Why isn't China on the moon?

This is not a story about China per se, although China is the main player.

Recently I have been reading, here and there, that China is planning to put a man on the moon and have set a target date of 2025.

2025? Fifteen years from now? What's that all about?

Isn't the scientific knowledge and methods to land a man on the moon readily available to any Country's top scientists who choose to 'look it up'?

I mean, China has the rockets...





China has the astronauts, or as the locals say: Taikonauts.





China has the cash...





So why the 15 years to put a man on the moon?

Didn't America put a man on the moon 40 years ago, using 1960's technology?





What happened to the knowledge for a manned moon landing? Was it mysteriously lost, like the technique for making The Great Pyramid or Crystal Skulls? I just don't get it.

It seems to me that any Country that has the cash and the desire should be able to get to the moon pretty quickly.

Some may say that, in fact, America never landed men on the moon. But my Apollo Glass-ware collection would seem to suggest otherwise!





There is always talk of 'China the next Super Power', China's amazing GDP, military buildup, international financial clout...but hey, that's all been done before and its boring. If China really wants to hit the world with the ultimate smackdown they'd be wise to start building cities on the moon.

I also read where America and Japan also want to go to the moon...but again, the target dates are way into the future.

So, my good friends, my question is: If a country has the money and inclination to go to the moon, what's stopping them? Why does the knowledge seem to be so difficult to acquire?





*To those about to lambaste my gut-wrenching lack of scientific space-knowledge, remember I am on China time and may not be able to reply immediately.

America never landed on the moon. The Van Allen radiation belt made it impossible then and makes it impossible now.
en.wikipedia.org...

The only reason to go to the moon was to be the first. The scientific knowledge was just an added bonus. There is no money to be made by China setting foot there. There is not much nationalistic pride associated with going there so many Chinese would think it is a waste of money.

China, no doubt, will want to better the achievements of America. Maybe they'll be looking to stay on the moon for longer, in fact whatever America got up to up there China will want to do it better and more thorough.

I think it will be very interesting to see how China handle the trip in general, they must be preparing something special to need a 15 year run up.

Originally posted by univac500

I mean, China has the rockets...

No, China doesn't have the rockets for a manned moon mission.

Saturn V, NASA's choice of rocket for the Apollo moon landings, had a payload capacity of 119,000 kg to low earth orbit.

China's choice of rocket for their manned missions so far has been Long March 2F, which can deliver only 8,400 kg to LEO, which is nowhere near enough to launch a mission to the moon.

They do have a couple of rockets that have larger payload capacities (either in service or in design phase), but they still don't have anywhere near the Saturn V's payload capacity and they're not man-rated.

They're either going to have to start designing a man-rated rocket big enough for the job or start learning the fine art of orbital construction to assemble the spacecraft in orbit before embarking on a mission to the moon.

China also seems to be happy enough with focusing the majority of their efforts in orbital manned missions and unmanned moon missions. Relatively little amount of money and effort is being spent on a manned moon mission at the moment.

This video is from a movie released in 1950.
All the way back then the military minded understood
that from the Moon every attack on earth is downhill all the way.



Check out timestop 3:33 - 3:49 for the value of the Moon over the Earth.


David Grouchy

reply to post by univac500


I read that China is looking to keep people on the moon due to their overpopulation.

They are going there. They are on a consistent development path unfettered by the push and pull of western politics. The Chinese space program is about countering US control of LOE and as a tool for stoking nationalism. China is soviet policy underpinned by capitalist economics. Unlike the soviet union they will not run out of money.

They will be on the moon in our lifetime.

Originally posted by Soldier of God
America never landed on the moon. The Van Allen radiation belt made it impossible then and makes it impossible now.
en.wikipedia.org...

The article you reference explicitly states that:

"A satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminium in an elliptic orbit (200 by 20,000 miles) passing through the radiation belts will receive about 2,500 rem (25 Sv) per year."

2,500 rem/year is 6.85 rem/day or .3 rem/hour. Apollo spent ~half an hour skimming the edge of the belts.

Aspx, thanks to your link, you have conclusively proven to me that the Van Allen belts did not pose any significant radiation risk to the Apollo astronauts.

Thank you.

reply to post by univac500


Well, we don't have the technology to go to the Moon - any more. Nor do we have the technology to build an Iowa-class battleship, or to fly passengers across the Atlantic in First-Class comfort at supersonic speed. We abandoned these technologies because they were not perceived as worth the cost. If properly funded, we could develop them again, but it would be expensive and take years.

These analogies are about very specific machines built at certain times for very specific purposes.

