China shows off moon rover model

[bananas]

Source: SBS



China has offered a rare glimpse into its secretive space program, displaying a model of a lunar rover that will explore the moon's surface in an upcoming mission.

<snip>

The gold-coloured rover model, with six wheels and wing-like solar panels, attracted admiring crowds on Tuesday at the opening of the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai.

The rover's designer, Shanghai Aerospace Systems Engineering Research Institute, said the real thing would be lifted aloft by a Long March 3B rocket scheduled to be launched in early December.

Beijing sees its military-run space program as a marker of its rising global stature and growing technological might, as well as the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/11/06/china-shows-moon-rover-model

[hibbing]

1. yawn

Is that why the guy looking at it is yawning?

[Zeke L Brimstone]

3. China is playing the Tortoise to your Hare

Laugh all the way into the dustbin of history, if you must, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Yeah, but if that design is any indication, they're still knocking off our stuff to get there.

If that deal functions 1/100th as long on the moon as Spirit and Opportunity did on Mars, I'll eat my hat.

[Humanist_Activist]

7. There are only so many designs that would work on rough terrain in environments...

hostile and radically different than on the surface of the Earth, that is also solar powered, so this complaint about "stolen" designs is like complaining that all cars have four wheels and hence are "stolen" designs themselves. I will also say that from what I can tell, the Chinese rover has wheels that look to be designed to blow away dust from the vehicle and/or reduce kickup of dust, something that wasn't a consideration with Spirit and Opportunity, given they went to Mars, and were projected to last a few months due to dust accumulation in an atmosphere. NASA was lucky the wind on Mars is strong enough to blow off the dust that accumulated on the rovers.

The Moon has nearly no atmosphere, so the conditions are much different, this rover, if designed and hardened right, should last much longer than any Mars rover would. The biggest issues would be solar flares and other types of radiation damaging it, along with dust accumulation on its wheels and other load bearing and moving parts due to static cling.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. The moon also has "days" and "nights" that are 2 weeks long, so if that deal is solar powered it's

gonna be doing a lot of sleeping.

But it's not a fair comparison. Conditions on the moon are very different, and certainly the temperature swings are way more extreme than on Mars.

I think any and all exploration of space by any humans is a good thing, and if China going to the moon gets this country off its ass, even better.

However, technologically I don't think they're quite there yet. Not to where JPL is, at least. Not where NASA is. Not where SpaceX is. And it's worth noting that their manned program as it stands today, beyond just being a simple "knock off" of Russian soyuz designs, was in large part purchased outright from the Russians.

[Thor_MN]

9. Any body rotating relative the sun is going to have a day/night cycle.

Over the course of an orbit, sunlight is going to be essentially a 50% duty cycle. Unless the night is so long and cold that the device freezes into a unrecoverable state, any solar powered lander/explorer is going to spend 50% of it's time waiting for sunrise, regardless of what hunk of rock it is on.

As long as they publish, I'm glad to see them do this. If they don't, then it's a non-story and who cares?

[Warren DeMontague]

10. I didn't say I wasn't glad, did I?

Yes, barring some kind of incredible battery, the thing is going to be down for the "night". Of course 2 weeks down is different from 12 hours down, and like I said the temperature differential is also much bigger on the moon, than on Mars. It's a long night, and it's a very cold night. It's also a very long, hot day.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be arguing for, or against, here. I think it's pretty apparent they've lifted an awful lot of that design from JPL, just as it was apparent with Russia's practically never-used Buran shuttle that they lifted a lot of it from ours. If the point is that the Chinese are supposed to be technologically way ahead of us, I just don't see it. Maybe they're moving fast, and maybe they're going to be mining Helium-3 off the moon in a decade. But I don't see it, yet.

Like I said, I 100% support the exploration of space, and humans moving out into the solar system.

[bananas]

14. UCS backgrounder on China's manned space program

http://www.democraticunderground.com/122810482

<snip>

From the beginning, and throughout the development of the Chinese human spaceflight program, China’s goal was never to catch up or surpass other nations but to avoid falling too far behind.

The public and official Chinese debate over a sending Chinese astronauts to the moon centers on the economic cost and a desire for greater international cooperation. China’s policy preference appears to be to work with other spacefaring nations on a human lunar mission.

<snip>

[Warren DeMontague]

30. See:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-99r.html

[Humanist_Activist]

22. All space programs, from what I can tell, "borrow" designs from each...

Other, whether with permission or not. I'm not saying China has the most advanced space program out there, they are playing catch up, and frankly if I were in their position, I would "ripoff" as many designs as possible from those with more experience.

I just find the dismissal of the overall design of the rover as a ripoff to be both superficial and foolish. Its like saying that all tablet computers ripoff from the iPad, forgetting the fact that the design is rather obvious, practical and preexisting.

[Ash_F]

26. Yeah I'm sure the Chinese astrophysicists didn't think of the day/night cycle.

If only they had some kind of anonymous internet poster to point out the fatal flaws in their design for them.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Oh FFS

Did you even read what I wrote?

Okay, sorry, I guess the whole point of this thread is "GO USA CHINA SUX" versus "CHINA ROOOOOLEZ AND YOU WILL SOON BE EATING THEIR MOON DUST"

Here's your typical black and white dichotomous lowest-valence DU "discussion". Silly me to actually try to talk about the thing instead of pick a side and just blather.

