Manned Chinese moon landing

Robert Power

What is everyone's opinion on the Chinese lunar landing which is apparently in 2032. Will the develop a variant of the Soviet LK or design an entirely new lander?

Indricotherium

They'd surely go for something a bit bigger now that it could be constructed in orbit over a much longer time

Robert Power

All depends on the format their mission takes and if they prefer earth other rendezvous or lunar orbit rendezvous. The LK was very simplistic/utterly terrifying compared to the LM, for example no docking tunnel so Eva required to transfer between vehicles.

JupiterKid

I’d say the Chinese will more closely follows the American Apollo architecture as they were proven to be a success. It’s still early days though. The old Soviet designs for the moon landings were poor IMO, way too spartan and probably a death trap had they actually gone ahead.

I wish the Chinese well and really hope they can meet their target date as this might, just might, spur the US into a new space race and see NASA get decent funding to speed up their lunar/beyond Earth orbit and Mars plans.

Capt'n Midnight

Robert Power wrote: »

All depends on the format their mission takes and if they prefer earth other rendezvous or lunar orbit rendezvous. The LK was very simplistic/utterly terrifying compared to the LM, for example no docking tunnel so Eva required to transfer between vehicles.

Technically speaking you'd need to do some EVA otherwise there's no point in going to the moon.


The Chinese bought Soyuz spacecraft technology from the Russians. It was originally part of the Soviet moon program so the orbiter is sorted.

Yes the LK was bare bones indeed so I don't think they'd use it directly. (some of the early US proposals had an astronaut going up sat upon the rocket in a space suit so the LK wasn't the worst.)

They've already managed a soft landing on the moon so they have the technology , just a matter of scaling it up. If they have money to burn and the political will to do so.

Robert Power

I wish the Chinese the best of luck I'd love to see another manned landing preferably in my lifetime

Beeker

Great to see them planning for a Lunar landing. The Chinese have proven one thing when it comes to space exploration, if they say they will do something, then the do. Its time to go back to the Moon so I for one cant wait.

K.Flyer

It would be great to see it happening (in my lifetime), especially with today's technology we hopefully would get to see it all live.
One thing I would love to see come from it, would be for the Chinese to land near enough to the U.S. site for them to live stream themselves going over and prooving once and for all to the doubters that the original landings actually happened.
Then watch as the same doubters gag while they are eating their tin foil hats :pac:

Robert Power

K.Flyer wrote: »

It would be great to see it happening (in my lifetime), especially with today's technology we hopefully would get to see it all live.
One thing I would love to see come from it, would be for the Chinese to land near enough to the U.S. site for them to live stream themselves going over and prooving once and for all to the doubters that the original landings actually happened.
Then watch as the same doubters gag while they are eating their tin foil hats :pac:

Refusing to believe in the moon landing/flat earthers/UFO nutters are all mentally ill. There will always be some excuse or conspiracy at play!

_Brian

Robert Power wrote: »

I wish the Chinese the best of luck I'd love to see another manned landing preferably in my lifetime

This exactly..
It would be a very exciting development indeed..

_Brian

K.Flyer wrote: »

It would be great to see it happening (in my lifetime), especially with today's technology we hopefully would get to see it all live.
One thing I would love to see come from it, would be for the Chinese to land near enough to the U.S. site for them to live stream themselves going over and prooving once and for all to the doubters that the original landings actually happened.
Then watch as the same doubters gag while they are eating their tin foil hats :pac:

The chinese could also go up and say they found no trace of the yanks ever been ther eand then make claim to be the first men on the moon...
It would be funny... only made funnier if Trump was still the "leader of the free world"

But yes, live streaming would be amazing and any glimpse of previous site an enormous bonus.

Creative83

US Intelligence Agencies will anticipate when the Chinese can realistically accomplish this. The US will want to be there to greet them... At the moment I don't believe that the US thinks they can...

Capt'n Midnight

JupiterKid wrote: »

I’d say the Chinese will more closely follows the American Apollo architecture as they were proven to be a success. It’s still early days though. The old Soviet designs for the moon landings were poor IMO, way too spartan and probably a death trap had they actually gone ahead.

