China's Space Program News Thread

[chuck731]

The classic definition of "fly," and "flight," according to Websters, Meriram, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., is:

flight:
1. The action or instance of passing through the air, ie. by the use of wings.

Yes, but it goes on to:

2. to be carried through the air by the wind or any other force or agency.

5. to travel in an aircraft or spacecraft.

 

[Hytenxic]

I believe the the manned moon mission will be considered in 2015, and if confirmation is given, I expect the earliest landing to occur in 2025. That is rather long way off so I wouldn't hold my breath over this (if it gets approved at all).

In my opinion China needs has more important missions close to earth rather than inter-planetary probes. While it will be good for PR, it won't do much more than what the Americans and Russians have uncovered (India mars probe). Some projects which I regard with higher priority are the BeiDou system and the space station. I hope for a manned lunar mission too although landing once and calling it a day would be massive waste of resources and investment. Therefore I believe in 2030+ China will go for some kind of permanent lunar outpost which could then be used as a spring board for inter-planetery travel.

The inner fanboy of me wishes that China would quicken the pace of its space program but knowing China and its reserved government it won't happen. China needs to abolish its aim of earning PR with space missions as anything accomplished by us will still be decades behind USA and Russia and rather concentrate on scientific and engineering objectives.

 

[chuck731]

I believe the the manned moon mission will be considered in 2015, and if confirmation is given, I expect the earliest landing to occur in 2025. That is rather long way off so I wouldn't hold my breath over this (if it gets approved at all).

In my opinion China needs has more important missions close to earth rather than inter-planetary probes. While it will be good for PR, it won't do much more than what the Americans and Russians have uncovered (India mars probe). Some projects which I regard with higher priority are the BeiDou system and the space station. I hope for a manned lunar mission too although landing once and calling it a day would be massive waste of resources and investment. Therefore I believe in 2030+ China will go for some kind of permanent lunar outpost which could then be used as a spring board for inter-planetery travel.

The inner fanboy of me wishes that China would quicken the pace of its space program but knowing China and its reserved government it won't happen. China needs to abolish its aim of earning PR with space missions as anything accomplished by us will still be decades behind USA and Russia and rather concentrate on scientific and engineering objectives.

I don't think so. China has too strongly committed itself publically to a multi-launch, orbital assembled, permanently manned space station in early 2020 to back off from that commitment. Chinese space program by comparison with Apollo level funding is a shoe string operation. It is highly doubtful it has any where near the funding level to support 2 parallel large manned space projects.

 

[Jeff Head]

Yes, but it goes on to:

2. to be carried through the air by the wind or any other force or agency.

5. to travel in an aircraft or spacecraft.

Chuck, you are correct. There are other definitions,

But the 1st definition in any dictionary is the principle, or classic defintion. The others are secondary, and that's why I said that others define it as such.

But the real issue I made was to leave off of that discussion and not fill this thread up with back and forth ad nausium about what, in essence, the definition of "is," is.

Let's get back to the Chinese Space Program.

Thanks

 

[Jeff Head]

Therefore I believe in 2030+ China will go for some kind of permanent lunar outpost which could then be used as a spring board for inter-planetery travel.

Well, a Lunar outpost would serve a purpose...but what would it be?

To make it a spring board for planetary tracel will not make sense until such a time as they have the resources there to be able to support such missions. Until that time (and that is a long, lng way off), everything they would want to send to another planet or asteroid or comet, or whatever, would have to be first launched from the gravity well on earth...brought together there on the moon, and then launched again. it would not make any economic sense for a long time.

Another reasons would be to get resources. If there are minerals or resources found there that would bring high value here on earth, or could not otherwise be found or made on earth, it would make sense. But before they can do that, they will again have to launch all of the heavy equipment and processing plants to make that possible to the moon from the gravity well here on earth. Unless and until they found very major, very rare/expensive resources, it would be hard to make economic sense of it.

I suppose there are certain scientific studies and research that would benefit from the environement, like on the Space Station. But how much benefit? How mch better than on a space Statoion in relative near-earth orbit? You have to literally weigh every bit of that against the expense of getting it there and maintaining it.