So fine. You got me. The rover is the GREATEST THING EVAH!!!!! I'm just jealous.

Or something.

[Ash_F]

28. Did you honestly think they didn't consider the day/night cycle?

This isn't about US>China or vice versa. I just think it's funny how random people think they must know better than teams of scientists.

And you wouldn't be the only one in this thread.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Did I ***SAY*** I didn't think they considered the day/night cycle?

I've noticed this funny thing where I'm running around the board saying shit I'm not actually saying. It's weird. If I was still a drinker, I might attribute it to blackouts, but... nope, there's the "my posts" tab, and.. I didn't say it.

So what's even funnier is when random people put words in other random peoples' mouths and then proceed to get all spun up about the shit that wasn't actually said. It's like a favorite pastime, around here.

I did say that if it's solar powered- and, judging by the panels, it probably is- either it's going to need one hell of a battery or it's going to be spending 2 very cold weeks of down time. I'm certain the engineers who built it considered the day/night cycle. There also is no mention, in the article, of what the mission objectives are or how long the operational expected lifespan is. So maybe they're only planning on a short mission. It's worth remembering that Spirit and Opportunity had a basic operational mission of only 30 days. So who knows.

[snooper2]

15. If that piece of shit moves more than five feet I'll eat my hat as well

LOL...

[Humanist_Activist]

16. Why? Because the Chinese built it?

What may make them less competent than Americans or Europeans?

[snooper2]

17. LOL

you actually asked that question...


I forgot how Chinese engineers are known for their expertise.. Or was that their ability to copy and steal ideas

[Humanist_Activist]

19. Everyone steals ideas from everyone else...

I'm asking if there is some unique trait that the Chinese have that makes their products and ideas innately inferior.

[snooper2]

20. Good question, not really sure...something the way business are run?

I get this guy from China who works for a company called Escene always trying to pimp their IP phones wanting to get them in our lab. Their SIP Stack sucks so it would pretty much be a waste of my time. They are cheap though, like $30-40 IP phone, but you get what you pay for!

[Humanist_Activist]

21. I'm not arguing about how businesses are run in China...

Or even the quality of many products of their companies, many American companies create crappy products as well. What I find funny though is your prejudice would fit in in the 1960s and 1970s in regards to Japanese people and products.

[Wolf Frankula]

25. After All the Japanese slanty eyes kept them from being good flyers

And the Japanese can't make cars, and the North Vietnamese couldn't fight, and the Chinese can't make anything.

And why are they wasting money on science, when they could be spending it on wars, or tax cuts for rich people? And they should base their economy on people selling pieces of paper to each other, like a large Western Hemisphere country.

Wolf

[JI7]

24. they are not less competent , the reason we have such crappy mass produced items from China

is because people want it done as cheap as possible. it would be the same if those standards were used in the US or anywhere else in the world.

raise the standards and things will be better.

and there are some nice quality things made in China but they of course cost more also.

i'm guessing with their space program they will not sacrafice quality in exchange for getting something cheaper.

[jakeXT]

11. I wonder if the Lunokhod inspired it

[Warren DeMontague]

23. We absolutely ripped off parts of the Lunokhod design. Certainly JPL took a lot from that when going

for the preliminary Mars rover designs.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Landing 3 rovers on Mars- not the moon, Mars- in the past 10 years is an undeniable technical

achievement.

Like it or not - and the part I don't like is that NASA has to do it on a shoestring- as of right now the US is still indisputably the world leader in Space Exploration. That could change, of course, but right now it's the truth.

[Katashi_itto]

5. China will run the solar system if we are not careful.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Gosh that design looks familiar...

[Left Coast2020]

4. Copy and Pasted from the best Chinese high school science project.

Likely from a high school in Beijing.

I wonder if the warrenty lasts for more than 1 year--parts and labor?

[Posteritatis]

12. Yet another ugly thread. (nt)

[madrchsod]

13. 1970`s russian moon rover

http://www.universetoday.com/60142/did-you-know-russian-lunokhod-rovers-created-memorials-on-the-moon-honoring-women/


our new moon rover

the chinese have a long, long way to go....

[rrneck]

18. Nice rims. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Okay, here's a technical question. I wonder how they're going to land it?

Spirit and Opportunity used airbags. No mention of how they plan to set that thing down on the lunar surface, as near as I can tell.

Please note this is not a criticism of the design: I'm genuinely curious.

[Humanist_Activist]

33. Spirit and Opportunity also had aerobraking...

I don't think that airbags would work on the Moon, the capsule holding the rover would hit the surface way too quickly to survive, it'd make a great crater though.

Most likely it would be some combination of hovering rockets and a slow descending orbit.

[Warren DeMontague]

34. I wonder if they'll try a skycrane.

I cant get enough of the god-damn skycrane.

[Humanist_Activist]

35. Yeah, that thing was awesome, but I think they won't...

mostly because it looks like this moon rover is a hell of a lot less massive than Curiosity and its the Moon rather than Mars, the difference in atmospheric densities means different challenges and solutions to get things to safely land on each.