Rule 1 of any successful space project, do not develop a new launch system. KISS

Apollo succeeded for two reasons. First it was a matter of national pride during the cold war, "not on my watch" was the watchword for everyone on the project. Second, in 2007 dollars they spent $96 Billion on it.

The Chinese are spending about $3Bn a year on space.
Then again they have private companies OneSpace and ExPace trying to lower costs.


For everything apart from "marking your territory" the big moon rocket is overkill. For a start it costs too much to develop and test. SLS is hovering up billions and it's using mostly flight proven kit. And with R&D spread over only a few rockets there are no economies of scale.

A better approach would be to use smaller proven rockets to assemble in space. That way you learn all the way. The Russians have had a orbiting space station more or less continuously since 1974. Soyuz T-15 visited Mir and did a trip to Salyut 7 and back back in '86.

The US abandoned Apollo, and Saturn 1, 1B and V, and the Shuttle and is busy re-inventing them, again.


20 tonnes to LEO and the ability to dock and you don't need a huge moon rocket. So yeah the Chinese, and pretty much everyone else could get to the moon with off the shelf hardware. Take a hit on the delta-V and you can use pressure feed storable hypergloic propellants for the trip down to the moon and back to earth, and you can stay for more than a few days.

_Brian

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Rule 1 of any successful space project, do not develop a new launch system. KISS

Apollo succeeded for two reasons. First it was a matter of national pride during the cold war, "not on my watch" was the watchword for everyone on the project. Second, in 2007 dollars they spent $96 Billion on it.

The Chinese are spending about $3Bn a year on space.
Then again they have private companies OneSpace and ExPace trying to lower costs.


For everything apart from "marking your territory" the big moon rocket is overkill. For a start it costs too much to develop and test. SLS is hovering up billions and it's using mostly flight proven kit. And with R&D spread over only a few rockets there are no economies of scale.

A better approach would be to use smaller proven rockets to assemble in space. That way you learn all the way. The Russians have had a orbiting space station more or less continuously since 1974. Soyuz T-15 visited Mir and did a trip to Salyut 7 and back back in '86.

The US abandoned Apollo, and Saturn 1, 1B and V, and the Shuttle and is busy re-inventing them, again.


20 tonnes to LEO and the ability to dock and you don't need a huge moon rocket. So yeah the Chinese, and pretty much everyone else could get to the moon with off the shelf hardware. Take a hit on the delta-V and you can use pressure feed storable hypergloic propellants for the trip down to the moon and back to earth, and you can stay for more than a few days.

I always thought axing the Shuttles was a mistake.

Capt'n Midnight

_Brian wrote: »

I always thought axing the Shuttles was a mistake.

Don't get me started on that.

Most things about the shuttle were wrong. Too big , too many compromises, too many assumptions. It was a turkey. And a money pit. The Russians are screwing NASA over on Soyuz flights , but shuttle flights cost a magnitude of order more.

Bottom line is that shuttle was sized for the rare mission instead of the common one.

Most of the shuttle flights risked lives unnecessarily. You don't need humans to send stuff to GEO. (the russian shuttle flew by remote control , BTW Energia has got two payloads up which are heavier than anything Falcon Heavy could ever do , despite what it says on the SpaceX website)

Capt'n Midnight

BTW
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/16/chinese_space_station_tiangong_1_likely_to_deorbit_late_march_2018/

China's first space station to – ahem – de-orbit in late March
Tiangong-1 is out of control and can't keep it up any more

8.5 Tonnes of "Made in China" will be arriving a lot faster the usual junk from Alibaba - but we're OK


Again a reminder , the Chinese know how to dock in orbit. So a moon rocket can be assembled whenever, just like in Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 Book when the Chinese "space station" Tsien decided to head out of orbit and onwards.

mickdw

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

Zubeneschamali

mickdw wrote: »

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

Electronics and materials can't get you to the Moon - you need huge great rockets. Those rockets are not needed for anything else, so no-one has built anything like the Saturn V since NASA stopped going to the moon.

