [audience] that the first US-Soviet human co-operation took place in 1975, virtually at the height of the Cold War." "And it led, 18 years later, to discussions about an International Space Station (ISS) programme in which we're now involved." India's space programme is smaller than China's, but is making great strides. The South Asian country will launch its Chandrayaan unmanned Moon probe later this year. It has also announced ambitious plans for a manned programme. Since joining Nasa as its administrator in 2005, Dr Griffin has overseen the implementation of President George W Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, which aims to return Americans to the Moon by 2020, and send them on, at some undetermined date, to Mars. He has presided over Nasa's efforts to complete construction of the ISS in time for a retirement of the space shuttle in 2010. However, its replacements, the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets, will not be ready until March 2015. This leaves a five-year gap during which the US will have no spacecraft capable of reaching the space station. Last year, Dr Griffin told the US Congress that this gap could be shortened to 2013 with the injection of $2bn extra in funds. The request was ultimately turned down. He now says: "Even if a new president and a new Congress decided they wanted to shorten the gap between shuttle retirement and Ares and Orion deployment, at this point with water over the dam, even if they were substantially increasing our funding, we would be talking about 2014 as the earliest." Nasa has given seed money to commercial ventures in order to spur development of a manned craft capable of re-supplying the ISS. But also has the option of buying some of the European Space Agency's ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) resupply craft. Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk Why not China taking the Google X prize, and thumb their nose at us. How much extra is Google/NOVA willing to pay if there's no sign of anything except Apollo impact debris or simply a few hard-landing deployed artifacts? - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > China 'could reach Moon by 2020' > By Paul Rincon [quoted text clipped - 107 lines] > > Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk If the Mafia NASA gave back all the money it stole over the last 40 years and it was used to bring back the Saturn V we could be walking again on the moon by 2012 Reality is we could leave one of those shuttle $25,000,000 toilets on the moon for future use. Sad part is a 35 dollar toilet would work well on the moon. A fart would go into outer space . I like that Bert Not if you fart in your spacesuit, BEERTbrain! lmao! Then it goes UP YOUR NOSE! Saul Levy >If the Mafia NASA gave back all the money it stole over the last 40 >years and it was used to bring back the Saturn V we could be walking >again on the moon by 2012 Reality is we could leave one of those >shuttle $25,000,000 toilets on the moon for future use. Sad part is a 35 >dollar toilet would work well on the moon. A fart would go into outer >space . I like that Bert Cactus Saul Best not to eat beans if your going on a space walk. I think a better word then walk would be swim. Going on a space swim I like that. Do you think Saul a fart could be jet propulsion? Bert Cactus Saul Do you think a space suit should have a fart valve? When I was A kid I had pajamas with a trap door Go figure Bert > Cactus Saul Do you think a space suit should have a fart valve? When I > was A kid I had pajamas with a trap door Go figure Bert They actually had butt-plugs, just in case there was a moonsuit leak that was more than any supply of O2 and h2o could manage to keep up with. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth The “ Union Suit ” comes with a butt-flap. Reality is honey mooners in 2097 will go to the Moon to get Chinese take out. Forks will be a thing of the past. Chop sticks are in. They are made of plastic,and just throw aways. Wal Mart made all this possible. There is a statue of Wolton that people bring flowers and pray at his feet. Wall Mart is humankinds big religion. It fits Bert > Reality is honey mooners in 2097 will go to the Moon to get Chinese take > out. Forks will be a thing of the past. Chop sticks are in. They are > made of plastic,and just throw aways. Wal Mart made all this possible. > There is a statue of Wolton that people bring flowers and pray at his > feet. Wall Mart is humankinds big religion. It fits Bert Perhaps we should give them non-taxable status. Double-A DoubleA When did the rich ever pay their share of taxes. Withholding tax was for the blue collar workers. Bert PS its best when you get the money first Poluting the Moon with chop sticks and those cheap cardboard food boxes, BEERTbrain? lmao! McDonald's is more likely. Saul Levy >Reality is honey mooners in 2097 will go to the Moon to get Chinese take >out. Forks will be a thing of the past. Chop sticks are in. They are >made of plastic,and just throw aways. Wal Mart made all this possible. >There is a statue of Wolton that people bring flowers and pray at his >feet. Wall Mart is humankinds big religion. It fits Bert Cactus Saul McDonalds will never serve lobster Chinese,and that is what people want when going all the way to the moon. Who would go 140,000 miles for a big mack. Bert The same wackos who go to McD now, BEERTbrain! lmao! In 90 years you'd be surprised! Maybe the Borg will prefer Chinese meat. Call it the OTHER WHITE MEAT! lmao! Saul Levy >Cactus Saul McDonalds will never serve lobster Chinese,and that is what >people want when going all the way to the moon. Who would go 140,000 >miles for a big mack. Bert Cactus saul Well I am a wacko I eat at McDonalds Like best their fish,and fries. Don't eat their burgers Bert Gag me with a spoon, BEERTbrain! lmao! It's gotten very hard to find a good burger at a fast food joint. I can make a better one at home now. Sonic Drive-In was the best, then lost it. I tried one recently and it wasn't too bad. The fries were COLD though. Saul Levy >Cactus saul Well I am a wacko I eat at McDonalds Like best their >fish,and fries. Don't eat their burgers Bert Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go figure Bert > Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will > be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go > figure Bert A Chinese takeout at the Selene/moon L1 is far more likely. Nearly absolute zero gravity at the absolute minimum of orbital velocity, and 1e-21 bar worth of a vacuum that you can do all sorts of nifty fast food things with. There's also never any shortage of clean and renewable energy to work with, and it's extremely easy and energy efficient to deploy whatever fast food as home deliveries intended for reaching those of Earth or Selene. The reentry into Earth's polluted environment takes care of whatever last minute cooking, and the double IR worth of that daytime surface of our physically dark Selene/moon does essentially the same, as well as for every bite being rather nicely gamma sterilized. As a franchised fast food service investment, you can't possibly go wrong. It's a win-win for China and their fast food customers to boot. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth Bring your own spoons, BEERTbrain! lmao! Have spoon, will travel to the Moon? There's a NEW MARKET out there for Jello then. Saul Levy >Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will >be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go >figure Bert Moon Water < 750,000 ppb (and counting) http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=moon-once-harbored-water There’s all sorts of wet moon claims (again), of our crack NASA, JPL and fellow Carnegie Institution of Washington and Case Western Reserve University as offering the very latest of our public mass spectrometer wizardry, as having supposedly uncovered 260,000 ppb (<750,000 ppb) or possibly greater worth of h2o to behold within the once ice covered crust of our Selene/moon. Meanwhile, at no surprise there’s not 1 ppb of surface h2o to behold on Mars. Therefore, artificially sustaining life or much of having to accommodate any commercial/private enterprise as based upon utilizing Mars is kind of nullified by the multi-trillion dollar public cost of just getting whatever human populated enterprise there in the first place, whereas our extremely nearby Selene/moon is looking rather good. > Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will > be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go > figure Bert A Chinese takeout at the Selene/moon L1 is far more likely. Nearly absolute zero gravity while at the absolute minimum of orbital velocity, and 1e-21 bar worth of a vacuum that you can do all sorts of nifty fast food things with. There's also never any shortage of clean and renewable energy to work with, and it's extremely easy and energy efficient to resupply as well as deploy whatever fast food as home or office deliveries intended for reaching those of Earth or Selene. The reentry into Earth's polluted environment takes care of whatever last minute cooking, and the double IR worth of that roasting daytime surface of our physically dark Selene/moon does essentially the same (though taking a bit longer), as well as for every bite being rather nicely gamma sterilized. As a franchised fast food service investment, you can't possibly go wrong. It's a win-win for China and all of their fast food operatives and customers to boot. Check out Clarke Station, Boeing OASIS or that of my tethered 256e6 tonne LSE-CM/ISS. This fully commercial application and of the applied technology on behalf of private enterprise would even continue to function once having relocated our Selene/moon out to Earth L1, although situated much further away from the moon and obviously becoming extremely cold, with the required energy for this fast food takeout having to be imported and/or delivered via the primary LSE-CM/ ISS tether and/or from its dipole element that could safely reach its termination pod to within less than 2r of mother Earth (possibly as close as 1.1r). - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will > be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go > figure Bert Chinese use spoons. Not knives. Double-A > Cactus Saul when China opens a fast food take out on the Moon there will > be no spoons. I relate that to Chinese mothers never making Jello Go > figure Bert A Chinese takeout at the Selene/moon L1 is far more likely. Nearly absolute zero gravity while at the absolute minimum of orbital velocity, and 1e-21 bar worth of a vacuum that you can do all sorts of nifty fast food things with. There's also never any shortage of clean and renewable energy to work with, and it's extremely easy and energy efficient to resupply as well as deploy whatever fast food as home or office deliveries intended for reaching those of Earth or Selene. The reentry into Earth's polluted environment takes care of whatever last minute cooking, and the double IR worth of that roasting daytime surface of our physically dark Selene/moon does essentially the same (though taking a bit longer), as well as for every bite being rather nicely gamma sterilized. As a franchised fast food service investment, you can't possibly go wrong. It's a win-win for China and all of their fast food operatives and customers to boot. Check out Clarke Station, Boeing OASIS or that of my tethered 256e6 tonne LSE-CM/ISS. This fully commercial off-world application and of the applied technology on behalf of private enterprise would even continue to function once having relocated our Selene/moon out to Earth L1, although situated much further away from the moon and obviously becoming extremely cold, with the required energy for this fast food takeout depot/gateway/oasis having to be imported or delivered via the primary LSE-CM/ISS tether and/or from its dipole element that could safely reach its termination pod to within less than 2r of mother Earth (possibly as close as 1.1r). - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > If the Mafia NASA gave back all the money it stole over the last 40 > years and it was used to bring back the Saturn V we could be walking > again on the moon by 2012 Reality is we could leave one of those > shuttle $25,000,000 toilets on the moon for future use. Sad part is a 35 > dollar toilet would work well on the moon. A fart would go into outer > space . I like that Bert The Saturn V only accomplished getting our Apollo mission safely into LEO, and it was their relatively little command module that subsequently got them safely to/from the Selene/moon L1. All the rest of our hocus-pocus and otherwise spendy cold-war fiasco was accomplished via rad-hard robotics. The all-inclusive Saturn V package deal, along with its Apollo payloads of nifty stuff and loads of other rocket fuel, as such was as a fly-by-rocket package of being nearly 30% inert. A 30% inert mission is not going to pull off any such all-inclusive to/from moon mission. They'll need to get that down to at least 20%, if not as little as 15% unless it's of a one way mission. Being that human DNA isn't rad-hard, makes the one-way mission worth considering. I've advised having banked bone marrow as their plan B. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth |
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