This is big. It's exciting. And does anyone else think the lander looks like it belongs a SteamPunk novel? http://news.discovery.com/space/chinas-rover-rolls-yutu-begins-moon-mission-131214.htm
..Well Iran put another Monkey into space. The U.S. did that in 1948. Heck I think Homer in that movie October Sky had a more sophisticated rocket program than Iran...
Maybe the Jade Rabbit will kick the US in its complacence, and get some new funding for NASA. We need a good challenge, even if it's political, to re-energize our syunted technological progress. Certainly there is more we can learn even from our smaller cosmic dance partner, but the really important work lies in pushing the envelope further and further out. Until we have people living and thriving on other worlds, all the eggs of our race are clustered in one somewhat fragile basket.
The glass is half empty. The glass is half full. Not exactly the analogy that I was trying to express, but it will have to do. @Lewdog, launching an orbiter and landing a craft on another planetary body don't come close to being comparable. Lots of countries have satellites. China is only the second country after the US to successfully land on another body. "China, Japan, India, Russia, and the US either have sent or plan to send satellites there for a bird's-eye view of lunar features and resources." India recently successfully left Earth's orbit with a craft on it's way to Mars. This is indeed a new era.
China is talking about a manned space station on the moon. That would be the most awesome thing in the history of anything ever from what little I understand of the project.
It was in sarcasm, obviously putting something on the moon is a more honorable task than putting a monkey into space. As a whole, I'm afraid the United States has gone the way of privatized space exploration and research. Isn't there still a group that is working on the first Mars mission? Last I heard they were taking applications from people that wanted to go and figuring out the small details.
$10 says China stole blueprints of the rover from another country. In all seriousness, this is good news. Hopefully more countries can join in on space exploration.
You know, in a bajillion years when we're all extinct all that's going to be left of us are ancient ruins and and junk we keep leaving in space. Work that one out alien archaeologists.
Technically, in a bajillion years all of our space junk will have degraded orbits and crashed into the planet.
Even more of a puzzle for Indiana J'xthzysteones. Look what else China's been doing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25405543 Grafting a hand onto an ankle. Will wonders ever cease?
Number of forums populated by Americans where the number of posts congratulating the Chinese for their accomplishment exceeded the number of sarcastic posts: 0
For the record, my SteamPunk comment wasn't meant to be condescending. It was meant to be a 'writer's forum' comment. But I agree, all the, "we did that decades ago," comments weren't ones I would have made.