We do not have the manufacturing capability to build an Iowa, or a Concorde, or an Apollo/Saturn rocket. We don't have the tools that make the tools that make the tools to do so. But, even though we can't build actual copies, we can build something that has the capabilities of each. This, however, requires engineers to start from scratch.

Mind you, we don't have to do things the same way it was done decades ago. A new battleship wouldn't need an analog ballistics calculator or high-pressure boiler; we could modify a digital computer and diesel-electric motors to serve. Some things, however, have no substitute - We would have to relearn how to make armor that can stop a 2,200lb AP projectile cold.

Originally posted by MacAnkka

Originally posted by univac500

I mean, China has the rockets...

No, China doesn't have the rockets for a manned moon mission.

Saturn V, NASA's choice of rocket for the Apollo moon landings, had a payload capacity of 119,000 kg to low earth orbit.

China's choice of rocket for their manned missions so far has been Long March 2F, which can deliver only 8,400 kg to LEO, which is nowhere near enough to launch a mission to the moon.

Thanks for the reply and info. I did not realize there was such a difference in rocket capabilities; I just took a look at the Shenzhou 7 and thought, hey that baby could get them into moon territory.

Originally posted by Saint Exupery
reply to post by univac500

 

Well, we don't have the technology to go to the Moon - any more. Nor do we have the technology to build an Iowa-class battleship, or to fly passengers across the Atlantic in First-Class comfort at supersonic speed. We abandoned these technologies because they were not perceived as worth the cost. If properly funded, we could develop them again, but it would be expensive and take years.

These analogies are about very specific machines built at certain times for very specific purposes.

.

Thanks for the info - you seem to have it all spelled-out clearly.

Yet, I still find it a little strange: Are all the blueprints for the old space program gone? Didn't America develop a space program, and put a man on the moon, in about 8 years - using 1960's technology?!?

Well also, maybe it is as other's have said in this thread - that China, and other countries, are not in a big hurry to land on the moon.

Pip pip.
[img]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member67311f398fe0.jpg[/atsing][/img]

Originally posted by Saint Exupery
reply to post by univac500

 

Well, we don't have the technology to go to the Moon - any more. Nor do we have the technology to build an Iowa-class battleship, or to fly passengers across the Atlantic in First-Class comfort at supersonic speed. We abandoned these technologies because they were not perceived as worth the cost. If properly funded, we could develop them again, but it would be expensive and take years...

Exactly.

People don't seem to realize that the Apollo hardware was not 100% designed then built exactly from those designs -- that's not the way it was done.

Rather, the designs created the prototypes that were then tested and changed, and then tested and changed again, and sometimes again and again. It was more of a trial-and-error type project. The original designs for the Saturn V, Command Module, and LEM were "close" to what was built -- but those original designs weren't the ones that went to the Moon -- nor were the original designs necessarily capable of getting us to the Moon.

Plus, NASA -- being on a tight schedule and having a budget that was large but was eaten up by testing and construction -- did not necessarily always follow-through properly on creating "As-Built" design drawings. "As-Builts" would be drawings that documented all of those changes that were made between the original design submittal and what was actually flown to the Moon. NASA relied heavily on the institutional knowledge that all of the engineers had gained by 1969 after nearly 10 years of designing, testing and building the Apollo hardware. Many of the necessary design changes that were made were things that the Engineers did "on the fly" so-to-speak. Many of those changes may not have been documented properly; the thought being that the "institution" had the knowledge and would always retain it -- or at least be able to well-document that knowledge at a later date. However, much of that institutional knowledge was never documented and no longer exists, because those engineers are retired or dead.

Perhaps it was a mistake to rely so heavily on that institutional knowledge. Perhaps they should have been more diligent in getting all the design changes documented 100% properly and in one place -- but that's not the reality of the situation. That would have taken time and money -- two things that were very tight at the time. So when the Apollo program was terminated and NASA's budget slashed by huge amounts, the money no longer existed to properly capture that institutional knowledge.

If anyone doubts that the Apollo hardware design was done in this "on-the-fly" manner, I suggest you watch the documentary series "Moon Machines". In that series, the documentarians talked to the actual engineers who tested and built those machines. It was extremely interesting and enlightening to hear what they went through to make the designs for those spacecraft work -- and work safely.

If NASA today was given the H U G E budget they had in the mid 1960s, they would definitely be able to get back to the moon in far less than 10 years. NASA's budget today is about 1/2 of what it was during the Apollo era, and that budget is eaten up by the space station, space shuttle, and the various planetary probes, such as the new rover going to Mars next year (the "Mars Science Laboratory"). In the 1960s, the budget was double, and virtually ALL of it was dedicated to Apollo.