China’s moon landing plan

China’s bold plan to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon before returning to Earth has moved another step forward with a test craft shifting into lunar orbit to conduct further tests.
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Why unmanned? Are they scared of the made in China possibility with their craft? :confused:
 
Lets hope this prods the current incumbents in the great space race to get a bit more pro-active, otherwise Firefly will be remarkably prescient, and us laowai will all be speaking dodgy Chinese up in space in the future.
 
A US company just bounced a 12 story rocket stage off a robot barge while testing if they can land it in one piece to cheaply re-use it. And the same company is testing the abort process on their manned spaceship next month, also testing the engines that would allow it to land on Mars at the same time.

Which is cool, because their CEO wants to use it to colonise Mars and a Dutch reality show is going to try and do the same using it.

But China is trying to redo what the US and Russia last did 50 years ago, so they have that going for them, which is good...
 
It is admirable that a country like China wants to test their space exploration skills. With the resources and skills available to them they can easily become one of the main role-players in astronautics.
 
I think they are actually doing it the right way.
First set up base on the moon. Get everything right with support from earth.
If possible, set up mines for raw materials and get self sustaining as far as possible.
Then you launch from the moon, which should be much cheaper in the long run.
Lessons learned from building and living on the moon, would assist a lot when you do the same thing on Mars.
 
Nod said:
I think they are actually doing it the right way.
First set up base on the moon. Get everything right with support from earth.
If possible, set up mines for raw materials and get self sustaining as far as possible.
Then you launch from the moon, which should be much cheaper in the long run.
Lessons learned from building and living on the moon, would assist a lot when you do the same thing on Mars.
Click to expand...

NASA wanted to do the same thing in the 90's. Problem is - its expensive. Very expensive. The total bill that Bush Sr was given ranged from half a trillion, to a trillion dollars. :wtf:

The moon won't give us much that we haven't learnt by now on how to survive in space. Most of the problems related to Mars are unique to there.

Don't get me wrong - it will feature in any future plans, but more likely as a smaller test-bed. Or as a commercial spin-off. The surface is about as mineral rich as the average mine tailings you find in the big dumps around Joburg. But there is Helium 3 in those hills. $$$$$$$$
 
Nah - they just want to prove to the world that there is no American flag or buggy on the moon. :whistle:
 
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