Beeker

mickdw wrote: »

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

Money and political will or lack off.

seamus

mickdw wrote: »

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

As Zubenschamli says, theoretically a crew operating a fully mechanical spaceship with manual navigation instruments, hydraulics, levers and cables, should be able to make it to the moon. Computers and electronics make all of these things easier and safer (and lighter), but they're not an absolute requirement.

Ultimately it's all about building the rocket big enough to take you there (and back). And this is not something we've really managed to make any smaller, more efficient or cheaper since 1969. Private companies like SpaceX are getting some of the way there, but more for satellite and space station operations than space exploration.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Bottom line is that shuttle was sized for the rare mission instead of the common one.

I wonder was the shuttle built on the expectation that rocket and flight technology would continue to develop at the same pace it did since the Wright Bros.? That is, it was a bit too big initially, but the expectation that within 20 years it would be routine and cheap to send one up.

flc37ie6ojwkh8

yeah and what about the radiation belts and the flat earth?

irishgeo

the yanks arent keen on anyone landing near where they landed.

Capt'n Midnight

mickdw wrote: »

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

Ignition is a book by john D Clark about liquid rocket propellants.

It's a old book. But the laws of chemistry haven't changed. And a rocket is 95% propellent.


In theory you could use Fluorine , Lithium and Hydrogen to get the best performance. Liquid Hydrogen is tricky but doable. Lithium is a metal that busts into flames if you get it wet, except you have to heat it up until it melts and somehow pump it into an engine. And Fluorine is evil.

Exotic high energy fuels are expensive , toxic, explody, corrosive , insanely difficult to handle , smelly or more usually a combination of most of the above.



The trick to rocket fuel is to choose something you can live with. So it's the same old reliables.

Which is why when NASA wants to send astronauts to the ISS they go up on what is essentially an upgraded 1957 Soviet ICBM. The European Space Agency also use them to send up medium sized satellites from French Guiana.

mickdw

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Ignition is a book by john D Clark about liquid rocket propellants.

It's a old book. But the laws of chemistry haven't changed. And a rocket is 95% propellent.


In theory you could use Fluorine , Lithium and Hydrogen to get the best performance. Liquid Hydrogen is tricky but doable. Lithium is a metal that busts into flames if you get it wet, except you have to heat it up until it melts and somehow pump it into an engine. And Fluorine is evil.

Exotic high energy fuels are expensive , toxic, explody, corrosive , insanely difficult to handle , smelly or more usually a combination of most of the above.



The trick to rocket fuel is to choose something you can live with. So it's the same old reliables.

Which is why when NASA wants to send astronauts to the ISS they go up on what is essentially an upgraded 1957 Soviet ICBM. The European Space Agency also use them to send up medium sized satellites from French Guiana.

All that accepted, we have improved everything marginally surely, improved simulation to a level that couldnt even be imagined back in 69, improved control and nav systems, created better and no doubt lighter materials and overall would be able to better design any structure now in terms of weight reduction without compromising on safety so i believe it can only be political will. If a full programme was undertaken by Nasa, I still believe it should now be little challenge to them. My main point being that we have not gone backwards in any areas but have advanced majorly in alot of areas.

Capt'n Midnight

seamus wrote: »

I wonder was the shuttle built on the expectation that rocket and flight technology would continue to develop at the same pace it did since the Wright Bros.? That is, it was a bit too big initially, but the expectation that within 20 years it would be routine and cheap to send one up.

Shuttle was sized for the big KH Spy Satellites which are rare birds. It was sold for the economies of scale of a huge increase in Satellites AND the assumption it was going to be use for all of them. The wings which took up a huge chunk of the weight and were the cause of one loss were only of use to get the shuttle back to it's original base after one orbit a feature only needed by the military and only for very specific missions, like not overflying soviet territory. Otherwise a civilian shuttle could wait for a few orbits for a more suitable landing strip.