Other than that, a manned outpost is, like the moon walks, for show and to make a statement. And it is a tremdnously expensive one because all of the resouces they need to live there must also come from eather's gravity well. I do not see it happening by anyone until the issue of providing at least their own water and oxygen is solved.

 

[chuck731]

Well, a Lunar outpost would serve a purpose...but what would it be?

To make it a spring board for planetary tracel will not make sense until such a time as they have the resources there to be able to support such missions. Until that time (and that is a long, lng way off), everything they would want to send to another planet or asteroid or comet, or whatever, would have to be first launched from the gravity well on earth...brought together there on the moon, and then launched again. it would not make any economic sense for a long time.

Another reasons would be to get resources. If there are minerals or resources found there that would bring high value here on earth, or could not otherwise be found or made on earth, it would make sense. But before they can do that, they will again have to launch all of the heavy equipment and processing plants to make that possible to the moon from the gravity well here on earth. Unless and until they found very major, very rare/expensive resources, it would be hard to make economic sense of it.

I suppose there are certain scientific studies and research that would benefit from the environement, like on the Space Station. But how much benefit? How mch better than on a space Statoion in relative near-earth orbit? You have to literally weigh every bit of that against the expense of getting it there and maintaining it.

Other than that, a manned outpost is, like the moon walks, for show and to make a statement. And it is a tremdnously expensive one because all of the resouces they need to live there must also come from eather's gravity well. I do not see it happening by anyone until the issue of providing at least their own water and oxygen is solved.

I just don't see how a base on the moon could serve as any sort of spring board to anywhere else. It makes no sense to either build and assemble the spacecraft on the moon to go somewhere else, or have a spacecraft from earth destined for somewhere else to stop over at a moon base. It is also probably much cheaper to test equipment destined for elsewhere in controlled environments on earth than ship it to the moon for testing.

The only real reason I can see for setting up bases on the moon, besides bragging rights, is to mine the resources on the moon, or for making certain astronomical observations from the far side of the moon.

 

[Jeff Head]

I just don't see how a base on the moon could serve as any sort of spring board to anywhere else. It makes no sense to either build and assemble the spacecraft on the moon to go somewhere else, or have a spacecraft from earth destined for somewhere else to stop over at a moon base. It is also probably much cheaper to test equipment destined for elsewhere in controlled environments on earth than ship it to the moon for testing.

The only real reason I can see for setting up bases on the moon, besides bragging rights, is to mine the resources on the moon, or for making certain astronomical observations from the far side of the moon.

I agree 100%

In the distant future, with newer exotic technologuies and after a moon colony is self sufficient (it it ever can be) and able to manufacture and build those vessels themselves so they can forego the huge cost of lifting everything from earth...then maybe interplanetary misisons from the moon would make sense.

But I do not believe you or I, or our grandkids will live to see that day. It would be nice to be proven wrong...but I just cannot see it.

As to resource mining...a similar problem exists. The material would have to be so rare, and so valuable, that going through the cost of lifting the machinery and equipment to mine it and prepare it for launch back to earth, would be cheap enough when weighed against the material, to make it worth the while.

I do not think that even if they found a large...even huge...vein of 100% pure gold under the lunar surface that the expense of being able to mine it in any large quantities would make it worth the effort.

You and I both know that's how expensive the current process is of getting things to and from the moon. IMHO, something would have to be found that was of 10x or even 50x more worth than gold to even have a chance of it being economically feasible.

 

[Speeder]

Now, for the sake of the thread and keeping it on topic and avoding continued meaningless arguements:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> MODERATOR COMMENT <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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Move on from the meaningless arguement about what we call the movement of an orbiter orother similar vessels. They do move, based on a power source, or some manipulation of elements and forces, through space, whether it has an atmosphere or not. The atmosphere just provides for different options in how they go about it...and when done therough "air," we classically call that "flight."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> END MODERATOR COMMENT <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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Absolutely.

Actually that's my point. Perhaps I didn't express it well by carelessly and needlessly dragging in words like "fly" and "drone", etc that make my point dissapeared in a sea of meaningless games of definitions.



