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pyatIndia has just launched their first lunar probe.
A couple of weeks ago, Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk.
I’ve said before that this may be the new space race, between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest single-party state.
While China certainly has the upper hand in terms of government will to embark on wildly expensive prestige projects (as well as old Soviet hardware to crib their designs from) I believe India has the advantage when it comes to cutting-edge technical talent. I would not be surprised to see astronauts from one of those nations on the Moon before Elizabeth graduates high school, possibly even before the U.S. goes back to the Moon.
My bet is on China getting there first. When it comes down to it, getting to the Moon is largely a matter of “bigger is better”, and the Chinese ability to embark on big projects is not as tied to fiscal realities as that of India. China has set a target date of 2020 for a manned Moon mission, and many of the basic technologies they’ll be using to get there were developed by the Soviets in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and are proven and dependable designs.
The U.S. has set a target date for 2018, the 49th anniversary of the first moon landing, but I suspect this date will largely depend on the overall health of the economy over the next few years.
I’m curious to see if either China or India will resurrect the insane and pointless (but terribly cool) idea of a manned Venus or Mars flyby. Both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were pursuing projects along those lines in the early 70s. NASA planned to launch a year-long manned mission in the Fall of 1973, using an Apollo module cobbled together with an extra launch stage and elements of the Lunar Excursion Module. The astronauts would get to Venus, zip past it in a couple of hours, and then basically continue on to intercept the Earth’s orbit on the opposite side of the sun, eight months later.
Imagine living in that thing for a year, with two other people… before the invention of DVD players, the Internet, video games, MP3 players, or, heck, table-top RPGs.
It’s still terribly cool. And the Russians wanted to do something similar, except with a Mars fly-by.
A couple of weeks ago, Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk.
I’ve said before that this may be the new space race, between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest single-party state.
While China certainly has the upper hand in terms of government will to embark on wildly expensive prestige projects (as well as old Soviet hardware to crib their designs from) I believe India has the advantage when it comes to cutting-edge technical talent. I would not be surprised to see astronauts from one of those nations on the Moon before Elizabeth graduates high school, possibly even before the U.S. goes back to the Moon.
My bet is on China getting there first. When it comes down to it, getting to the Moon is largely a matter of “bigger is better”, and the Chinese ability to embark on big projects is not as tied to fiscal realities as that of India. China has set a target date of 2020 for a manned Moon mission, and many of the basic technologies they’ll be using to get there were developed by the Soviets in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and are proven and dependable designs.
The U.S. has set a target date for 2018, the 49th anniversary of the first moon landing, but I suspect this date will largely depend on the overall health of the economy over the next few years.
I’m curious to see if either China or India will resurrect the insane and pointless (but terribly cool) idea of a manned Venus or Mars flyby. Both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were pursuing projects along those lines in the early 70s. NASA planned to launch a year-long manned mission in the Fall of 1973, using an Apollo module cobbled together with an extra launch stage and elements of the Lunar Excursion Module. The astronauts would get to Venus, zip past it in a couple of hours, and then basically continue on to intercept the Earth’s orbit on the opposite side of the sun, eight months later.
Imagine living in that thing for a year, with two other people… before the invention of DVD players, the Internet, video games, MP3 players, or, heck, table-top RPGs.
It’s still terribly cool. And the Russians wanted to do something similar, except with a Mars fly-by.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 03:24 pm (UTC)Why is anyone bothering with the moon? Been there, done that. I say land people on Mars!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 03:39 pm (UTC)As for the Moon, there's not much there that's of use to us now, granted. But it is the closest large source of Helium-3, which could be used for clean fusion power. According to the Chinese space agency, three space shuttles full of Helium-3 could power the entire Earth for a year. Unfortunately, just getting those three shuttle fulls would likely require enormous Lunar strip mining operations. I'm not sure what I think of that.
On the one hand, it's not like the Moon has much of an ecosystem to damage. On the other hand, it might be nice not dig giant holes in something.
The Moon is also an excellent source of platinum, which is currently (I think) required as a catalyst for hydrogen-cell powered vehicles. The supply on Earth is nowhere near sufficient to replace the existing petroleum-based cars, buses, planes, ships, and trains.
Getting into space is expensive currently, because we're building throwaway rockets. Eventually (maybe), we'll develop more economical means of getting there - space elevators and the like. The estimated cost of a space elevator, for example, is one-twelfth the annual budget of the U.S. DoD, and the space elevator would be a bit more useful!
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Date: 2008-10-22 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 04:01 pm (UTC)I don't know how I feel about it, either. I don't know that it wouldn't be better to come up with solutions for our needs within our basically closed system (the earth).
Did you ever read that short story where humans appeared on god's creation, and he spent all of his time trying to stomp them out, because they kept destroying what he'd made, - it comes to mind because of the part where they started infesting the creations of all of god's friends, building ships and going around the solar system wreaking havoc.
I think humans might have been a joke one god was playing on the god who made earth, a joke that got completely out of both of their hands.
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Date: 2008-10-22 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 06:02 pm (UTC)Piet was referring to going out to space for mineral resources, and I guess that's what got me thinking about meeting our needs and solving our problems with what's local, instead of flying to the moon.
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Date: 2008-10-22 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 03:40 pm (UTC)It would take a lot more boosters than a flyby, of course, but I think there are opportunities here. Send machines first, ideally machines that are close to self-replicating, to establish a base and set up factories and processing plants (including for oxygen and ideally water). Only send people when there's something very close to a functional base. Start working on a mass driver or some other way for goods to get from the moon to the earth, so that there's a return on investment.
There have been studies about this, mostly done by Americans, but the American government is too conservative and too broke to actually go and do it. Ditto American business, which can't seem to see past the next two quarters. So someone else will have to do it, and I nominate China, which has a squillion dollars and a whole lot of engineering talent and manufacturing base that may shortly be lying fallow.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 06:58 pm (UTC)You just hafta get 'em there. :)
I'm also wondering why more countries haven't looked into rail-based space launches. All you need is a few miles of track, pointing vaguely upward.
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Date: 2008-10-22 07:26 pm (UTC)The moon rotates approximately once a month. It would have to be a *very* long elevator.
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Date: 2008-10-22 07:41 pm (UTC)Fabricating it would also be relatively easy - it's just a matter of scale. In 1858, a 4,200 km cable was laid across the Atlantic using ships that relied almost as much on sails as steam.
In the mid-90s, a consortium of private firms and governments laid 28,000 km of continuous fiber-optic cable around the Pacific.
I suspect a Lunar space elevator would be easier than either of those projects, in many ways.
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Date: 2008-10-22 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 08:38 pm (UTC)Like so!
Turns out Wiki has a whole page about lunar space elevators.
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Date: 2008-10-22 07:38 pm (UTC)There's another technology that we should really be looking at, too: gun launch. Gerald Bull pitched the concept of a space cannon to Saddam Hussein, and Hussein was very receptive, but then the Mossad snuffed Bull and Iraq got bombed back into the stone age. That notwithstanding, I think the technology is very workable. Obviously you can't man-rate a space gun, but so what -- most of what we want to put into space isn't people.
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Date: 2008-10-22 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 04:17 pm (UTC)That's true. I have an old Harry Harrison novel, in which some cosmonauts get stuck on the Moon, and spend days arguing about chess and getting sick of patriotic music. American astronauts would probably have more fun than that, at least.
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Date: 2008-10-22 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 07:41 pm (UTC)