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China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

nature.com

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Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#21

Post by hnbad »

lettergram wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunar resource extraction is unlikely to be viable for anything other than building on the moon - ever. The quantities of energy involved are simply too high.

I highly doubt that’s true, sending it back to earth is fairly cheap. Getting stuff to the moon can be expensive, but there will def be certain resources worth sending back. For instance, 10Kg of gold is worth $750k. Probably could just send that back with a few astronauts. That’s not to include the possibility that there’s certain manufactured goods that could be cheaper or only possible to produce at lower gravity.

There's a big difference between simply shooting stuff at Earth (or even simply off the moon into space) and actually sending it back. Yes, SpaceX charges $300k for sending 50kg to SSO as a rideshare but that's with all the infrastructure and logistics already in place.

Landing on the moon is a very different endeavour than simply reaching Earth orbit from Earth. In order to refuel and reuse rockets on the moon, you'd need to build out all the infrastructure for doing so first, not to mention the resources necessary for continuous operation. Even getting running water on the moon would be a huge logistical and infrastructure challenge, let alone operating a launch pad.

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#22

Post by hnbad »

powerapple wrote: post #17
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunar resource extraction is unlikely to be viable for anything other than building on the moon - ever. The quantities of energy involved are simply too high.

Imagine if we can send garbage to the moon and keep the earth clean, the ship returns with minerals.

You can send 50kg of garbage into orbit for $300k with SpaceX. I don't think sending it to the moon would be any more cost efficient (quite the opposite). Plus with the kind of garbage where you might find that cost acceptable (long-term radioactive waste, extreme biohazards) those are the kind of stuff you don't want to have to end up detonating in the air if the rocket malfunctions.

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#23

Post by Zambyte »

powerapple wrote: post #17
pjc50 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunar resource extraction is unlikely to be viable for anything other than building on the moon - ever. The quantities of energy involved are simply too high.

Imagine if we can send garbage to the moon and keep the earth clean, the ship returns with minerals.

Why would we aim for the moon instead of aiming anywhere but the moon?

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#24

Post by powerapple »

Zambyte wrote: post #23
powerapple wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we can send garbage to the moon and keep the earth clean, the ship returns with minerals.

Why would we aim for the moon instead of aiming anywhere but the moon?

I guess it is where it is close, and I don't really care too much about it. I like Bezos idea of space rather than Musk's: use Moon as a production base or something, let's move the bad stuffs pollution, garbage, nuclear waste) to the moon.

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#25

Post by JKCalhoun »

swiftcoder wrote: post #16

Does anyone know if the raw data behind these maps is available? I'd love the actual high-res elevation data for use in a moon simulator

I started with NASA's "CGI Moon Kit" [1] to do my little voxel-based moon game, Mooncraft2000.

Higher-resolution data would have been cool – but at some point the enormity of the data would probably mean I would have to stick to a small area of the Moon lest I fill my little server with tiles, ha ha.

I was also trying keep parity more or less between the resolution of the elevation data and image data since those voxels have a color in addition to an elevation. I suppose you could add noise to fake that though. (I did end up using Blender to pre-process the color data and bake in the shadows).

[1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#26

Post by nxicvyvy »

Figs wrote: post #11
lqet wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct link to the JPEG: https://china.scidb.cn/download?fileId=62b3ceb08e66a93f11a07...

That looks almost identical to the one from 2022. The only obvious differences that I see (besides "pre-proofs" watermarked all over it) are in the Geologic Time Scale table and the credits on the lower left. The map itself looks the same as far as I can tell.

[flagged]

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#27

Post by JKCalhoun »

Being in the U.S., I am isolated from China and the zeitgeist of its people - but I'm getting little hints that the Moon may very well be in the forefront.

With this "mood", Chinese astronauts on the Moon seems inevitable now. And I don't say that with dread, it's just more of an awakening I am having to a future that I had not thought much about until very recently. I think in fact I look forward to it because I suppose I want a technological rival to also draw the U.S. back to the Moon.

I'm not sure why though. My child-brain has never even questioned the validity of pursuing space exploration. But I guess as I get old now and see the Earth itself heading into dangerous territory I can kind of understand the naysayers that may have not been as enthusiastic as I was as a kid about a future that follows a timeline similar to Kubrick's "2001".

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#28

Post by zokier »

swiftcoder wrote: post #16

Does anyone know if the raw data behind these maps is available? I'd love the actual high-res elevation data for use in a moon simulator

CNCA data: https://moon.bao.ac.cn/ce5web/moonGisMap.search

NASA data: https://imbrium.mit.edu/ (https://pgda.gsfc.nasa.gov/products/54), more generally https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/dataserv/moon.html

JAXA data: https://darts.isas.jaxa.jp/planet/pdap/selene/index.html.en

Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made

#29

Post by zokier »

keepamovin wrote: post #13

First you make maps, then you profit. Normally by extracting some resources or energy from the area. China is following a classic path. The impetus for Artemis becomes more clear! Haha :)

As if NASA hasn't been making maps of space objects since the Apollo days or even earlier.
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