So, Jade Rabbits?

[Scott DeWar]

I'm pretty sure rocketry like this is a question of resources, not secrets. I'm sure a million* physicists and engineers around the world could do it given the money.


*I exaggerate massively.

now I've told you a billion time not to over exaggerate!

I think we have had 3 U.S. OF A.. martian landings, successfully.

A curious thought brought on by a Tom Clancy novel (Threat vector) about China. If you have 1.4 billion beople, it is not unreasonable to envision them with 1 million physicists and engineers by themselves all motivated by fear.

 

[Nellisir]

I think we have had 3 U.S. OF A.. martian landings, successfully.

Counting only landers, not orbiters (but see * below):

• Russia has attempted 4 landers (Mars 2, 3, 6, and 7) and had four failures. Russia also attempted a sample return from Phobos that failed.
• The US has attempted 9 landers and had 2* failures (Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2) and 7 successes (Viking 1 & 2; Mars Pathfinder; Spirit Rover; Opportunity Rover; Phoenix Lander; Mars Science Laboratory with Curiosity Rover).
• Europe has attempted 1 lander and had 1 failure (Beagle 2).

I didn't realize we'd put that many landers & rovers on Mars.

*The Mars Climate Orbiter inadvertently became a lander, thus failing both categories.

 

[Kramodlog]

*I exaggerate massively.

Let us hope so, engineers just steal girlfriends.

 

[Steve Jung]

It's pretty cool. It's interesting that both the lander and the rover are active probes.

 

[Kramodlog]

It's pretty cool. It's interesting that both the lander and the rover are active probes.

It is not a concidence that probes landed in a region that had a lot of volcanic activities that left laval tunnels to explore.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A curious thought brought on by a Tom Clancy novel (Threat vector) about China. If you have 1.4 billion beople, it is not unreasonable to envision them with 1 million physicists and engineers by themselves all motivated by fear.

Except they had their anti-intellectual culture purge and a fair number of defections- I bet they're still averaging fewer engineers per capita than most major nations. At least those of the homegrown variety. They might have a higher percentage of foreign nationals on their payroll than we might expect.

(I went to Russia a few years ago, and was surprised to find their gender ratio imbalance suiting from WW2 is still not corrected all that much.)

 

[Morrus]

It is not a concidence that probes landed in a region that had a lot of volcanic activities that left laval tunnels to explore.

What's the significance of that? I saw something about looking for methane pockets, but I'm not grokking why that's important.

 

[WayneLigon]

What's the significance of that? I saw something about looking for methane pockets, but I'm not grokking why that's important.

It gives you a pre-made jump-start for a human moon base, since the tube will usually have a pretty good covering of lunar rock and dust to serve as insulation and a significant radiation barrier.

Lots of people online bemoaning the fact that China has a rover on the moon while America hasn't had one for nearly 40 years.
Am I missing something? The US has rovers on *Mars*. So did the UK, and India will have soon. Mars!

We'll always bemoan that we don't have a human moon base up there, when we should have had it decades ago. Mars is good, but it's months away at best. And I believe that any significant exploitation or colonization of Mars will not happen without a manned lunar presence. We need a shipyard and a fuel refinery on the Moon instead of boosting all this crap up out of the atmosphere. Barring the miraculous invention of a large-scale runway-to-high orbit-to runway cargo carrier, ultimately we will need a base on Luna and a significant orbital presence.

The other significance to this is that China is going up there with one of it's major goals being exploitation, mapping out possible good mining spots, doing the on-site analysis to determine where stuff might be, etc, as a prelude to building a human moon base. Again, something we should have been doing for years and years.

Also: If we want to get paranoid about things, there's this: the power that can take and hold Orbital rules this planet. No planet-based defense can adequately defend against someone who decides to throw rocks.

 

[Morrus]

It gives you a pre-made jump-start for a human moon base, since the tube will usually have a pretty good covering of lunar rock and dust to serve as insulation and a significant radiation barrier.

Yeah, I get why a cave is useful. It was where the methane comes in I wasn't understanding.

 

[Kramodlog]

What's the significance of that? I saw something about looking for methane pockets, but I'm not grokking why that's important.

China as expressed interest in a permanent moon base.

If you wanna build a base in space you need to protect people from cosmic radiation, solar winds and that other stuff we are shielded from thanks to Earth's magnetic field. If you go underground, say in lava tubes, you are shielded from such radiations.

But it might just be interests in the Moon's geology. The moon rover can probe as deep as 100 meters down the Moon's surface with various spectrometers and radars.