It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Japan Planning Unmanned Moon Mission

page: 1
1

log in

join
share:

posted on Oct, 9 2007 @ 04:57 AM
link   
Reuters: Japan Planning Unmanned Moon Mission
---------
Snippet-
Japan plans to launch its first mission to land a spacecraft on the moon in the next decade, officials said on Tuesday, joining China and India in a race among Asian nations to explore the lunar surface.

Japan's first lunar orbiter is currently circling the moon, and the country is racing with China and India to land a craft on the lunar surface -- a feat so far achieved only by the former Soviet Union and the United States.

"We are aiming to carry out the project in the middle of the 2010s. It will examine geological features of the moon as well as natural resources available there," said an official from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
----------


In my opinion, I cant understand why space exploration has ground to a halt. Kennedy made it a mission to go to the moon within that decade and it was achieved with 1960's tech. We havent been back to the moon in a long time, and current space research seems confined to the derelict International Space Station.

The sudden lack of "chutzpa" for space exploration after the first moon missions makes me believe that they are hiding something.


[edit on (10/9/07) by AllSeeingI]



posted on Oct, 11 2007 @ 09:18 AM
link   
Lack of money and lack of public enthusiasm. By the time Apollo 17 was taking off, the majority of people were already bored, since any landing after Ap. 11 was just anticlimactic. Besides, with the Space Shuttle program (which ended up costing much more than expected) there really wasn't enough room for another lunar program.

edit: It's not like there is no space exploration going on.
-Mars Exploration Rovers
-Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
-Mars Express
-Venus Express
-Cassini
-New Horizons
-MESSENGER
-LRO
-Rosetta
etc.

This is only current missions; I'm ignoring all the ones that happened between the moon landings and now, such as the Voyagers and Galileo. The fact is that NASA knows that robotic exploration, while not nearly as grandiose, is almost as effective (if not more so) than human exploration, and far, far cheaper.

[edit on 11-10-2007 by cdrn]



new topics
 
1

log in

join