Review of recent Chinese mission & others

[odysseus2000]

Nice short review article of the recent Chinese mission & sample collection from the dark side of the moon along with a brief summary of other recent missions to the moon (8 mins 10):

https://youtu.be/9enGT0v2ABs?si=fi_Bl02VlAVDBVIT

Regards,

[kiloran]

Nice short review article of the recent Chinese mission & sample collection from the dark side of the moon along with a brief summary of other recent missions to the moon (8 mins 10):

https://youtu.be/9enGT0v2ABs?si=fi_Bl02VlAVDBVIT

Regards,

Ahem.... there is no dark side, except that created by Pink Floyd

--kiloran

[odysseus2000]

Nice short review article of the recent Chinese mission & sample collection from the dark side of the moon along with a brief summary of other recent missions to the moon (8 mins 10):

https://youtu.be/9enGT0v2ABs?si=fi_Bl02VlAVDBVIT

Regards,

Ahem.... there is no dark side, except that created by Pink Floyd

--kiloran

Ha ha, yes! But in terms of selling ideas to backers, using terms like Dark Side has a poetic influence that more correct terms do not & it never did Pink Floyd any harm.

Regards,

[ReformedCharacter]

Nice short review article of the recent Chinese mission & sample collection from the dark side of the moon along with a brief summary of other recent missions to the moon (8 mins 10):

https://youtu.be/9enGT0v2ABs?si=fi_Bl02VlAVDBVIT

Regards,

The Chinese seem to be doing well with their lunar exploration program. Landing upright in the right place is pretty good but returning samples to Earth is a lot more impressive. We'll have to wait until the end of the month to see if they can manage that. Looks like my lifetime will be book-ended by achievements in space and I'm watching the second book-end with as much interest as the first.

RC

[88V8]

Landing upright in the right place is pretty good but returning samples to Earth is a lot more impressive.

Indeed it is.
But the purpose... to enable humankind to go and f**k up other planets, less so.

Mind you, if they found green cheese....
We should get in on this lunar lark. We could call the first two landers Wallace and Gromit.

V8

[odysseus2000]

Landing upright in the right place is pretty good but returning samples to Earth is a lot more impressive.

Indeed it is.
But the purpose... to enable humankind to go and f**k up other planets, less so.

Mind you, if they found green cheese....
We should get in on this lunar lark. We could call the first two landers Wallace and Gromit.

V8

One could argue that for humanity to go and mess up other planets is preferable than having humanity so focused on messing up Earth. It is hard to argue that since the end of Apollo humanity has taken real good care of the planet or our fellow humans, despite all the arguing at the time that the Apollo money should have been spent on making Earth better.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

Landing upright in the right place is pretty good but returning samples to Earth is a lot more impressive.

Indeed it is.
But the purpose... to enable humankind to go and f**k up other planets, less so.

Mind you, if they found green cheese....
We should get in on this lunar lark. We could call the first two landers Wallace and Gromit.

V8

It would seem to be pretty wasteful not to make some use of the rest of the Solar system if noone else is using it (ie if we discover primitive life on Mars or in the sub-surface ocean of one of the moons of the outer planets then we would have to consider whether we do anything there which might affect that life but so far it looks like the rest of the Solar system is empty. And certainly the moon seems pretty lifeless.)

[Tedx]

From what I understand, the Moon used to be a bit of the Earth anyway. So a bit like the UK drilling for oil in the Falklands or something.

[ReformedCharacter]

From what I understand, the Moon used to be a bit of the Earth anyway. So a bit like the UK drilling for oil in the Falklands or something.

I think the current theory is that the Earth was hit - fairly early in the history of the solar system - by a small planetary body. Some of the Earth's core came from the core of the impactor:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/explore/marvelMoon/background/moon-formation/

RC

[ursaminortaur]

From what I understand, the Moon used to be a bit of the Earth anyway. So a bit like the UK drilling for oil in the Falklands or something.

I think the current theory is that the Earth was hit - fairly early in the history of the solar system - by a small planetary body. Some of the Earth's core came from the core of the impactor:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/explore/marvelMoon/background/moon-formation/

RC

It is thought that two gigantic blobs in the Earth's mantle surrounding the core could be remnants of the Mars sized impactor Theia.

https://observer.com/2021/03/planet-theia-remnants-in-earth-mantle-science-study/

A Mars-sized planet that struck Earth 4.5 billion years ago and gave birth to the moon may have left two giant pieces of itself deep in Earth’s mantle, a new study suggests.

Scientists have long agreed on the existence of the planet, called Theia, and its role in creating the moon. The theory goes that Theia crashed into Earth early in its life and knocked loose a chunk of rock that would later become the moon. A new study led by Qian Yuan, a geodynamics researcher at Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, suggests that the remnants of Theia is still inside Earth, probably located in two continent-size layers of rock beneath West Africa and the Pacific Ocean.
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.
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Based on isotopic evidence and modeling, Yuan believes the LLSVPs are actually remains of Theia itself. “You could say that these are the biggest and largest meteorites if they are mostly Theia’s mantle. It’s very cool,” he told Vice.

