China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon | Hacker News Reader

China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon

bbc.co.uk

295 pointsscrrr105 comments

Go China! As an american, I hope China keeps pushing the boundaries on their space program - maybe we'll then decide to invest in science and space exploration again.

I have submitted this as a separate story as I believe it merits discussion regarding the links between China and America's space program.

Bassically the Co-Founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was deported from the US to China during the McCarthy era and he became the "Father" of China's space program.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862

Wikipedia writes, "Under Secretary Kimball, who had tried to keep Qian in the U.S., commented on the affair to say: "It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go."

> It was the stupidest thing this country ever did

That's a pretty big claim

It's probably more a figure of speech than it is a claim.

As I understand it, much of NASA was manned by Germans who had worked on their rocket program (weaponized rockets) and 'importing' that knowledge was the kick start to the American space program. Project Paperclip? Was that the name?

nasa and jpl aren't the same thing.

I was just trying to point out that it's not like the US's space exploration program was built from the ground up on US soil, it involved importing expertise. That's what China seems to have done here too - imported expertise to kick-start a program. I don't see anything wrong with it, just figured some people may not be aware of that part of US history.

> That's what China seems to have done here too

No, it wasn't. America intentionally established Operation Paperclip with the intention of recruiting German scientists. The Chinese didn't have to do anything to get Qian (and most likely weren't even thinking about space in 1950) - America just handed him to them, thanks to the US government's enormous stupidity.

Yes (especially back then, because NASA did not exist until 1958).

I know of three strands of rocketry research that contributed to American rocketry. There was Robert Goddard's experiments with liquid-fueled rockets, as early as the 1920s, Theodore von Karman (a Hungarian who emigrated to the US in 1930) and his team at Caltech, and von Braun and the Germans.

Goddard never got significant US Government support, but he continued his experiments right up to 1940. Of course von Braun did get government support, and apparently his team learned from Goddard's experiments. The end result was that von Braun's team knew more about large rockets, and he went on to head the NASA center (Huntsville) that is most associated with rocketry, and of course to develop the Saturn V. And von Karman, of course, was the founder of JPL.

As @err4nt's comment hints at, there is a rough parallel between von Karman's emigration from Germany to the US (his family was Jewish) and Qian's emigration from the US to China.

JPL seems to have had quite a few founders. I recall reading about Jack Parsons who was also into occult matters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons

Happen to run into his story while reading about the history of Rocketry. His story even takes a more bizarre turn with L Ron. Hubbard, and finally his death in a mysterious explosion.

Indeed. I first read the hints of that story in Mike Davis's book City of Quartz.

Another interesting co-founder (one of the original handful, along with Parsons) was Frank Malina, who was the second director of JPL (after von Karman).

Malina was also suspected by the FBI of having Communist sympathies. He eventually left JPL and went to live in France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Ah I was close :D Thanks for the link!

I honestly don't care whether the Chinese or the Americans invest in space exploration - as long as anyone start doing it in earnest again. It's good to see the Asian world push forward with these programs.

Same. Any country at all thats pushing the exploration of space is brillant for everyone in the world.

Nothing get my nerd on quite like a successful landing on another rock. Next stop Mars, then Europa!

Europe may seem exotic to some but I think we should focus efforts into improving our knowledge about other planets instead of Earth. What do they have to offer, what are they named. etc

Europa.

I'm not sure it counts as "exotic" by every definition, but it is probably far away enough...

All these worlds are yours, except Europa.

Because I bought it a few years back off a nice lady who gave me a certificate. So keep off or I'll sue.

Mandatory SMBC reference: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1733#comic

Thanks danielrpa, I am from China and now I feel very proud.

Anyone else a little surprised that we hadn't heard anything about this mission earlier? I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing probes on the Moon. Kind of a big contrast to SpaceX, say, who seems to publish a press release or at least a tweet about everything they have done and are planning to do. Not that I mind, it's cool to read about what they're working on. I suppose if the Chinese space program is publishing much about it's plans, it doesn't make it into English-language media most of the time.

> I didn't really know that China was even planning on landing probes on the Moon.

There were rumblings for many years now, with various semi-official announcements. Nobody took them seriously, so they didn't get much play.

Don't forget Google who got lots of media attention:

> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/prize-details

> The Google Lunar XPRIZE, the largest international incentive based prize of all time, aims to do something we haven’t done as humanity since 1973, safely land on the surface of the Moon.

That sentence wasn't even correct yesterday, before Chang'e 3 landed. The last lunar soft-landing was Luna 24 in 1976 -- a Soviet sample-return mission.