To save development costs they abandoned most of the re-use, the SRB's are steel cylinders, so you aren't saving precious aerospace grade aluminium-lithium, and solid rockets don't have turbopumps or anything really worth saving.

And to rub salt into the wounds the Dynasoar like X-37 is probably capable of doing a lot of what the military wanted , with tiny wings.

Zubeneschamali

mickdw wrote: »

i believe it can only be political will.

Of course if there was political will, NASA could run a new Apollo programme, say 150 billion for 10 missions to the Moon. But that would be a terrible waste of money, because the Apollo programme was a stupid flag-planting exercise.

The right way to do it would be to build a real space station, then a moonbase. It would cost a lot more, but these would be permanent, permanently manned outposts.

If you are not going to do that, you might as well cheap out and use robot probes: far, far cheaper.

dr.fuzzenstein

mickdw wrote: »

Can someone with knowledge of these things explain why it had been so long since someone has walked on the moon. My phone has possibly more computing power than nasa had way back when they put men on the moon. Materials technology etc had improved greatly so it shouldn't even be a challenge nowadays one would imagine.

Well, it's like climbing down off the trees or discovering America and deciding "nah, fux that, can't be arsed" and turning back again.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/they-arent-completely-separate-though-that-would-imply-282027594

"But c'mon," he concludes, "if the Earth were a basketball, in 40 years no human's been more than half an inch from the surface."

It's much more important to mankind to spend money on men kicking balls around, shiny phones and killing each other. Progress, discovery, bettering mankind? Fcuk that ****, there's money to be made!

feargale

Robert Power wrote: »

What is everyone's opinion on the Chinese lunar landing which is apparently in 2032. Will the develop a variant of the Soviet LK or design an entirely new lander?

I'm all in favour of the Chinese getting on the moon. What could be more welcome to Yankees arriving on the moon than a Chinese takeaway around the corner?

Capt'n Midnight

mickdw wrote: »

All that accepted, we have improved everything marginally surely, improved simulation to a level that couldnt even be imagined back in 69, improved control and nav systems, created better and no doubt lighter materials and overall would be able to better design any structure now in terms of weight reduction without compromising on safety so i believe it can only be political will. If a full programme was undertaken by Nasa, I still believe it should now be little challenge to them. My main point being that we have not gone backwards in any areas but have advanced majorly in alot of areas.

There have been small improvements since 1957. http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_lv.html
The big changes to Soyuz has been the addition of extra stages and changing the fuel to a slightly higher energy one. Stronger materials and lighter electronics help too.

In terms of getting off the planet the biggest change has been the recent use of Electric propulsion once you get to Low Earth Orbit. Very roughly you can double the amount of satellites you can get to GEO because you need a lot less fuel getting there and for station keeping once there. (chemical rockets are still handy for slingshots though)

No use for humans because it takes too long. Unless of course you send up the heavy stuff earlier on the slow path and get the humans to dock with it. Again it's using off the shelf launchers instead of a big moon rocket.


It would be a huge challenge to NASA.

Mainly because they have to keep reinventing the wheel. The Russians had a space shuttle. It only made one flight. But the boosters are still in use as Zenit and launched a satellite last month. The boosters for the US shuttle are still being "tested" for SLS.

One of the big problems is that these days 'elf and safety mean NASA have to use "human rated" rockets for humans and they cost a lot more to develop. Another reason to send up crews on a small but reliable rocket and use cheaper ones for the "stuff". But NASA are spending billions to develop SLS


Sometimes it's best to think of NASA as a slush fund for pork barreling and subsidising the defence industry and then you don't get so upset about the waste of money and and time talent and technology.

dr.fuzzenstein

^^^^^
No, can't say that doesn't upset me. In fact knowing more about how NASA piss money away and people still have to be sent up on top of Russian rockets made from cast iron using valve powered electronics, makes it more upsetting.
Because it's upsetting in the first place that the US pisses more than 50% of their money down the drain for the military and now to know that NASA gets raided as well for more instruments of warfare.

Capt'n Midnight

It won't be the first time China has sent a manned mission to the Moon
http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/wan-who.html