Shortly after the collision 4.5 billion years ago, Theia’s core merged with Earth’s, Yuan’s work suggests. His model then aims to identify the conditions under which Theia’s mantle would have sunk to where the two LLSVPs are today rather than mixing in with Earth’s mantle. Simulations showed that Theia mantle needed to be 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent denser than Earth’s to have survived the mixing and end up as separate lumps near Earth’s core.

[odysseus2000]

China brings samples back from the far side of the moon (4:22):

https://youtu.be/BE0__sdPCH8?si=Xj_RT6FSOewu9rUC

Regards,

[Tedx]

So....a Chinese Takeaway?

[Gerry557]

I don't know the Chinese name for Luke but ......

"Chinese Luke, come to the dark side!

[stevensfo]

China brings samples back from the far side of the moon (4:22):

https://youtu.be/BE0__sdPCH8?si=Xj_RT6FSOewu9rUC

Regards,

Hopefully, an analysis of the rocks will tell them something about any water ice trapped inside, minerals that can be used to release oxygen or refined for construction, elements that can used in soil for growing plants and levels of radioactivity. What they need when establishing bases is a way of protecting themselves against the radiation from the sun and one idea is to cover the habitats with lunar dust/rocks.

Shame that, despite what we were led to believe, the UK space industry never came to anything. Though I believe that it had something to do with estimates for Moon-based council tax and wheelie bin collections.

Steve

[odysseus2000]

China brings samples back from the far side of the moon (4:22):

https://youtu.be/BE0__sdPCH8?si=Xj_RT6FSOewu9rUC

Regards,

Hopefully, an analysis of the rocks will tell them something about any water ice trapped inside, minerals that can be used to release oxygen or refined for construction, elements that can used in soil for growing plants and levels of radioactivity. What they need when establishing bases is a way of protecting themselves against the radiation from the sun and one idea is to cover the habitats with lunar dust/rocks.

Shame that, despite what we were led to believe, the UK space industry never came to anything. Though I believe that it had something to do with estimates for Moon-based council tax and wheelie bin collections.

Steve

The UK came up with the Skylon, a ground to orbit to ground based rocket plane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

It was a way to get crew and payload to orbit which could then have been the starting point for a UK space station and eventually a mission to the moon.

This has been a classic UK endeavour, a brilliant, world leading idea that was then throttled by various governments, bureaucrats and such and only since Elon got his relandable rocket goings has the project suddenly got more support, but whether it ever gets to a working system, who knows.

Regards,

[scotview]

bureaucrats and such and only since Elon got his relandable rocket goings has the project suddenly got more support, but whether it ever gets to a working system, who knows.

Regards,

And in the meantime Boeing have two astronauts to get back from the Space Station in what's turning into a helium balloon....... better call Elon.

[odysseus2000]

Chinese samples being opened, but doesn’t look like they opened the capsule with the moon dust, which seems a good idea since it should go through some decontamination and/or virus/bacteria confinement just in case there is something very unexpected in the sample:

https://youtu.be/JdfS0PCDwEE?si=2CBhPWOeteL6Y41T

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Chinese samples being opened, but doesn’t look like they opened the capsule with the moon dust, which seems a good idea since it should go through some decontamination and/or virus/bacteria confinement just in case there is something very unexpected in the sample:

https://youtu.be/JdfS0PCDwEE?si=2CBhPWOeteL6Y41T

Regards,

Interestingly the box they put it in looked very heavy. Perhaps some kind pump filter arrangement? It could also be lead if there is some residual radioactivity activity from cosmic rays & solar energetic particle interactions.

Regards,

[ReformedCharacter]

The UK came up with the Skylon, a ground to orbit to ground based rocket plane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

It was a way to get crew and payload to orbit which could then have been the starting point for a UK space station and eventually a mission to the moon.

This has been a classic UK endeavour, a brilliant, world leading idea that was then throttled by various governments, bureaucrats and such and only since Elon got his relandable rocket goings has the project suddenly got more support, but whether it ever gets to a working system, who knows.

Regards,

I've been following the HOTOL\Skylon project, in its various guises, since the 80's. There's undoubtedly some brilliant engineering there. However, I have doubts whether the project will ever be commercially viable partly due to Musk's development of the re-usable first stage Falcons and possibly the Starship. Unfortunately it may be the case that the naysayers who question the single stage to orbit concept are correct.

RC

[88V8]

Chinese samples being opened, but doesn’t look like they opened the capsule with the moon dust, which seems a good idea since it should go through some decontamination and/or virus/bacteria confinement just in case there is something very unexpected in the sample:

Yeah, just imagine if they kicked off another covid...

V8