Now imagine this:


A device big enough to contain a decent quality cam-recorder and antenna along with its own fuel, is pre-programmed to move horizonantally (sometimes vertically as well when required) above the moon surface terrains at about 30m altitute level, with a speed higher or much higher than a conventional rover, for a minmum of 5 mins of horizontal movements towards one direction (bearing in mind that when required, large rockets with their internal fuel size can lift up tons of weight for 1-2 min, and hover tons of weight horizontally as well, against moon gravity ) to start with.

Don't you find the research of fuel economy of such a device and field execise of it immensely attractive both technologically and commercially? Now this, was my original point, unless of course you think this is completely off the topic of the thread.

 

[chuck731]

Absolutely.

Actually that's my point. Perhaps I didn't express it well by carelessly and needlessly dragging in words like "fly" and "drone", etc that make my point dissapeared in a sea of meaningless games of definitions.



Now imagine this:


A device big enough to contain a decent quality cam-recorder and antenna along with its own fuel, is pre-programmed to move horizonantally (sometimes vertically as well when required) above the moon surface terrains at about 30m altitute level, with a speed higher or much higher than a conventional rover, for a minmum of 5 mins of horizontal movements towards one direction (bearing in mind that when required, large rockets with their internal fuel size can lift up tons of weight for 1-2 min, and hover tons of weight horizontally as well, against moon gravity ) to start with.

Don't you find the research of fuel economy of such a device and field execise of it immensely attractive both technologically and commercially? Now this, was my original point, unless of course you think this is completely off the topic of the thread.

And what conceivable benefit is there in using a hover device to cover a preprogramed 5 miles in 5 minutes and checking one or two rocks before running out of fuel, vs a rover that can cover the same 5 miles over 3 month, but is able to stop and sample many more dozens of points along the way, and examine each sample with a much larger array of instruments because it didn't have to carry all the fuel needed to fly?

You are thinking of lunar exploration as a video game rather than as a endeavor to get the most science out of least dollar.

 

[Jeff Head]

Absolutely.

Actually that's my point. Perhaps I didn't express it well ...

Now imagine this...

A device big enough to contain a decent quality cam-recorder...

Don't you find the research of fuel economy of such a device immensely attractive both technologically and commercially...unless of course you think this is completely off the topic of the thread.

Okay, this once, a couple of things for you speeder.

Numer one: READ THE FORUM RULES, and then follow them. They are posted as sticky threads in every forum.

For example:

Do not respond on the forum to moderator instructions.

Do not quote or question a moderators instructions in blue or red text.

Do not respond to a moderators instructions.

If you have an issue with instructions from a moderator, either contact that moderatror about it through PM, or another moderator. But be advised, moderators have their own forum and they are constantly talking with each other about the actions taken on the forum.

Numer two: The use of bold text is governed here on the forum. Again, read the rules:

Do not increase the FONT size or use bold text exclusively. This is akin to shouting. Bold text may be used for headlines and to emphasize a point. Keep that point short. Less than one sentence.

In this case, you responded to a moderators instructions and used bold text, both in violation of the rules. I am trying to help you here, but shouldn't have to since the rules are clearly available to all posters.

Number three: Yes, in this instance, discussion of fuel economy for a UAV for planetary exploration is off topic.

This is a thread about the Chinese Space Program, not about personal conjecture about what they could do better. Unless the Chinese announce plans to develop or use such a UAV, only minimal or passing comments about such a thing should be made.

To date, they are clearly using a rover, and they are doing so for many of the good reasons that have already been explained here.

If you want to start another thread in the Members Forum about such things and a technical discussion of them, that is different, this thread is not a thread to bring up your own, off-topic ideas, and then try and analyze and defend them.

Now, we recognize that some conjecture is unavoidable and okay...but when it reaches a point where it is over-riding the specific topic of the thread, moderators step in and ask it to stop...as I have done.

The following posts will be edited or deleted:

- Meaningless arguments
- Any other posts that the moderators/administrator regard as inappropriate.

So, speeder, I have taken some time to try and explain things to you. Please read the rules and abide by them and everything will be fine.

Thanks.