What they meant is that nobody had done what the Google Lunar XPRIZE requires since 1973. The Google prize requires a rover, and the last rover on the moon was Lunokhod 2, in 1973.

I heard about it. But it has received pretty muted coverage. I suspect a combination of jealousy, the Chinese language barrier, and Chinese indifference or inexperience at promoting its space activities. Given that China has had some embarrassing and destructive disasters in the space program, they seem a bit reluctant to go for the live broadcast approach.

> Given that China has had some embarrassing and destructive disasters in the space program, they seem a bit reluctant to go for the live broadcast approach.

The launch and landing of Chang'e 3 were both broadcast live on CCTV English.

If American news networks decided not to cover it live, then you can hardly blame that on the Chinese.

Oh, I had misunderstood them to be on a delay. I certainly don't blame the Chinese for the relative lack of coverage here in the US.

When the UK's Beagle failed, the public reaction was "Oh well, better luck next time.". If the Chinese mission failed, the reaction would probably be "Ha, you guys suck, you need to steal and copy some more".

The Chinese don't want to be humiliated thus I'm surprised there were live feeds. This must show increasing confidence in the space program and their abilities to execute successfully.

I was unsurprised considering how few people seem to know about the the Soviet Mars and Venus landers.

Because up until recently the entire space program was run by plucky Americans (with eccentric Brits/acceptable Euros and the occasional crazy Australian if needed) - anything else is Commie propaganda.

This is a massive accomplishment that might very well mark an inflection point for China. While countries like the US haven't really done anything in the last few decades to truly inspire the population --kids in particular-- here's China executing a feat of engineering that will surely serve as inspiration for their young. And, of course, this is probably the first of many.

Timing, of course, couldn't be better. The Chinese have managed their country admirably. No debt to speak of. Massive investment in infrastructure, technology and manufacturing capabilities. An environment where entrepreneurship is top dog and government seems to pretty much stay out of their way. And, of course, they are also ingesting massive amounts of intellectual and financial capital from the rest of the world.

Some have proposed this is going to inspire or push us to compete in this arena. I'll propose that will not happen at the same scale the Chinese are building-up to. Think of it this way: We have to actually borrow money from the Chinese to compete with them. I'll leave you with that thought.

Bingo. It will inspire millions. Science wins.

"“Firstly, the moon is remote from us, and there is no clear short-term benefit for human beings,” says space scientist Yongchun Zheng of the National Astronomical Observatories in Beijing, by email.

But for China, he says, “the lunar exploration program is driven by its science goals. That is, to understand the history and prospect the future of the Moon, the Earth, and our solar system.”

...

“The implementation of China’s Lunar Exploration Program can drive forward the popularization, improve accomplishment of national science, and attract and encourage the youth to fall in love with science and seek after exploration and innovation,” they wrote."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131214-chine...

And it's not just inspirational; the Lunar descent stage used today is completely over-specified for the job of delivering the small Youtou rover.

There is speculation that it is actually a common descent stage design which will be used in upcoming science-orientated Moon landings. For example, emplacing a substantial telescope.

The Chinese, as seems usual now, are playing the long-game.

Last few decades? I'm certainly not american, but there have been 3 mars missions in the last 5 years, an orbiter, a rover and a lander, the latest of which launched less than a month ago. Why are people so quick to write off their own achievements?

Not writing off achievements. These are simply not inspiring people the way the Chinese are being inspired today just by going to the moon. That's all.

At some level Mars is as intangible of asking someone to understand how a bird feels while flying. Outside of small circles there's no real appreciation for just how difficult these missions are. Therefore, the sense of awe isn't there. I'll bet most people in the US don't understand why you can't drive the robots on Mars like you do an RC car on the street. Yes, I am hinting at other problems.

I am not sure what the ROI of robotic or manned missions to Mars might be. And I am not necessarily in financial terms.

government seems to pretty much stay out of their way.

Not exactly - it's a low regulation environment, but there are huge centrally planned real estate developments and far less planning regulation or due process to stop the government building a road or a mall through your house.

Not to mention the capital controls, and the restrictions on foreign-owned businesses, the lack of free speech or free internet ..

At some cost; weren't record-breaking levels of air pollution recorded somewhere recently? Takes some shine off of the claim of good management.

> While countries like the US haven't really done anything in the last few decades

At least, US and Europe have got Mars rovers into working, with failure and success.

It should be their top priority to drive over to the U.S. landing site and send back proof that we actually went to the moon. I atleast want to see what the flag and other things look like now. :)

The flag is bleached and the other things are dusty, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood solar radiation.

