Yuegong-1 - China's Moon Base

[Red Iron Crown]

How, exactly, do you think they're going to try that? First of all, there are no "Soviets" anymore, and the Russian modules comprise one short arm of the station - not even along the main truss. If they no longer wanted to cooperate, I'm sure they'd be cordially invited to jettison Zarya, Zvezda, and their dependent modules and see how they do on their own.

Does that sound like a likely scenario? Didn't think so. Thankfully, astronauts seem unencumbered by your skewed geo-political views.

My understanding is that the Russians plan to do exactly that when they start assembling OPSEK.

[kiwi1960]

How can China accomplish this? Simple, by stealing what it needs, fact is, they have already stolen all the nuclear secrets from the USA, so it probably already has all the space secrets as well.

People (here) are asking, wondering... just how viable it would be to mine things from the Moon...

Consider this... one Steel Mill on earth, or even one Aluminium smelter here isn't really viable these days, NOT because of the cost building it, but the running costs... its hugely expensive in electricity consumption... (if using eletricity) or fossil fuels if using coal, as one example...

Consider the Moon... not only is it very hot in day time... but you know exactly when the sun will be there to make solar power feasible, and no bad weather to disrupt that either... BUT.... better yet.. one of the minerals found on the Moon is Uranium...

Once you get past the initial set up costs, running that smelter, or anyting of that nature, on the Moon becomes so much cheaper than running it on Earth... even IF you have on going costs in keeping that base supplied with food, water and oxygen... but even that, over time, can be fixed using hydroponics... and water and oxygen can be extracted form the soil by heating it.... in fact, seeing as that would be a by product of the smelting process, its a win win situation.

What stopped NASA doing this? The politicians lost their nerve, public opinion turned against NASA after the Apollo program, and for politicians to suggest this now would be political suicide... besides, as the USA is nearly bankrupt now, they cannot afford it till they get their spending under control...

China, being communist, couldn't give a hoot about public opinion.... but even so, give the support they had from the people with their first Moon rover, the pride they felt in their nation, its obvious that the people would support a base on the Moon...

This is why it WILL happen... as I have said in the past, China's thinking and plans are not always done years in advance like it is in the West... but DECADES in advance... they don't care they THEY may not be around to see the results, they just know that SOMEONE will be here to carry on the work to completion...

Yes, they have had only one rover on the Moon... its all they need, its a start... consider that the first flight by the Wright Brothers.... from that, they are making plans.... a colony on the Moon, Mars.... etc etc etc...

As a side note, they waited 100 years before they got Hong Kong back, the UK got that as a lease for 99 years after the Boxer Rebellion... they were not happy, but they knew that one day... they would get it back, and they did, a few years ahead of schedule...

[vger]

China always wins at manufacturing. Even if it's half as good as another nation, China still wins, somehow.

Now we can take the same kind of unfair trade practices that we have in the global economy, and apply it to an interplanetary one.

[xenomorph555]

How can China accomplish this? Simple, by stealing what it needs, fact is, they have already stolen all the nuclear secrets from the USA, so it probably already has all the space secrets as well.

People (here) are asking, wondering... just how viable it would be to mine things from the Moon...

Consider this... one Steel Mill on earth, or even one Aluminium smelter here isn't really viable these days, NOT because of the cost building it, but the running costs... its hugely expensive in electricity consumption... (if using eletricity) or fossil fuels if using coal, as one example...

Consider the Moon... not only is it very hot in day time... but you know exactly when the sun will be there to make solar power feasible, and no bad weather to disrupt that either... BUT.... better yet.. one of the minerals found on the Moon is Uranium...

Once you get past the initial set up costs, running that smelter, or anyting of that nature, on the Moon becomes so much cheaper than running it on Earth... even IF you have on going costs in keeping that base supplied with food, water and oxygen... but even that, over time, can be fixed using hydroponics... and water and oxygen can be extracted form the soil by heating it.... in fact, seeing as that would be a by product of the smelting process, its a win win situation.

What stopped NASA doing this? The politicians lost their nerve, public opinion turned against NASA after the Apollo program, and for politicians to suggest this now would be political suicide... besides, as the USA is nearly bankrupt now, they cannot afford it till they get their spending under control...

China, being communist, couldn't give a hoot about public opinion.... but even so, give the support they had from the people with their first Moon rover, the pride they felt in their nation, its obvious that the people would support a base on the Moon...

This is why it WILL happen... as I have said in the past, China's thinking and plans are not always done years in advance like it is in the West... but DECADES in advance... they don't care they THEY may not be around to see the results, they just know that SOMEONE will be here to carry on the work to completion...

Yes, they have had only one rover on the Moon... its all they need, its a start... consider that the first flight by the Wright Brothers.... from that, they are making plans.... a colony on the Moon, Mars.... etc etc etc...

