China, shooting for the moon

[Simpo Two]

Seeker UK said:

No but you can see the evidende of them being there:



http://www.tass-survey.org/richmond/answers/lunar_...

Those photos were taken by 'Apollo astronauts' - ie not taken from Earth, but probably on the way back to the the Command Module.

[jmorgan]

Oooohhhh, bit of Bond going on?

Spy here

Bound to happen though.

It is about the secret US X37 playing peeping tom with the Chinese.

[jmorgan]

Simpo Two said:

Seeker UK said:

No but you can see the evidende of them being there:



http://www.tass-survey.org/richmond/answers/lunar_...

Those photos were taken by 'Apollo astronauts' - ie not taken from Earth, but probably on the way back to the the Command Module.

Better evidence than that from LRO.

[jmorgan]

PW said:

Eric Mc said:

Not likely since it can't take traditional pictures.

Yes it can. It's the secondary mission.

https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/

Missing the bit about the camera with the required resolution here? Looks like an add on for the larger features?

[Eric Mc]

Simpo Two said:

Those photos were taken by 'Apollo astronauts' - ie not taken from Earth, but probably on the way back to the the Command Module.

Exactly.

The artefacts left by men on the moon are easily visible from 60 miles above the lunar surface. They are not visible AT ALL from 250.000.

[JohneeBoy]

It's a shame the yanks, Chinese, the Russians and us Europeans can't get together for a joint push for Mars. We might launch within a decade if that were the case.

[Eric Mc]

JohneeBoy said:

It's a shame the yanks, Chinese, the Russians and us Europeans can't get together for a joint push for Mars. We might launch within a decade if that were the case.

Rivalry and competition is a far more effective driver than co-operation.

[Apache]

Eric Mc said:

JohneeBoy said:

It's a shame the yanks, Chinese, the Russians and us Europeans can't get together for a joint push for Mars. We might launch within a decade if that were the case.

Rivalry and competition is a far more effective driver than co-operation.

When it's affordable yes, but I agree with JB that a combined effort would be a great challenge and, as seen with the Eurofighter, probably the only option available now

[Eric Mc]

Apache said:

When it's affordable yes, but I agree with JB that a combined effort would be a great challenge and, as seen with the Eurofighter, probably the only option available now

Times come and go. Rivalries come and go. We've had 40 years of space co-operation and, as far as manned spaceflight is concerned, we are still stuck in low earth orbit. Without some sort of incentive - and fear is often the most effective incentiviser - that's where we will remain.

[Eric Mc]

We should follow the Star Trek principle. "To seek new life, explore new worlds and shag all the green female aliens we can find".

[simonrockman]

Russia owns commercial space flight. I have above my desk a photo of a Proton-K I saw launched from Baikanour.
If China wants a commercial space business then doing something spectacular - like a man on the moon - is a good way to steal business from Russia.

[Watchman]

Eric Mc said:

Ion drive is the future.

If I understand the science correctly, you get a minute fraction of a G of force for a fairly hefty power input, and (helpfully in this situation) it only works in space (where no other ionised particles exist). The input could be achieved from a nuclear power station I suppose but this all means you will end up with space-craft far bigger than we have now, and will require assembly in space where the effects of gravity can be minimised. And then, because you've got a MAHOOSIVE ship with a low-force output, you're really only targetting reeeeeeeeeally long distances where you can continue to accelerate at 1/1000th of a G for years at a time. The culmination will be massive speeds at the mid-point, no doubt but you're in for a generation or more.

I like this idea though - sort of "Slient Running". Ship would have to be big enough to offer some diversity and would have to spin to give gravity. ACC's "2061" has the ship (Galaxy) accelerating a near 1G IIRC which is enough for normal "life" aboard. But that used muon-catalysed fusion to bring the reaction down to room-temp, something currently not possible.

I don't believe ion drive will be suitable for solar-system travel but once we start reaching further, it might be the only option. I love the time I live in, but I'd love to glimpse the massive ships we (humans) will end up building for this type of epic journey.

[MarkRSi]

Simpo Two said:

tank slapper said:

The engineering has moved on massively, to such an extent that to simply rebuild a Saturn V would be very difficult. Materials science, understanding of aerodynamics, computing and therefore the capacity for analysis have all advanced greatly.

It seems odd to my simple brain that because technology has 'advanced massively' we can no longer do things...

I think Simpo Two has a point... I bet if we tried building a modern Saturn V now it would be overcomplicated, fragile, unreliable, over budget, over schedule with too many people trying to too clever etc. etc. then you'd probably get the enviromentalists saying "oooh look we need a MAF sensor (which will fail) and a catalytic converter (reducing thrust) to save the cute fluffy bunnies etc. etc."

Happy to be proved wrong of course

[tank slapper]

It doesn't matter how talented your engineers are, if the project is badly managed then it will have problems. The shuttle is a very good example of it - it worked despite the limitations its design specification imposed, but the effort to get it to do so was enormous. Even then, they still lost two of them to problems that had already been identified.

[Frankeh]

Watchman said:

Eric Mc said:

Ion drive is the future.

If I understand the science correctly, you get a minute fraction of a G of force for a fairly hefty power input, and (helpfully in this situation) it only works in space (where no other ionised particles exist). The input could be achieved from a nuclear power station I suppose but this all means you will end up with space-craft far bigger than we have now, and will require assembly in space where the effects of gravity can be minimised. And then, because you've got a MAHOOSIVE ship with a low-force output, you're really only targetting reeeeeeeeeally long distances where you can continue to accelerate at 1/1000th of a G for years at a time. The culmination will be massive speeds at the mid-point, no doubt but you're in for a generation or more.

I like this idea though - sort of "Slient Running". Ship would have to be big enough to offer some diversity and would have to spin to give gravity. ACC's "2061" has the ship (Galaxy) accelerating a near 1G IIRC which is enough for normal "life" aboard. But that used muon-catalysed fusion to bring the reaction down to room-temp, something currently not possible.

I don't believe ion drive will be suitable for solar-system travel but once we start reaching further, it might be the only option. I love the time I live in, but I'd love to glimpse the massive ships we (humans) will end up building for this type of epic journey.

I don't think we'll ever properly venture off of earth. The incentive just isn't there and I don't think there'll be a time when it is. The technological singularity will come about sooner than that and then all bets are off as far as our future is concerned.

Probably won't even need our bodies.

[Eric Mc]

Intersting thing is that we already have used ion drive for a couple of unmanned spceprobes - and it worked a treat.

[jmorgan]

Smart 1 was an interesting one in the way it got to the moon.

[Seeker UK]

Simpo Two said:

Those photos were taken by 'Apollo astronauts' - ie not taken from Earth, but probably on the way back to the the Command Module.

Sorry, wrong pic - posted before reading.

The images I meant to show are the ones from the LRO from 2009

http://www.universetoday.com/35083/lro-images-apol...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_...

[Eric Mc]

Seeker UK said:

Simpo Two said:

Those photos were taken by 'Apollo astronauts' - ie not taken from Earth, but probably on the way back to the the Command Module.

Sorry, wrong pic - posted before reading.

The images I meant to show are the ones from the LRO from 2009

http://www.universetoday.com/35083/lro-images-apol...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_...

Still not taken from earth though. The LRO orbits the moon at an even lower altitude than the Apollo Command Module did so its ability to see man made artefacts is even better. Don't forget that cameras have come along way since the 1960s and the digital imagery on LRO is superb.

[jmorgan]

I think the more recent ones they dropped the orbit to improve it.