
China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon - scrrr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25356603
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danielrpa
Go China! As an american, I hope China keeps pushing the boundaries on their
space program - maybe we'll then decide to invest in science and space
exploration again.

~~~
yapcguy
I have submitted this as a separate story as I believe it merits discussion
regarding the links between China and America's space program.

Bassically the Co-Founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was deported from
the US to China during the McCarthy era and he became the "Father" of China's
space program.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862)

Wikipedia writes, "Under Secretary Kimball, who had tried to keep Qian in the
U.S., commented on the affair to say: _" It was the stupidest thing this
country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to
go."_

~~~
err4nt
As I understand it, much of NASA was manned by Germans who had worked on their
rocket program (weaponized rockets) and 'importing' that knowledge was the
kick start to the American space program. Project Paperclip? Was that the
name?

~~~
beachstartup
nasa and jpl aren't the same thing.

~~~
mturmon
Yes (especially back then, because NASA did not exist until 1958).

I know of three strands of rocketry research that contributed to American
rocketry. There was Robert Goddard's experiments with liquid-fueled rockets,
as early as the 1920s, Theodore von Karman (a Hungarian who emigrated to the
US in 1930) and his team at Caltech, and von Braun and the Germans.

Goddard never got significant US Government support, but he continued his
experiments right up to 1940. Of course von Braun did get government support,
and apparently his team learned from Goddard's experiments. The end result was
that von Braun's team knew more about large rockets, and he went on to head
the NASA center (Huntsville) that is most associated with rocketry, and of
course to develop the Saturn V. And von Karman, of course, was the founder of
JPL.

As @err4nt's comment hints at, there is a rough parallel between von Karman's
emigration from Germany to the US (his family was Jewish) and Qian's
emigration from the US to China.

~~~
jrmenon
JPL seems to have had quite a few founders. I recall reading about Jack
Parsons who was also into occult matters:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons)

Happen to run into his story while reading about the history of Rocketry. His
story even takes a more bizarre turn with L Ron. Hubbard, and finally his
death in a mysterious explosion.

~~~
mturmon
Indeed. I first read the hints of that story in Mike Davis's book _City of
Quartz_.

Another interesting co-founder (one of the original handful, along with
Parsons) was Frank Malina, who was the second director of JPL (after von
Karman).

Malina was also suspected by the FBI of having Communist sympathies. He
eventually left JPL and went to live in France.

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ufmace
Anyone else a little surprised that we hadn't heard anything about this
mission earlier? I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing
probes on the Moon. Kind of a big contrast to SpaceX, say, who seems to
publish a press release or at least a tweet about everything they have done
and are planning to do. Not that I mind, it's cool to read about what they're
working on. I suppose if the Chinese space program is publishing much about
it's plans, it doesn't make it into English-language media most of the time.

~~~
yapcguy
Don't forget Google who got lots of media attention:

 _> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize
of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973,
safely land on the surface of the Moon._

[http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/prize-
details](http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/prize-details)

~~~
tanzam75
> _The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of
> all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973,
> safely land on the surface of the Moon._

That sentence wasn't even correct yesterday, before Chang'e 3 landed. The last
lunar soft-landing was Luna 24 in 1976 -- a Soviet sample-return mission.

What they meant is that nobody had done what the Google Lunar XPRIZE requires
since 1973. The Google prize requires a rover, and the last rover on the moon
was Lunokhod 2, in 1973.

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robomartin
This is a massive accomplishment that might very well mark an inflection point
for China. While countries like the US haven't really done anything in the
last few decades to truly inspire the population --kids in particular-- here's
China executing a feat of engineering that will surely serve as inspiration
for their young. And, of course, this is probably the first of many.

Timing, of course, couldn't be better. The Chinese have managed their country
admirably. No debt to speak of. Massive investment in infrastructure,
technology and manufacturing capabilities. An environment where
entrepreneurship is top dog and government seems to pretty much stay out of
their way. And, of course, they are also ingesting massive amounts of
intellectual and financial capital from the rest of the world.

Some have proposed this is going to inspire or push us to compete in this
arena. I'll propose that will not happen at the same scale the Chinese are
building-up to. Think of it this way: We have to actually borrow money from
the Chinese to compete with them. I'll leave you with that thought.

~~~
Alphasite_
Last few decades? I'm certainly not american, but there have been 3 mars
missions in the last 5 years, an orbiter, a rover and a lander, the latest of
which launched less than a month ago. Why are people so quick to write off
their own achievements?