As a side note, they waited 100 years before they got Hong Kong back, the UK got that as a lease for 99 years after the Boxer Rebellion... they were not happy, but they knew that one day... they would get it back, and they did, a few years ahead of schedule...

Stop assuming they stole off America especially since most of their manned space techology is russian based which they bought in the 90's. They have had indigenous satellite, probe and rocket technology since the 70's.

As for everything else you said I agree.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

You know what I think? FINALLY. NASA is basically dead, starved by a bunch of politicians. Now we have a booming country that's ready to pick up the slack and move humans deeper into SPACE! Plus, the existing technology is already put down by the US and USSR during the space race, so its within China's capabilities.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

How can China accomplish this? Simple, by stealing what it needs, fact is, they have already stolen all the nuclear secrets from the USA, so it probably already has all the space secrets as well.

People (here) are asking, wondering... just how viable it would be to mine things from the Moon...

Consider this... one Steel Mill on earth, or even one Aluminium smelter here isn't really viable these days, NOT because of the cost building it, but the running costs... its hugely expensive in electricity consumption... (if using eletricity) or fossil fuels if using coal, as one example...

Consider the Moon... not only is it very hot in day time... but you know exactly when the sun will be there to make solar power feasible, and no bad weather to disrupt that either... BUT.... better yet.. one of the minerals found on the Moon is Uranium...

Once you get past the initial set up costs, running that smelter, or anyting of that nature, on the Moon becomes so much cheaper than running it on Earth... even IF you have on going costs in keeping that base supplied with food, water and oxygen... but even that, over time, can be fixed using hydroponics... and water and oxygen can be extracted form the soil by heating it.... in fact, seeing as that would be a by product of the smelting process, its a win win situation.

What stopped NASA doing this? The politicians lost their nerve, public opinion turned against NASA after the Apollo program, and for politicians to suggest this now would be political suicide... besides, as the USA is nearly bankrupt now, they cannot afford it till they get their spending under control...

China, being communist, couldn't give a hoot about public opinion.... but even so, give the support they had from the people with their first Moon rover, the pride they felt in their nation, its obvious that the people would support a base on the Moon...

This is why it WILL happen... as I have said in the past, China's thinking and plans are not always done years in advance like it is in the West... but DECADES in advance... they don't care they THEY may not be around to see the results, they just know that SOMEONE will be here to carry on the work to completion...

Yes, they have had only one rover on the Moon... its all they need, its a start... consider that the first flight by the Wright Brothers.... from that, they are making plans.... a colony on the Moon, Mars.... etc etc etc...

As a side note, they waited 100 years before they got Hong Kong back, the UK got that as a lease for 99 years after the Boxer Rebellion... they were not happy, but they knew that one day... they would get it back, and they did, a few years ahead of schedule...

I agree. The US had its glory days with the Apollo programs, but it cant do much more. It needs to step down and lets new countries lead the way.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

Why? If they collaborated with NASA and could tap that well of experience, the whole program would move along more quickly.

This isn't the cold war here, and its not like the US's Lunar technologies are locked away in the white house. And President Obama certainly isn't planning to commence a witch hunt of Communist sympathizers and supporters right now, Unlike President Nixon did.

[Red Iron Crown]

Consider this... one Steel Mill on earth, or even one Aluminium smelter here isn't really viable these days, NOT because of the cost building it, but the running costs... its hugely expensive in electricity consumption... (if using eletricity) or fossil fuels if using coal, as one example...

Have we stopped using metals? Smelters and foundries are perfectly viable on Earth, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Once you get past the initial set up costs, running that smelter, or anyting of that nature, on the Moon becomes so much cheaper than running it on Earth.

Those initial set up costs are astronomical (literally!). It would likely take centuries to amortize them.

China always wins at manufacturing. Even if it's half as good as another nation, China still wins, somehow.

Now we can take the same kind of unfair trade practices that we have in the global economy, and apply it to an interplanetary one.

What's unfair about their trade practices?

[HeadHunter67]

You do realise the russian modules contain the stations life support and computers. Who needs an arm anyway when you have the power of RCT and computers.

The Russian modules contained the initial life support and computers. Now, Zarya is used for storage and Zvezda is sleeping quarters. And I said "truss", not "arm". We're talking about the spine of the station, to which all other modules are structurally dependent. And remember all those solar panels?

[EDIT: Something else I discovered - Zarya is the property of NASA, not Roskosmos. So, basically, if the Russians wanted to take their ball and go home, they'd have only Zvezda, Rassvet, Pirs and Poisk. Good luck with that...]

