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China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

planetary.org

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Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#211

Post by metta2uall »

njarboe wrote: post #151
metta2uall wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR and USA started cooperating in the 1970s and this has had very good results. For example being able to get to the ISS after the Space Shuttle accident, and arguably in easing political & military tensions. They continued to compete as well.

Competition between the USA and the USSR produced the first orbiting satellite in Oct, 1957 and a man on the moon, twelve years later, in July, 1969. The USSR gave up on Space tech and so did the USA so that we couldn't land a man on the moon if we wanted to 50 years later. If the USSR had continued on to try and go to Mars we would have been there decades ago. Only with Elon Musk's vision for a Mars colony and his c…

Competition between the USA and the USSR also produced thousands of nuclear ICBMs... but I get your point that space tech development was faster. It's slowed but hasn't stopped and everyone has far from given up. I think we have to use our money & brainpower rationally - especially given the many threats we have on Earth - whereas competition and egos often go against this. For example, I think a manned colony on Mars in the next decade is definitely possible but would be an epic waste (what would it achieve?) - IMHO we should first develop far more advanced robotics, self-replicating machines, etc - to build a proper base before sending humans over.

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#212

Post by genera1 »

Rooster61 wrote: post #130
ptero wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of actively controlling a rover rather than having it perform pre-programmed routines seems highly desirable. Rover, probably (which I considered payload functions). For delivery vehicle during passive parts of the trajectory the value is doubtful. Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. That's what Soviet Union did and I suspect this i…

> Plus, the standard way of getting a ground station outside a country's land footprint is to put one on a ship. Never heard of a ship based ground station, and that's saying something as I'm in the industry. How does that work? I'd imagine the antenna would need to be on a massive gimbal, yeah?

From the top of my head there is Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmonavt_Yuriy_Gagarin

In principle this isn't that different from ships designed to track ICBMs, and I've seen designs both with spinning parabolic radar antennas in radomes and regular antennas on gimbals. In fact many of those tracking ships were used in space programmes, but I'm not certain, whether just for one way telemetry or two-way comms

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#213

Post by teacpde »

tanilama wrote: post #41
arduanika wrote: post #5

"...and if the dam breaks open many years too soon..." Perhaps interesting to note the origin of this name for spacecraft. The legend "Chang'e flies to the moon" (嫦娥奔月) lies behind the Mid-Autumn Festival (featuring mooncakes, as it were). Point is, the names of Chinese space missions are every bit as carefully steeped in tradition as, say, Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.

The story behind Chang'e is also interesting. Essentially, she is the wife of a legendary hero, Hou Yi(后羿), who saved the mankind from dying of drought due to the presence of nine Suns, by shooting all but one of them down. Chang'e stole the Immortal Pill, and eat it alone without her husband knowing. After she ate it, her body became to float and she flied to the moon, to live there alone forever as her punishment,…

And to add to that the relay satellite is named Queqiao (鹊桥, Megapie Bridge). It is how the separated lovers Zhinv (织女, Vega) and Niulang (牛郎, Altair) meet once every year. Zhinv is the seventh daughter of the Yuhuangdai (the god of gods, like Zeus), and fell in love with human Niulang. After discovering with anger, Wuangmuniangniang (wife of Yuhuangdadi, like Hera) separated the two with the Milky Way. Touched by the love story of Zhinv and Niulang, the magpies form the Queqiao bridge to help them meet once a year on July 7, which became the Chinese Valentine (七夕).

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#214

Post by stcredzero »

kenver wrote: post #199
stcredzero wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese. My experience is that attitudes are often quite different if you look like a Chinese person.

I don't think that attitude is unique to Chinese people. My experience is based on my name rather than looks. Whenever people from my father's country ask me my name, they suddenly expect me to speak their language - and then to tell me what a shame it is when I don't. I've seen the same for British Germans, Polish and Vietnamese too!

One of my computer science professors who defected from Cold War Hungary was very anxious to meet me. It turns out that my Korean Catholic name is also a perfectly cromulent Hungarian name!

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#215

Post by 8bitsrule »

jackconnor wrote: post #3

The way they used the L2 point to lasso a relay satellite so they could transmit information from the rover on the far side is stunning too. This was really brilliant, China's space program has really become something.

Also interesting is the 'Dutch NCLE' project, which hitched a ride with the relay orbiter to study how hard it will be to do 'low-frequency' radio astronomy (esp. below 30MHz) from behind the moon.

That may turn out to have more science value than establishing that the far side is old (just joshing ... a bit).

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#216

Post by godelski »

swampthing wrote: post #181
stcredzero wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legend "Chang'e flies to the moon" (嫦娥奔月) lies behind the Mid-Autumn Festival (featuring mooncakes, as it were). Point is, the names of Chinese space missions are every bit as carefully steeped in tradition as, say, Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. The People's Republic of China doesn't think of itself as a "Nation State." Instead, it thinks of itself as a "civilization state." A part of PRC's self appointed charge is to p…

That's very interesting to hear. I wonder if it is something specific to that corporation, or perhaps your role at the corporation, though? All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese.

As someone who is learning Chinese (and VERY bad at it), (almost) every Chinese person I've met has been super encouraging and helpful. Most of them are surprised I'm learning it at all. But they also express encouragement differently, so I'm wondering if it is a misunderstanding.

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#217

Post by 8bitsrule »

A2017U1 wrote: post #4

Copying earlier comment: Wikipedia seems to say the rover mission duration is 3 months, yet the previous rover traveled for a year and transmitted a bit longer. The Chinese seemed quite coy about it failing last time (as with many things) so perhaps underpromising in this case? This all preparation for China's planned permanent radio telescope on the far side which would be a huge boon for astronomers by escaping Ear…

Not so unusual ... look at the spec'd mission times for many US planetary missions ... they are usually -much- shorter than the expectation values. (Opportunity Rover, e.g.)

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#218

Post by godelski »

ams6110 wrote: post #191

FTA: "In addition to its value as a scientific exploration target, the Moon’s quiet, airless far side makes it one of the best places in the inner solar system for science applications like radio astronomy." It what way is any part of the moon not "quiet and airless" ?

The sun is really loud. [0]

But in all seriousness, it produces a lot of radio signals. So it is completely accurate to call it loud. The moon doesn't have a magnetic core so it doesn't produce its own noise like Earth does.

[0] https://youtu.be/Rvvsw21PgIk?t=17

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#219

Post by blihp »

vermontdevil wrote: post #104

Awesome. Too bad US freezes China out in working with NASA on space exploration. I think we all should partner up despite our political differences.

On the other hand, this has resulted in something very good. Our (U.S.) space program has been err, lacking, for the last 45 years so it's not like there would have been much benefit to partnering with us. If China, or any other country, wants to take the leadership role we've abdicated and show the world how to do a space program, more power to them. And who knows, it might even give us the push we need to get back out there in a serious way.

Re: China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon

#220

Post by swampthing »

stcredzero wrote: post #190
swampthing wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting to hear. I wonder if it is something specific to that corporation, or perhaps your role at the corporation, though? All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese.

All the Chinese-born people I know would be pretty surprised if any non-Chinese person could read Chinese. My experience is that attitudes are often quite different if you look like a Chinese person.

Well, that makes sense. If they thought you were a Chinese person, I could see why they would have asked you if you could read Chinese.
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