Flag hunting...
Now if only they can take a picture of that pesky US flag and really piss off a load of conspiracy theorists...
China celebrates first lunar pictures
China is celebrating the first pictures of the Moon beamed back by its Chang'e 1 spacecraft. The country's leaders hailed the mission as a success, but downplayed reports of plans to put a man on the Moon by 2020. China's first pics of the moon. Credit: Xinhaunet China's first pics of the moon. Credit: Xinhaunet "There are …
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Monday 26th November 2007 14:13 GMT Joe Cooper
Or...
Take a picture of the moon with no stars visible.
Oh wait - none of the photos of the moon show stars. Huh. I guess they're all fake.
I looked at the moon through my telescope once and I couldn't see any stars beside it. I posit that my telescope was fake too.
Rocks? What rocks? They brought back rocks? Those are lunar meteorites! Nevermind that lunar meteorites were discovered in 1982 - that's just a conspiracy. You don't REALLY think a geologist can tell the difference between a rock that's been sitting on the moon and a FUCKING METEORITE do you?
"Erosion", you say?!?! More government lies!!! Lies I tell you!
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Monday 26th November 2007 14:16 GMT mahoney
@ neil
I'm sure l33t conspiracy theorists have already planned a "INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE is in cahoots with NASA" for just such an occasion. There's a book of pre-made excuses/templates that covers any/all conspiracy theory debunkers. I think the Loch Ness monster co-wrote it.
Hitler riding on the back of the Sasquatch ... now THAT would be a Kodak moment.
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Monday 26th November 2007 14:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Theory destroying
A very nice pic to bury the impact theory of craters, methinks.
Why are they all perfectly round when impacts could be expected from any direction? Why are they all pretty much the same depth? Why have they all got flat booties? Why do they all show identical absence of ejecta?... when there are no erosion processes on the Moon. Or maybe it was the solar wind wot did it?
Or was it our new Chinese overlords (who have actually been there for centuries, democratising the lunar landscape, but only got around to telling the rest of us now)?
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Monday 26th November 2007 22:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
this makes US missions easier
cuz now astronauts can expect to find a Panda Express or something. Can't wait till they get to Mars.
Realistically, how many dead Taikonauts it will take to reach the moon by 2010? Will they try the system that Kennedy refused to use-a one way trip with a return vessel hopefully arriving some time later? Or for Greater National Flag Wang Waving, a one way trip to the Moon or Mars with their "sacrifice" regarded as heroism? Try to copy American and Soviet work and hope they got the knock-offs right? Or will they do it right, keep with the "baby steps" and make sure they understand the whole system before committing human lives to the stars?
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Tuesday 27th November 2007 01:23 GMT Adrian Esdaile
If memory serves me correctly....
.. it took three flash-fried astronauts for the US to get a clue that high-pressure oxygen doesn't mix with shoddy wiring.
As for knock-offs, the Shenzou spacecraft is an independent Chinese design - it's very different (and larger) than the Soyuz design, but looks similar for the same reasons the Buran looked similar to the STS - design to satisfy physics principles.
China seems to be taking a very conseravtive approach to spaceflight, far more conservative even than NASA, yet with far better designs and firm long-term goals in sight. Considering that NASA can't even get Apollo right the second time around (the Orion is turning into a compromised hodge-podge design AGAIN - NASA took the relative simplicty of the Apollo and added the layers & layers of useless crud inherited from the STS. Nice one.) I'd still bet China will be on the moon before the US gets back there.
What the hell does everyone have against China anyway? Last I heard they were interested in making money, NOT bombing the crap out of other foreign nations.
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Tuesday 27th November 2007 05:29 GMT Shad
@Adrian
China may not be currently bombing the crap out of other nations, they have a billion of their own people to abuse, which they do quite well.
China may not be bombing other nations, but they do steal all the technology they posses and do not honor patents and copyrights.
China may not be bombing other nations, but they are flooding our economies with incredibly low quality products and taking jobs from us.
China may not be bombing other nations but they sure don't mind occupying them and forcing the native people to suffer intolerable poverty.
China may not be bombing other nations, but their abysmal environmental policies have devastated or completely wiped out entire ecosystems, have pretty much ruined vast parts of the eastern world and are doing a fine job of changing the world's weather patterns.
China may not be bombing other countries, but given that they have no respect for us, or for anybody not "them" its only a matter of time before they do.
China is ten times the threat to our way of life than Russia ever was. And we, in our greed for cheap disposable goods, are letting them do it.
Any other questions?
