Celestia Forums

China launched its first lunar probe today. The link below is from the US news FOXNews...
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct24/0,4670,ChinaLunarProbe,00.html

I wonder who is going to win the race back to the moon. China or the Americans?

Reiko wrote:I wonder who is going to win the race back to the moon. China or the Americans?

You know, I was thinking exactly the same thing...

Here we go again... Oh Brother... How about if the U.S. and China pooled
their resources and went together for a change? Wouldn't THAT be a
history-making venture?

Ah, well... Shoot me now.

Japan and China now have functioning lunar spacecraft. Japan has three, China has one. Phase 1 of the invation... complete.

I guess the important question should be, when mankind returns, will it be to stay?
Let us hope so.

Sincerely, I do not like this approach. More the Moon does capture the attention, less it has the Earth. And in the case these enterprises can have a technical drop for the mankind, I do not see all that electrical cars which we should have been at least after the Apollo 17 mission.

Reiko wrote:I guess the important question should be, when mankind returns, will it be to stay?
Let us hope so.

Of course it will be to stay... Why do you think that China wishes to get
there in the first place? Or the USA for that matter?

Not only would it make an important starting point for more ambitious
planetary explorations, but it would make a great place to store your
nuclear arsenal just in case you wanna drop a few H-bombs on an
unfriendly neighbor.

This is sad, but I can guarantee you that governments are thinking about
this military advantage too.

Take care, Bob (Ex-Jarhead who's used to dealing with military issues and
the government.)

Why would anybody want to stash nukes on the moon when it would be easier to just put them in orbit?

Reiko wrote:Why would anybody want to stash nukes on the moon when it would be easier to just put them in orbit?

Why would anyone invent a nuclear device in the first place? In orbit though,
you have the nagging possibility of orbital malfunctions, device manipulation,
orbital decay, etc... If you could store them on the lunar surface, then your
folks could stand by to maintain them.

This is all just BS, but I can guarantee you that the Chinese and U.S.
governments are thinking about such things. Let's hope that we don't start
fighting amongst the planets eventually.

Remember too, that I'm "Brain-Dead" Bob...

BobHegwood wrote:

Reiko wrote:Why would anybody want to stash nukes on the moon when it would be easier to just put them in orbit?

Why would anyone invent a nuclear device in the first place? In orbit though,
you have the nagging possibility of orbital malfunctions, device manipulation,
orbital decay, etc... If you could store them on the lunar surface, then your
folks could stand by to maintain them.

This is all just BS, but I can guarantee you that the Chinese and U.S.
governments are thinking about such things. Let's hope that we don't start
fighting amongst the planets eventually.

Remember too, that I'm "Brain-Dead" Bob...

Don't dash my optimistic hopes about the moon and other worlds.

There's much in opinion I'm tempted to express here, but I won't. I'll just comment that (it's my belief that) China is running a difference space race than the rest of the global community, and I'll note that they play by their own rules... global opinion (historically) being of little to no consequence.

Aside from that, for those of you interested, here is the homepage for the China National Space Administration (in english). There's even a video of the launch!
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n615709/cindex.html