~~~
robomartin
Not writing off achievements. These are simply not inspiring people the way
the Chinese are being inspired today just by going to the moon. That's all.

At some level Mars is as intangible of asking someone to understand how a bird
feels while flying. Outside of small circles there's no real appreciation for
just how difficult these missions are. Therefore, the sense of awe isn't
there. I'll bet most people in the US don't understand why you can't drive the
robots on Mars like you do an RC car on the street. Yes, I am hinting at other
problems.

I am not sure what the ROI of robotic or manned missions to Mars might be. And
I am not necessarily in financial terms.

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vyrotek
It should be their top priority to drive over to the U.S. landing site and
send back proof that we actually went to the moon. I atleast want to see what
the flag and other things look like now. :)

~~~
iamjustin
I hope they stay away from the original landing site. It's the location of one
of the most important events in human history, and it would be a shame to
cause damage to it.

~~~
Houshalter
Also the moon is huge. Whats the point of exploring the same area twice?

~~~
ghostdiver
Observe changes

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milesf
My wife's comment: "That's because the Chinese are the only ones with any
money to have a space program". Very true dear, very true.

~~~
acadien
The US has plenty of money to have a space program, we choose not to have a
more active space program.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
Just to further this point: NASA receives for its yearly budget 12 days of the
military's budget, not counting expenses in the wars.

~~~
grannyg00se
12 days of the budget for the entire us military sounds like a pretty damn
good amount of money. Quick lookup indicates that's something like 21 billion
dollars.

~~~
bad_user
The real question is, what makes the military 30 times more important than
space exploration, given that we are leaving days of (relative) peace?

~~~
mynameishere
At this point, the military is (in-part) a jobs program, both blue collar and
white.

~~~
salient
Surely we can create a better jobs program with that money?

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zhemao
So Chang'e carries a Jade Rabbit to the moon. The consequence of thousands of
years of cultural fascination with the moon is that there sure are a lot of
things to name moon-bound spacecraft after.

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beachwood23
Am I the only one who thinks that picture of the yellow spacecraft on "the
moon" looks incredibly fake?

~~~
yapcguy
There is an explanation in this video.

Current renderings are based on real-time telemetry data being sent back from
the probe.

40 years is a long time and instruments have advanced. I guess now that the
solar panels are engaged and the rover is active, we will get some decent
footage. The moon in 1080p? Yes please!

[http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131214/104460.sh...](http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131214/104460.shtml)

~~~
njloof
It will be good to see actual footage from the Moon. Forgive my skepticism,
but after the Chinese team faked their summit of Everest I am naturally
skeptical.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Ah yes just as after that American Lance Armstrong was found guilty of doping
all this time I am VERY rightfully sceptical of ALL American athletes from
then on indeed.

~~~
asveikau
Not just athletes. Astronauts too.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Astronauts are doping? Do you think they will have to hand back the Space-Cup?

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be5invis
“我们的征途是星辰大海。”

Our Conquest is the Ocean of Stars.

~~~
wdan
翻译的太差了...

~~~
moocowduckquack
What would be a better translation?

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easy_rider
Probably just an ASIC BTC miner, capitalizing on cooler operating temperatures
and free super effective non-atmospheric blocked solar power.

~~~
be5invis
However there is no air on the Moon, so how to conduct the heat from the
mining machines?

~~~
jckt
IR radiation?

~~~
be5invis
Assuming that your mining machine is a 10cm * 10cm * 10cm box with 100W power,
while it is a black body, then according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, the
temperature of your machine will be......

414K, or 285°F.

One of the hot-selling mining machines in China is the Friedcat Box, providing
38GH/s in 360W power. The dimensions of this thing is a 12cm cube. Using the
data of this machine, and calculated with Stefan–Boltzmann law, the
temperature will be...

520.6K or 477.5°F

Bitcoins are really hot, I think.

~~~
Havoc
>477.5°F

Perfect. Time for a steam powered generator add-on. BTC generating perpetual
motion machine. :)

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return0
Just when i thought quadcopters were cool ... I can see how, with a little
chinese-fu magic the chinese could make space travel commodity. Or at least
moon-droning. Certainly looking forward to pay a (short) visit to the first
moon colony.

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xenophonf
That's freaking awesome!

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kolev
While America is wasting billions on waging wars and funding failures like
Obamacare, other nations are advancing their science! China's next destination
is Mars! I'm sure they will get there well before Mars One, which keeps
pushing their dates further in the future!

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mingyuan
good news.