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Tuesday 27th November 2007 09:06 GMT MacroRodent
@Shad
"China may not be bombing other nations, but their abysmal environmental policies have devastated or completely wiped out entire ecosystems, have pretty much ruined vast parts of the eastern world and are doing a fine job of changing the world's weather patterns."
Just like the Europeans and European settlers in North American did! For example, the ecology of central Europe is absolutely nothing like it used to be around 1000 years ago. The whole area used to be a big forest, of which only small pieces remain in some nature parks. And Iowa wasn't covered with corn fields in 1492...
One reason Western Europe is cleaning up these days that dirty industries have moved to the east!
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Tuesday 27th November 2007 11:50 GMT Mountford D
Re: Shad
Have you ever been to China, Shad?
If not, I suggest you do. Yes, they have all sorts of problems but no more than anywhere else. I have seen more poverty in the USA than China. The issue of Human Rights is open to interpretation and depends very much on whose perspective you take as is the environmental issue. I know they run conservation programs second to none but they also have to balance the need to look after their human population unlike the extreme animal activists we see in the UK who would be quite happy to wipe out the human population in favour of some cuddly furry creature who will wouldn't think twice about taking your arm off.
I can write a whole essay on why China is not as bad as it is portrayed but equally I can do the same on why the West is not as rosy as everyone thinks but I won't.
For me, China is simply trying to modernise itself after years of social engineering by an autocratic government that left it in the dark ages and is now hitting all the problems experienced by developed nations like the UK a hundred-plus years ago. China is in her industrial revolution and if she can avoid and learn by the mistakes made by the industrialised nations during their development, she deserves to be the next global super-power.
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Tuesday 27th November 2007 22:41 GMT Andy
And as for intellectual property...
"China may not be bombing other nations, but they do steal all the technology they posses and do not honor patents and copyrights."
Bah, well the last I heard Chevron were using intellectual property laws to keep decent batteries out of electric and hybrid cars - so if the Chinese won't "respect" the oil biz's "right" to rip us all off and kill us, good for them!
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Thursday 29th November 2007 16:44 GMT Neil Gerstenberg
@Shad
Shad, you really need to take a trip abroad sometime - your remarks show a combination of fear, gullibility and paranoia that I'm surprised to find on El Reg.
"China may not be bombing other countries, but given that they have no respect for us, or for anybody not "them" its only a matter of time before they do."
In all my visits to China I have never met a Chinese citizen who expresses such ignorance and paranoia as Shad does in this post. If anything the Chinese have too much respect for the West to the detriment of their own culture.
"China may not be bombing other nations, but they are flooding our economies with incredibly low quality products and taking jobs from us."
Now that shows that you have swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker:
Think hard... do really believe that any country can "flood" the economy of another?
It is mostly Western companies, not Chinese, who pursue a relentless drive towards cutting costs in production, quality control, wages etc. It is Western companies who force suppliers/manufacturers into unhealthy price competition.
How many 100% Chinese brands can you name who dominate a UK or US market? How many 100% US or UK brands can you name who dominate a market with Chinese made goods? And you blame the Chinese?!
As for your last comment:
"China is ten times the threat to our way of life than Russia ever was. And we, in our greed for cheap disposable goods, are letting them do it."
Fortunately most people realize that a country is easier to control/coerce/govern if the population has clearly identified enemies to fear.
We now have Islamist extemists held up as the ideological enemy, and China as the economic enemy.
Before that we had Communism as the ideological enemy and Japan as the economic enemy.
Before that we had Fascism and Germany...
Note that I am not saying that the above threats were not real, just that they are not always as real as they are made out to be - and are always useful to someone.
As a mind reprogramming experiment, try believing (wholeheartedly!) for a couple of days that China (or Islam...) may not be the threat most western media portray it to be. Maybe the real danger lies elsewhere, or within...
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Thursday 29th November 2007 21:03 GMT Simon Reed
Said it before, I'll say it again
The Merkins have outsourced astronautics to China, just like everything else.
The purpose of this mission is to do the surveying to work out ...
... where best to place a USA flag and Lunar Lander remnant to match where the moon landings were alleged to happen.
They're intending to write past history by placing the evidence to prove it happened, that's what.
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Tuesday 4th December 2007 17:06 GMT Mike Flugennock
@ Adrian Esdaile re: Buran
Sorry, bro' but the only difference between the USSR 'Buran' system and the USA's 'STS' system was the kind of 'strap-on' boosters used (USSR used liquid-fueled; USA used segmented solid-fueled). The Buran orbiter itself was a damn' near 100% aerodynamic knock-off of the USA's 'STS' Shuttle.
Buran also closely mimicked the USA Shuttle in terms of hugely optmistic development schedules and cost overruns.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
