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China lands rover on Mars

bbc.com

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Re: China lands rover on Mars

#261

Post by varispeed »

iso1210 wrote: post #209
kstenerud wrote: post #188

It seems pretty silly to get all up in arms about copying other peoples' stuff. That's how humanity has innovated throughout the ages: Copy what works and innovate on top of it. None of our inventions arise from a vacuum. Cars are still as wide as Roman chariots for good reason. Power transfer uses the same base principles as were in play during the dawn of steam engines and before. Energy conversion has been an iter…

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

Germans wouldn't have started the war without loans from the US or help from companies like IBM. So it's not so much as stealing, but rather trying to claw back some of the "investment" when the war machinery started to collapse.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#263

Post by officialjunk »

ghhchjb wrote: post #218
Dah00n wrote: post #191

What I find very exciting and something that is totally lacking from any news articles and discussions I have seen outside space-geek circles is that China is actually very much open to cooperate with other agencies. The China Russia plan of a base on the moon is open to partners whom would like to join: International Lunar Research Station. https://spacenews.com/china-russia-open-moon-base-project-to...

> The China Russia plan of a base on the moon is open to partners whom would like to join Including Taiwan?

Taiwan is part of China.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#264

Post by varispeed »

pingec wrote: post #7

It's impressive how far China has come in just 2 decades. How significant is this achievement space technology wise? I still remember the first rover on Mars and it was a really big deal in my eyes back then.

When the entire world moved their factories there and then started to import everything, what else would you expect? It's funny how communists beat capitalists using greed to their advantage. Now it's a matter of time that communism will be seeping through every country fabric and it will be the end of the free world as we know it.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#266

Post by fsloth »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #223
iso1210 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

I was just telling my wife about this yesterday and how Wernher von Braun basically saved the US rocket program; or, at least, it was having major difficulties before, and major successes after he joined up. And, in addition, the Germans in the 1930s got a lot of good information from Robert H. Goddard, the inventor who built the first liquid-fueled rocket; Werner von Braun said, about him, "His rockets ... may have…

Not only that, but the project director of the friggin Saturn V - Arthur Rudolph - was forced to rescind his US citizenship or face charges for war crimes because he had managed a factory during the war - Mittelwerk - that killed more forced labourers by building the V-2 than died in the V-2 bombings (20,000 vs 9,000 V-2 casualties).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rudolph

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelbau-Dora_concentration_c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#267

Post by anoncake »

nazgul17 wrote: post #238
k_sze wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think about the way we define “harsh”. What’s actually so harsh about Mars? Let’s imagine some alien civilization tries to send a probe to Earth, they’d be saying things like: “Dude, that atmosphere is gonna burn our shit up before it even touches ground, if we’re not careful.” “Holy shit, what are these huge animals with long noses and big ears? They’re gonna destroy our probe if they walk over it.” “L…

One factor complicating landing is the thin atmosphere. Too thin to make parachutes useful but thin enough that you have to worry about the heat from high speeds.

Parachutes are useful on Mars, just not sufficient.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#268

Post by gutfhjkvdsw »

iso1210 wrote: post #209
kstenerud wrote: post #188

It seems pretty silly to get all up in arms about copying other peoples' stuff. That's how humanity has innovated throughout the ages: Copy what works and innovate on top of it. None of our inventions arise from a vacuum. Cars are still as wide as Roman chariots for good reason. Power transfer uses the same base principles as were in play during the dawn of steam engines and before. Energy conversion has been an iter…

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

Is it really stealing when the individuals who did the work for America voluntarily left Germany due to its foray into authoritarianism? Seems more like a windfall for a country with better human rights than a theft, to me.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#269

Post by fsloth »

nawitus wrote: post #239
rich_sasha wrote: post #179

To the (flagged) comments about China stealing research: I’ll abstract from lack of evidence. Just stealing isn’t enough. Russia, I believe, ended up admitting stealing research on the Space Shuttle, and despite that their own project never really materialised. Even. You steal, that lets you catch up, not overtake. So even if China is helping themselves (again, I don’t know), they still have to innovate and improve.…

Buran made an orbital flight. I think the reason of the project's failure was lack of funding, not technology in that case.

Also I think the Soviets realized the shuttle was a badly designed and expensive frankenvehicle that did not fit any mission profile particularly well.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#270

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

totalZero wrote: post #184
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #152

It makes me concerned thinking about what kind of biological contamination this rover might have brought to Mars that may seriously hamper the search for signs of past native life. JPL is very forthcoming about their cleanliness procedures, China not so much. And they don’t exactly have a great track record in this respect.

I may have an unorthodox opinion about this, but I believe our primary goal should be to propagate life rather than to search for it. Sooner or later, we will need to expand our horizons as a species. When that time comes, we will benefit greatly from a long period of study regarding the forms of earthly life that can potentially survive elsewhere. To me, finding evidence of past life would be fascinating and groundb…

That's what the spanish did with the native americans

About 90% died as a result. If the objective was to propagate life, they definitely failed

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