SunlitZelkova

Happy late B-day!

I'm not sure if that's the exact definition of survivorship bias. Is all car travel dangerous because 1 in 1000 people die in a car crash? Or were the trips that succeeded actually quite safe, and one actually dangerous due to some hidden factor? Vice versa, I would say Apollo in eight years was, with hindsight, and in a technological sense, not lofty. Whereas a Soviet Moon landing in five years was. But actually I wouldn't say that. I have realized that I never meant Apollo alone was not lofty, but that in comparison to the Soviet attempt or the original Shuttle timeline, it was not lofty. But anyways, I think that is besides the point. My word use was wrong. Rather than "lofty goals" I was listing "short, optimistic timelines". This definition, of course, has some issues too, because depending on the context Apollo could have been a short timeline project too. And of course, Mercury and Vostok were completed in much shorter time than Apollo itself. So what I was actually listing was basically just "that other Moon landing program that tried to get there within five years" (the Soviet L3 lunar project). The Space Shuttle should be dropped as an example because development of a space plane is very different. *deep breath before trying to get back on topic* Thus based on the past example of the Soviet attempt to get to the Moon, Artemis III in 2024 or 2025 was always just a dream even with SpaceX's break-things-and-move-fast development style. Therefore there shouldn't be much worry over being "late". Only if things start to slip past 2029 would it be concerning.

Perhaps, but not at all long enough to give India some kind of “lead”.

Perhaps I was using the wrong word, but I defined “lofty” as “having proven to have been impossible to complete [on time]”.

With hindsight it’s pretty clear that not only was the US fully capable of putting a man on the Moon prior to 1970, but the Soviets also had no chance at beating them. Politically lofty? Yes, as you said no one has had the will to go back for 50 years. I’ll concede it was very lofty to get Congress to continue to fund it especially when the Vietnam War was a big priority. Technically lofty? It was cutting edge technology for sure, but as to whether that means it was somehow absurd for it to be built by 1970, I personally think no.

I was listing lofty goals. Kennedy’s challenge was not a lofty goal because it gave the US almost a decade of time to complete it. Whereas the Soviet Moon project and Shuttle had five years or so.

Here's the post! We ended up visiting Chofu Space Center instead!

So in a thread in the lounge I mentioned I was going to visit the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center, but we had a change of plans and ended up going to the Chofu Space Center in Tokyo! Here are the pics. This is the outside of the facility. It is the HQ of JAXA and is the location of some test facilities. The main attraction on display at Chofu is AFLEX, one of the test articles used during the H-II Orbiting Space Plane program in the 1990s. Here's a cutaway of the different parts. And here is a depiction of the test flight profile. Also on display were a number of models of JAXA's past and present fleet of flying testbeds. As you can see, this one was utilized for VTOL research in the early 1970s. The center had a number of different concept art on display of their current development projects. I don't want this post to be too long so I will post them in a few days. The center was small, but great fun to visit. They had some kiddie displays showing off how jet engines and wind tunnels work, and although it was closed on the day I went there, there was a spaceflight simulator too.

Moon in 2024 and then 2025 was always a fantastic date. Note in the history of space projects, we have two examples of attempts at such predictions: A) Soviet government orders a crewed lunar landing to occur in 1968, with development starting in ~1964-1965 (loosely similar to the original Artemis timeline) B) NASA begins planning for Space Shuttle missions in 1978 following the beginning of formal STS development in 1972 (earlier timelines had the Space Shuttle getting approved right after Apollo 11 but flying in 1975!) In reality, the best shot the Soviets had at a landing was probably around 1975-1976 after the improved N1F flew, so it would have taken them about a decade to fly to the Moon. Shuttle took until 1981 to fly, so also nearly a decade of development time. I'd say Eric Berger's take in Ars Technica that Artemis III won't happen until 2028 is a best case scenario, and realistically it will take until 2029 or 2030.

Next Generation Crewed Spacecraft "獵戶" and Crewed Lunar Lander "河鼓" lolololol. On a more serious note, I'm excited for these to finally get names. Off the top of my head I think it would be cool to have names based on the Qixi Festival story, but the names of the two characters (Zhinu and Niulang) literally simply mean "weaver girl" and "cowherder" and thus aren't great if you don't know the context.