I hope they stay away from the original landing site. It's the location of one of the most important events in human history, and it would be a shame to cause damage to it.

Also the moon is huge. Whats the point of exploring the same area twice?

Observe changes

There have been many orbital images of the site. We know pretty well the junky state that it is in.

Why? To give the conspiracy theorists another theory to add to their repertoire about how the Chinese government is in on faking moon landings?

My wife's comment: "That's because the Chinese are the only ones with any money to have a space program". Very true dear, very true.

The US has plenty of money to have a space program, we choose not to have a more active space program.

Just to further this point: NASA receives for its yearly budget 12 days of the military's budget, not counting expenses in the wars.

12 days of the budget for the entire us military sounds like a pretty damn good amount of money. Quick lookup indicates that's something like 21 billion dollars.

The real question is, what makes the military 30 times more important than space exploration, given that we are leaving days of (relative) peace?

At this point, the military is (in-part) a jobs program, both blue collar and white.

Much of the jobs money is coming out of the war money, which is not included in that figure.

Surely we can create a better jobs program with that money?

It's a much larger jobs program

Right. Because a single rover on the moon is more "active" than the 5 active space programs, including 2 active rovers, that NASA has on Mars.

Thanks. And Cassini at Saturn, New Horizons on its way to Pluto, Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and Planck; STEREO and SDO looking at the Sun, and a host of Earth-observing missions (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/missions/), etc., etc.

Some of the comments above are not very well-informed.

No we don't. We operate at a trillion dollar deficit per year. How does that translate into having plenty of money? Should we borrow from the Chinese to compete with them?

It doesn't cost that much to have a space program, relativelyspeaking... (as in compared to the military)

We should spend more money on space exploration, but you do remember the US landed several rovers on the moon in the last decade.

NASA has sent 5 orbiters and 3 impactors in the past decade, but 0 robotic vehicles (I believe a 'rover' is driven by a person). Here's the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Moon

> (I believe a 'rover' is driven by a person)

Doesn't have to be.

Curiosity is usually described as a "rover." In-between commands sent from mission control, it operates autonomously.

Until today, the last rover to drive around on the moon was the Soviet rover, Lunokhod 2, in 1973.

NASA's budget is still 18 times larger than the Chinese space program:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Space_Administra...

Not to diminish the significance of this accomplishment, but the Chinese space program is still in a catch-up phase, which allows them to make significant advances quicker than if they were at the frontier.

I wonder if China has the same level of waste that NASA does. Elon Musk is making great strides in space exploration because he is willing to embrace new technologies and do the work in-house, as opposed to NASA's way of using only "proven" technologies that are nested 5-6 levels deep in outsourcing, with each level taking a cut.

I'm certain SpaceX could make a dollar go a lot further than NASA can. Perhaps the Chinese even further.

When the lives of astronauts are on the line it seems like a pretty good idea to use proven technologies even if they are expensive. That said, I completely agree that new technologies are needed to make it cheaper to go to space and SpaceX seems to be leading the way here.

Expensive but also lowest bidder.

> The American public perceives the NASA budget as commanding a much larger share of the federal budget than it in fact does. A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA's share of the federal budget, far higher than the actual 0.5% to under 1% that has been maintained throughout the late '90s and first decade of the 2000s.[16] It is estimated that most Americans spent less than $9 on NASA through personal income tax in 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

Not very true, in a way. Chinese government is not very wealthy, different from what the media portray. It might have a large pile of "money" in reserve, but they can't take that money out easily.

In particular, most of the local government is in great debt, tens of billions in some cases. The Central government has a lot of debt too. Just because there is a pile of money in reserve doesn't actually make the government wealthy.

So Chang'e carries a Jade Rabbit to the moon. The consequence of thousands of years of cultural fascination with the moon is that there sure are a lot of things to name moon-bound spacecraft after.

Am I the only one who thinks that picture of the yellow spacecraft on "the moon" looks incredibly fake?

They were running simulated 3D graphics alongside the other streams to show what was happening...

There is an explanation in this video.

Current renderings are based on real-time telemetry data being sent back from the probe.

40 years is a long time and instruments have advanced. I guess now that the solar panels are engaged and the rover is active, we will get some decent footage. The moon in 1080p? Yes please!

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131214/104460.sh...

It will be good to see actual footage from the Moon. Forgive my skepticism, but after the Chinese team faked their summit of Everest I am naturally skeptical.