Edited May 5, 2014 by HeadHunter67

[RuBisCO]

China's space program has moved slowly but consistently, an advantage of a toletariain goverment capable of following through with long term plans. I would not be supprised if by 2030 they had landed on the moon and were begining to build a lunar base, but the name should be mandarin for "eat your hearts out americans" not "Moon Palace" and I think the design will be very diffrent by then: at the very least all the habitable stuctures should be coverd in at least a meter of lunar dirt for radiation/micro-meter protection.

[Voidryder]

I think they should have used a larger lunar-landscape backdrop. That picture is gold for the conspiracy theorists.

I have it on good information from a guy at a bus stop who has a friend who has a neighbor who knows this guy whose cousin was dating a woman who was once married to an alien hybrid from Area 61 (more secret than Area 51) that the backdrop the China are using in this picture is the same one used by Hollywood at Richard Nixon's request to fake the Apollo missions. Honest.

I'm gonna get banned aren't I?

[vger]

I have it on good information from a guy at a bus stop who has a friend who has a neighbor who knows this guy whose cousin was dating a woman who was once married to an alien hybrid from Area 61 (more secret than Area 51) that the backdrop the China are using in this picture is the same one used by Hollywood at Richard Nixon's request to fake the Apollo missions. Honest.

I'm gonna get banned aren't I?

Lulz, well it WAS China who faked the fireworks at the Olympic ceremony, and had a talentless pretty girl lipsynch for a less attractive girl who had the voice of an angel.

If China gets to the moon, the kind of conspiracy theorist flak they'll get will be 10x worse than what NASA got.

[kiwi1960]

Stop assuming they stole off America especially since most of their manned space techology is russian based which they bought in the 90's. They have had indigenous satellite, probe and rocket technology since the 70's.

As for everything else you said I agree.

THAT first line was tongue in cheek... The fact is that China doesn't need to steal the space secrets, because, there are no secrets in space technology, as you said, they bought what they needed from Russia, reverse engineering that means they are on the way to designing their own equipment.

If they want to buy from U.S. companies, then all they need is permission from the State Department .... they will consult with the White House and the pentagon (etc) to make sure nothing can be used in a military fashion...

Oh, however, China *has* stolen many nuclear secrets from the USA, the latest 'episode' was when the FBI caught a Chinese scientist passing on information to China...

[Nuke]

i dont think anyone is stealing anyone's anything. we all kinda "borrowed" german scientists anyway at the end of ww2. and by "borrowed" captured, expunged their records of war crimes, and gave them jobs at nasa/cccp. any kind of non-cooperation ended with the cold war. everyone has their specialties and everyone shares technology with everyone. sure our space programs have an element of national pride associated with them, but this is just an illusion put fourth by our governments so that we like them more (there is not a country in the world that doesn't produce its own fair share of propaganda).

[NASAFanboy]

50 years of paper study doesn't make much of a good start.

Ah, perhaps, but it took 300 years of dreaming and some 30 years of study (First mission proposed in 1939 by British Interplanetary Society) to reach the Moon.

____

Also, I'd be surprised if China ever caught up with the USA as a superpower.

Firstly, 83% of its economy is run by the companies of other nations who are loyal to other nations. Not a good start, and never will be.

Secondly, China is ruthlessly inefficient. Have you ever been to a Chinese bank? It takes like a whole hour to deposit a small check. You have to get stamps and all that, and I wouldn't be surprised if they started to sample your urine and your blood followed by your hair. Just horribly inefficient. Their currency system is ridden with so many counterfeit bills that even ATMs and cashiers have an extremely hard time to detect, their local government is slow to respond, they have skyrocketing pollution and crime rates (One of my relatives lives in China, and there has been two break-ins in his apartment complex in a single month), and the housing price is just...uh...very very high.

And last of all, they'll be hitting a massive aging inequality with as much as ten elders per working fellow. And it's 6 men per woman. That's not very good at all if you want to sustain the workforce for a long time.

China will have a hard time in the future. Will they reach the Moon in my perspective? I hope they do, but I have doubts about it.

Go SpaceX or Lunar Spike or Bigelow.

Edited April 30, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[RuBisCO]

Ah, perhaps, but it took 300 years of dreaming and some 30 years of study (First mission proposed in 1939 by British Interplanetary Society) to reach the Moon.

____

Also, I'd be surprised if China ever caught up with the USA as a superpower.

Firstly, 83% of its economy is run by the companies of other nations who are loyal to other nations. Not a good start, and never will be.

Secondly, China is ruthlessly inefficient. Have you ever been to a Chinese bank? It takes like a whole hour to deposit a small check. You have to get stamps and all that, and I wouldn't be surprised if they started to sample your urine and your blood followed by your hair. Just horribly inefficient. Their currency system is ridden with so many counterfeit bills that even ATMs and cashiers have an extremely hard time to detect, their local government is slow to respond, they have skyrocketing pollution and crime rates (One of my relatives lives in China, and there has been two break-ins in his apartment complex in a single month), and the housing price is just...uh...very very high.