I flew from Tokyo to San Francisco and am now in the terminal waiting to go home to Portland. I didn’t take my medication before leaving Tokushima in Japan ~36 hours ago, so I felt like absolute garbage when I got off the plane. It didn’t help that I had a much harder time sleeping on the plane for some reason (probably the lack of medication). I slept like a baby on the flight to Japan.

I’m not sure I can say without breaking forum rules! Also don’t sweat it, I haven’t checked the forum for over 24 hours due to being busy preparing to return home. Considering something I have been considering for my future career is teaching (anthropology), I’m interested to hear more about your endeavors.

This is a reasonable concern but I don’t think this is how it works, at least in India. The military and government have no control over what gets published. China on the other hand? I don’t know what their regulations are. I’d much rather ask @steve9728 to chime in rather than assume we have a space boogieman. Note that even if there was some degree of government control over what gets published, there would actually be an incentive to publish the data for two reasons- 1. Claim the historic prize of the discovery itself. 2. Make sure the resources fall under the OST and are available for joint utilization. Because China and India are behind the US in terms of heavy lift vehicles required for crewed lunar exploration, let alone lunar resource utilization, it would be in their best interest to make sure they make the discovery and can declare it is protected under the much more universally recognized OST. In contrast, it’s not clear how the US might try to govern jurisdiction of lunar resources utilizing the new Artemis Accords. In fact, India is part of the Artemis Accords, now that I just realized. I haven’t read the accords but they probably can’t do any secretive activities like you are suggesting while being party to them. EDIT- To add on, we don’t know what punishment would look like if someone were to violate the OST yet. I’m sure both India and China would not like to find out by being potentially restricted from mining the resources they discovered due to flouting UN regulations.

India does not have any reusable rockets, let alone apparatus capable of returning things from space to Earth. Even if they discovered large amounts of metals, it would cost far more to develop equipment, mine the resources, and return it to Earth than any return from the minerals. SpaceX would be in a far better position to do so.

@Exoscientist as has been mentioned in the “India is the mouse on the Moon” thread, neither India nor China have plans for lunar resource utilization. The US is in no danger of falling behind.

Very true! I imagine that giving spicy food to someone who can’t handle it would make for some interesting experiments regarding the load capacity of Tiangong’s waste disposal system lol.

Absolutely. In this case, the health of the person is far more important than some superficial interpersonal ethics. If your mother’s brother could speak to you about this situation, I am sure he would want you to keep it from her unless you can be sure it won’t harm her.

Thanks for all the info! Very interesting considering the ISS is planned without taking into consideration personnel preferences. I wonder if this will continue, or if they might turn to a generic set meal plan once Tiangong expands to six or seven crew members in the future.

@steve9728 has there been any documentaries released on Chinese space food? I know Japanese food companies have developed a special natto (fermented soybean) for astronauts because Earthly versions having stringy stuff that gets everywhere. It’d be interesting to know if any traditional Chinese delicacies have been modified for consumption in space.

The thing is though, that interest in space resource utilization does not exist in any other country either. The reason for this isn’t dedication in space, but rather that India and China are playing catch-up to the OG great powers (US-EU-Russia) in basically every sector of their society. Once China lands a man on the Moon, I would expect their space budget to begin to decline or at least stay at a level comparable to the US rather than climb higher. Same for India. Note that a lot of these lofty plans for space exploration, like China’s SPS plans, come from the organizations themselves. Historically the design bureaus of the USSR had huge plans for economic expansion into space and resource utilization, as did NASA, but each side was shot down. The same may very well happen in other countries, especially in the event of disastrous events out of the control of space engineers. And note that while each nation is playing catch-up, it is unclear to what extent they want to surpass the OGs beyond pure economics. I.e. we won’t necessarily see a Chinese or Indian man on Mars unless the US does. And this post is getting long but one more thing- as China and India seriously start to catch up with the US, by doing something very visible like landing a man on the Moon, the US will notice and start to invest more. The only reason we haven’t seen that yet is that the holders of the purse currently have a view that in every sector of society, the US maintains superiority and is not yet in danger of being surpassed. But when they are surpassed, I don’t think it will take long for the US to even the score again. “American ingenuity” still exists IMO.