That sounds absurd. Do you know of any good articles? My initial searches only returned things like "Did the Chinese fake their summit???"

That's understandable. You know even the fact that America's moon-landing has been challenged for a long while. I was hoping China to land their rover to exactly where Armstrong landed on the Moon. Supposedly, the USA flag and the rover should be still there, which would make a conclusion and silence the debate.

Apollo 11 didn't bring a rover, and Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the takeoff of the ascent module. (the flag would still be there, just thrown on the ground.)

If you think that would end it then you don't know conspiracy theories. It would just be proof that China is in on it too.

No informed/intelligent individual would debate that the moon landing was faked. It's absolutely absurd to believe the tech was around to fake a landing, but not actually land on the moon. There's no point in trying to convince every single person we landed there.

Ah yes just as after that American Lance Armstrong was found guilty of doping all this time I am VERY rightfully sceptical of ALL American athletes from then on indeed.

For a second, I thought you're talking about THE Armstrong who landed on the Moon. I have to blame the context of the conversation here.

ah, yes... racism 101: the hive mind.

As you should be. Anyone still believing that doping is not a part of American sport is a fool.

Not just athletes. Astronauts too.

Astronauts are doping? Do you think they will have to hand back the Space-Cup?

1080p makes it somewhat harder to "photoshop" any accidental "boogieman" out, which may be the hardest technological challenge of a moon landing.

On a separate note, I was hoping the Chinese would install a big Bitcoin banner on the moon to further boost its adoption.

Yes, because transmitting 1080p over wireless connection on a power-constrained device 384,400km away is a good use of resources.

Ahh, amateur spacecraft design time.

In real-time perhaps not, but yapcguy didn't say that. You can bet they'll be recording major events in high resolution/framerate (deployment, first drive, etc) and transmitting them back later, if only for engineering purposes. Rad-hard nonvolatile memory is relatively cheap when you're sending probes to other planets — even old Spirit/Opportunity had 256 MB.

We also know the rover has some real-time transmission capability (at unspecified resolution):

>The rover will be capable of real time video transmission, while it will be able to dig and perform simple analysis of soil samples. For the real time video transmissions Yutu will use the PanCam. These cameras will provide stereo images in high-resolution and will eventually give three-dimensional imaging for the scientists on Earth.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/12/china-jade-rabbit-lun...

Unless they had a second spacecraft nearby to take the photo, it would have to be. So it must be an illustrative graphic.

Ah. Thanks.

There are two components up there: the lander, and a small rover. Their announced plan was that after the rover leaves the lander, these two would take pictures of each other and send the pictures back. Note, I haven't seen any of the pictures we're talking about here, so I'm not commenting on what they are.

I think that either the Chinese are culturally less inclined to label things as real-time or simulations, or some Chinese characters on the video I'm too ignorant to read DID say something about that.

Anyway clearly half of that video was a simulation.

“我们的征途是星辰大海。”

Our Conquest is the Ocean of Stars.

翻译的太差了...

What would be a better translation?

求别逗。

Probably just an ASIC BTC miner, capitalizing on cooler operating temperatures and free super effective non-atmospheric blocked solar power.

However there is no air on the Moon, so how to conduct the heat from the mining machines?

IR radiation?

Assuming that your mining machine is a 10cm * 10cm * 10cm box with 100W power, while it is a black body, then according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature of your machine will be......

414K, or 285°F.

One of the hot-selling mining machines in China is the Friedcat Box, providing 38GH/s in 360W power. The dimensions of this thing is a 12cm cube. Using the data of this machine, and calculated with Stefan–Boltzmann law, the temperature will be...

520.6K or 477.5°F

Bitcoins are really hot, I think.

>477.5°F

Perfect. Time for a steam powered generator add-on. BTC generating perpetual motion machine. :)

How about liquid cooling? Assuming it brings a length of hosing. A motor draws the water away from the device, far enough for it to cool, but not to freeze. We would use a liquid that does not easily freeze but can get very cool. We shield the hosing away from the sun. The ISS uses water cooling no? /edit, liquid ammonia cooling to be precise. And : http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/HeatRejectionRadia...

hmm hardware costs go up a bit

Just when i thought quadcopters were cool ... I can see how, with a little chinese-fu magic the chinese could make space travel commodity. Or at least moon-droning. Certainly looking forward to pay a (short) visit to the first moon colony.

That's freaking awesome!

While America is wasting billions on waging wars and funding failures like Obamacare, other nations are advancing their science! China's next destination is Mars! I'm sure they will get there well before Mars One, which keeps pushing their dates further in the future!

good news.

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