And last of all, they'll be hitting a massive aging inequality with as much as ten elders per working fellow. And it's 6 men per woman. That's not very good at all if you want to sustain the workforce for a long time.

China will have a hard time in the future. Will they reach the Moon in my perspective? I hope they do, but I have doubts about it.

Go SpaceX or Lunar Spike or Bigelow.

You do relies people can use a whole variety of random indicators as you have to say america is doomed as well, right? Look China is 1.35 billion people, over 4 times USA population, if their GPC per capita exceeds 1/4 the USA they will be the worlds largest economy. Financing to build a manned lunar exploration program and the political will to do it should be all that is needed, unless your saying one of those indicators will doom that endeavor as well, maybe they will never be able to cash the check for a moon rocket because their bank will be too busy collecting urine samples?

[NASAFanboy]

You do relies people can use a whole variety of random indicators as you have to say america is doomed as well, right? Look China is 1.35 billion people, over 4 times USA population, if their GPC per capita exceeds 1/4 the USA they will be the worlds largest economy. Financing to build a manned lunar exploration program and the political will to do it should be all that is needed, unless your saying one of those indicators will doom that endeavor as well, maybe they will never be able to cash the check for a moon rocket because their bank will be too busy collecting urine samples?

No, no.

I'm pointing out their inefficiency and red tape.

China doesn't solve problems by being efficient, it solves them by throwing resources at said problem until it isn't a problem.

[Red Iron Crown]

China doesn't solve problems by being efficient, it solves them by throwing resources at said problem until it isn't a problem.

That may be a perfectly valid approach to a space program, especially with a large economy and the political will to spend those resources.

[Nibb31]

Also, I'd be surprised if China ever caught up with the USA as a superpower.

Well, brace for surprise:

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/04/daily-chart-19

[NASAFanboy]

Well, brace for surprise:

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/2014/04/blogs/graphic-detail/20140503_gdc001.png

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/04/daily-chart-19

No, no, I'm referring to 2025 onwards.

Please put this thread back on topic. Everyone can have their own views politically, and mine incidentally is pro-USA. Whether the USA will retain its status as the top power of the world or whether China will surpass America is up to debate and completely varies on ones views, thus making almost every source a biased one. Nothing wrong with that, we'll have to wait and see.

Anyways, I wish China the best of luck, and hope they can partner with NASA in the future.

An Sino-American-Russian-Japanese-European large research outpost on the Moon. Now that's something awesome.

Edited April 30, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[vger]

Also, I'd be surprised if China ever caught up with the USA as a superpower. Firstly, 83% of its economy is run by the companies of other nations who are loyal to other nations.

If you hire in China, adding to a problem in your own country that leads to people either being on welfare or being homeless, that is NOT loyalty.

The only thing these companies are loyal to is money. But you're right, that's not off to a good start.

Taiwan used to be 'outsource central.' Then things changed and China proved to be a better option. If another country finds a way to even cheaper tech labor (without resulting in a riot in the process), those companies will abandon China in a heartbeat.

[Jouni]

Also, I'd be surprised if China ever caught up with the USA as a superpower.

Before this century is over, some other country will most likely replace USA as the world's first superpower. Nothing lasts for ever, especially not great empires.

[Wahgineer]

With China, it'd be a case of it's inefficiency catching up with itself: They'd land a man on the moon, then the U.S. would take the bait and head for Mars. China would attempt, but it's extreme inefficiency, as mentioned earlier, would catch up to and decimate it. It's economy would experience a recession, business's would freak, then pull out, further damaging the Economy and further causing companies to freak. Then they'd look around and: oh, look, the U.S. has a large, educated population eager for work. Why not try them out? Companies move in, give U.S. boost, boost attracts more companies, gives further boost.

Of course, though (and I'm willing to admit), I could be entirely wrong.

[Jouni]

With China, it'd be a case of it's inefficiency catching up with itself: They'd land a man on the moon, then the U.S. would take the bait and head for Mars. China would attempt, but it's extreme inefficiency, as mentioned earlier, would catch up to and decimate it.

Space travel isn't that expensive. The Apollo program only cost something like $10 billion a year (present value). If it were a company, it would rank around 250-300 in the Fortune 500 list. Of course everything would be much cheaper now, as our technology is vastly superior to the 1960s.

The last time I heard, China's central bank had over $3.5 trillion in foreign reserves, and the reserves were increasing by around $100 billion in a quarter.

[vger]

Besides, if China ever gets itself into hot water, they'll still have ways of compensating.

The U.S. will finally have a solution to paying off its debt.