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 :)
China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
31–40 of 82 posts
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#32Being 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 sup…
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#33Being 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 sup…
Imagine how different, and worse, the world would be had explorers not ventured across the sea just to see what was on the other side. We should explore for exploration's sake.
I mean, they mostly did it to establish trade routes and exploit previously untapped natural resources, not out of a mere spirit of exploration.
And even if the explorers themselves did it out of a spirit of exploration, the ones funding their expeditions generally had other motives.
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#34Being 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 sup…
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#35Being 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 sup…
By contrast Indian colleagues seem extremely nationalistic - in a way that's a bit scary
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#36Earlier 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.
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#38Being 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 sup…
This isn't authoritative in the slightest, but having lived in China I got a general feeling that Chinese see themselves as a third world country that's kinda backwards and trying it's best to catch up. This was my sense talking to normal people that sell noodles and whatnot. There is a kinda separate ultra nationalist crowd that probably see things different, but they don't really represent the majority. I think lan…
I've had so many people turn from crticizing every aspect of the country to arguing that India has all the quality of life, freedom and opportunity of a western country over the tiniest of comments from me.
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#39Being 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 sup…
I wonder if these impressions are different for those less isolated from Chinese spaceflight efforts?
Re: China’s Moon atlas is the most detailed ever made
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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'…
Anyone that wants to intuitively understand these challenges can simply play Factorio's Space Exploration mod (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/space-exploration).