BLUEJACKET
Banned Idiot
Re: When will China go to the moon?
As for He3, noone knows for sure if it will be feasible to build powerplants needed to utilize it here on Earth.
China reaching for the moon
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - When a People's Liberation Army (PLA) missile in January destroyed an obsolete Chinese weather satellite, the experiment revealed space capabilities that had until then been a carefully kept secret. Undaunted by the diplomatic uproar the test created, Beijing has taken another step in spelling out its space ambitions.
China's top military defense planning body has for the first time unveiled an ambitious blueprint for developing space science, which although defined as civilian research could be applied formilitary uses.
Top on the list of the country's space projects are a lunar satellite probe that will orbit the moon this year, followed by a remote-controlled lunar rover in three years. Other featured projects include a joint unmanned mission to Mars with Russia and the launch of the world's most advanced hard X-ray modulation telescope by 2010.
The space agenda was released by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense - China's secretive military industry planning body - last weekend, while Chinese legislators were meeting in Beijing to map the country's economic course. The document promised that the country would focus on innovation and sustainability of space-science development to "serve the national economy and security".
A project of political prestige above all, China's space program is believed to cost about US$2 billion annually. But despite its modest budget (in comparison, the 2006 budget of the United States' space agency, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, was $16 billion), experts believe China's progress in mastering space technology has been remarkable, not least because the country has been forced to go it alone.
True, China's manned space flights in 2003 and 2005 were meant primarily as symbolic messages to the world that by projecting its technological and economic power the country is a force to be taken seriously.
Since then, however, a string of successful commercial or government satellite launches have reaffirmed China's space ambitions. After languishing for years in the absence of foreign clients, China's satellite-launch industry experienced nothing short of a boom in 2006, when a record eight launches were completed.
Chinese engineers are now busy preparing for Shenzhou VII, China's third manned space foray, planned for next year. Officials say the mission's astronauts will perform another first - walking in space.
Of more immediate significance is China's plan to fast-track its lunar-exploration program by launching a moon orbiter this year. This is to be followed by a second-phase project involving unmanned lunar landers.
Further missions set for 2012-17 will involve collecting and returning lunar samples to Earth.
China's goal to land astronauts on the moon can surely be achieved in 15 years, Huang Chunping, former commander-of-chief of the launch-vehicle system of the country's manned space mission, told the media last week.
Another leading space scientist, however, admitted that China is still a long way from perfecting the technology to land astronauts on the moon. The main technological challenge is the low thrust of Chinese rockets.
"Moon landing needs a rocket with 3,000-4,000 tons of thrust, but currently the most powerful thrust carrier rocket is at around 600 tons," Luan Enjie, chief commander of the country's lunar-exploration program, said last week.
Nevertheless, Beijing is working on a new generation of carrier rocket, designed to launch a space station. According to Huan, the new launch vehicle - Long March-5 - will be capable of hauling 25 tons of payload, a significant increase from the current-generation vehicle, which has capacity of only 9 tons.
If realized, China's moon ambitions would put the country in the same league as the world's two space-technology giants, Russia and the United States.
That much was evident already when China fired an anti-satellite (ASAT) test missile this year, proving that it has mastered the technology pioneered by the US and Russia in the mid-1980s.
When speaking about the efforts China has invested in developing its lunar program, government officials often like to emphasize the fact that many of its milestones were reached single-handedly.
Some 10,000 experts and technicians took part in developing the lunar orbiter - named Chang'e after a Chinese folk-tale moon fairy, Luan Enjie told the media last week.
"Starting from scratch, we developed the Chang'e-I lunar orbiter and the whole subsidiary project by ourselves within three years," he said.
The stress on doing it alone is because for years the United States has barred China from participating in any space launch that involves US technology and from work involving the International Space Station.
The ban is meant to punish China for missile-technology sales to what the US perceives of as "rogue states", such as Iran. But insiders believe it is also aimed at protecting the domestic US launch market from competition.
The US military has also long regarded China's space ambitions with suspicion, and hardliners such as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld liked to point out how the development of the country's manned space program would serve Beijing in improving its military space systems.
Not surprisingly, in the aftermath of China's ASAT test, the US State Department threatened to reconsider a freshly signed 2006 agreement with Beijing on cooperation in moon exploration.
However, the US refusal to cooperate has not impeded China's space ambitions. It has only led China to pursue collaborative partnerships with space programs in other countries.
These include Russia, which has contributed technology for the design of China's manned Shenzhou missions and which has now been revealed as Beijing's partner for the future mission to Mars.
China has also forged alliances with various European satellite makers and in 2004 signed up as a partner and investor in the European Union's Galileo project.
(Inter Press Service)
As for He3, noone knows for sure if it will be feasible to build powerplants needed to utilize it here on Earth.
Humans can destroy Moon trying to produce helium-3 solar isotope
19.01.2007 Source: URL:
There is a dangerous tendency in the Russian manned space technology and exploration. Some scientists believe that the extraction of natural resources on the Moon should be viewed as a main purpose of the lunar program. The mining of helium-3, the “solar isotope, on Earth’s natural satellite, is the cornerstone of such a concept. Helium-3 used as a thermonuclear fuel is alleged to be capable of providing mankind with immense advantages in terms of energy. Many an expert have already expressed their skepticism about a helium mining project on the Moon, stressing the point that it would entail astronomical costs. More importantly, the costs would be totally unjustified. Suffice it to say, that 100 million tons of lunar soil would have to be processed for the production of one ton of the isotope.
It is still unclear what is to be done about helium-3 should the isotope be delivered to Earth. Further development of reactors running on deuterium and tritium is currently the most promising and feasible area of research in thermonuclear power engineering. Both deuterium and tritium occur in abundance in the ocean. One of such reactors, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is being built in France.
In August 2005, the French researcher P. E. Schtott published an article in the British journal Physics of Plasma and Controlled Reaction. He pointed out that “even under the most favorable circumstances possible the ignition of reaction (of deuterium and helium-3) would require… much higher plasma characteristics than those necessary for triggering the reaction of deuterium and tritium.” Academician Evgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute, a Russian research center, shares the viewpoint: “We need to learn how to burn helium before we start bringing it down to Earth. We don’t have to go to the Moon for doing so.”
It is noteworthy that John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, made a special reference to the controversial issue of helium production while delivering a speech at the American Aeronautical Society on March 15, 2006. His speech concerned the ways of attracting private companies to the implementation of the officially declared U.S. lunar exploration program. “I’m not talking about the production of helium-3 for the purpose of using it as a fuel for a thermonuclear reactor. I have my doubts that the project will ever pay off,” said Marburger.
The plans for mining of helium-3 on the Moon may divert significant intellectual, production and economic capabilities of the country from the implementation of more feasible and less costly space programs e.g. a manned space mission to Mars. Academician Roald Sagdeyev, the former director of the Institute of Space Studies, is confident that “today’s intentions to mine natural resources on the Moon can utterly discredit the manned space exploration and technology in the eyes of both the taxpayers and politicians. It will be seen as a kind of cardsharping aimed at uncontrolled and unaccounted appropriation of colossal budget funds.”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Translated by Guerman Grachev