The Soviet designation system is so fascinating. The original chief designers often came from an aviation background (at least I think, rocket powered aircraft and guided missiles were a big part of early development by Korolev and Chelomei respectively), but the development of rocketry was championed by the army and therefore they are given designations similar to gun artillery. But crewed spacecraft are called ships (korabl) and thus might theoretically use naval designations. On the other hand, probes are called stations (stantsiya(?)), which I am unfamiliar with the origin of, but is a pretty widely used word with multiple meanings. Satellites are called sputnik (specifically iskustvenny Sputnik, artificial satellite [of the Earth]). So there appears to be an influence on naming from scientists and engineers, rather than the existing organizational bureaucracy. But the term used universally for all “spacecraft” is space apparatus (kosmochyeskyy apparat). I’m blanking, but this is either a term used for flying vehicles sometimes (such as famously in the lyrics of the anthem of the Soviet Air Force) or is a term used for weapon systems across the Soviet armed forces, but I might be confusing it with complex. So this either brings us back to aviation origins or to the beginning of rocketry as weapons. The Soviet weapon designation system can be confusing at times. For example, the suffix “K” for aircraft has had at least five meanings throughout history- large caliber (Yak-9K), K-5 complex (Yak-25K), K-20 complex (Tu-95K), corrector (artillery spotter Mi-24K), and commercial (Su-25K). I’m pretty sure something else had the K designation for “shipboard”. I wonder if a similar situation has ever arisen in the space sector. I suppose it might be somewhat ironic given that that practice probably originated in the culture of doing things cheaply and shooting off multiples of them a la artillery development.

Whatever happened to the Soviet practice of building a back up spacecraft and launching two at a time? No, that would be Luna-25UTI. Luna-25bis has an improved engine with greater reliability and thrust.

Along with utilization of space resources, space based solar power was a major focus of some Chinese planning documents a year ago or so, so it will be really interesting to see if they go through with that. As far as the Western focus goes… I’m not sure if it is comparable. Unlike basically every other country, the US is rapidly entering an era of entirely commercial spaceflight. The ISS will soon be replaced by a commercial space station, and with commercial crewed lunar landers (I really think we are living in the future when reading that phrase) it is only a matter of time before SLS and Orion go bye bye. So the thing to watch is the private sector, not the actions of NASA or Congress.

If they released it all at once there would be a problem, but they are doing it over 30 years so there is virtually no effect. Nuclear plants around the world often already release water treated for everything but tritium. So long as the release is not carried out all at once, there is little extraordinary about the plan. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230824_36/ But South Korea is saying it’s fine and consistent with safety protocols and international standards. I agree that TEPCO and the government are not to be trusted. But I don’t think the South Korean government, and especially not the IAEA, would lie. The reason they are discharging the water is because H2O is being continuously used to cool the molten fuel from when the reactor was damaged. They only have a limited amount of space to store the water. They are closing to running out, so if they don’t release it, they will have no choice but to release untreated water into the ocean. It is still not known how they are going to get rid of the molten fuel- if ever- and therefore it is imperative to make more space for water so it can be at least treated before release. ——— https://www.iaea.org/topics/response/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-accident/fukushima-daiichi-alps-treated-water-discharge/faq FAQ on the water release from the IAEA. It covers things pretty well I think. My main thoughts on this though are best described by the words of the Sakamoto Masanobu, the head of a Japanese fishery association- “scientific safety and the public’s peace of mind are different matters”. I feel very bad for the fishermen who are having this forced on them.

I strongly disagree and think you are underestimating the countries achievements. India has already discovered water on the Moon and was the first Asian country* to send an orbiter to Mars. They are very much “up there” as a major space nation. *Assuming the USSR is excluded as an Asian country despite including republics considered to be Central Asian.