Test Article
Construction is well under way on the first test article of the rocket
Need more caffeine, my brain parsed that as testicle on first read, which surprised me...
In the week that New Horizons snapped its snowman, China took its rover out for a spin on the lunar surface and SpaceX fired up another Falcon 9. Keep rollin', rollin', rollin' China continued stoking the fires of space fanbois desperate for an Apollo-style space race as its rover trundled off the Chang'e 4 lander and on to …
Trust me, if there was major money in Space exploration for England, we would be doing it.
The as*holes that the British people have no choice but to vote in are still in the mindset that money is the *only* important thing in this world.
Britain is a little bit pathetic and we need to grow the hell up before we will ever get to do cool space stuff.
Also, has the rest of the EU done much space travel? Not really so its not like keeping in with them is our best shortcut to spaaace :/
"Has the EU done much space travel?"
Hell yes! The EU neatly planted its flag on Titan. That's a moon of SATURN, not the low-hanging fruit that the Earth's moon is. It also has its flag sitting on a comet. Try and hit that softly as a target.
ESA, unlike the other agencies, is not into propaganda. It's into hard science. Also, you can't beat the European launcher Ariane in reliability.
That's a moon of SATURN, not the low-hanging fruit that the Earth's moon is.
While you're busy with your victory lap, ruminate over the following:
- The time difference between the majestic Titan landing and that pathetic Moon landing was 35 years, 5 months, 25 days.
- The time difference between the majestic Titan landing and that worthless Titan fly-by made by Voyager 1 was 24 years, 2 months, 2 days.
What took so long? Asking for the giants upon whose shoulders you're standing a friend.
The Moon certainly wasn't low-hanging fruit 50 years ago. It is today.
The Voyager missions were/are awesome. Sad you find them worthless.
What took what whom so long? Cassini-Huygens, a NASA/ESA collaboration, didn't get launched until 1997.
And what giants are you talking about? Wernher von Braun? NASA? Are you talking about the US? I am talking about the UK vs ESA.
Be precise, anonymous coward.
The Moon certainly wasn't low-hanging fruit 50 years ago. It is today.
It seems Space agencies are able to plonk little robots on all sorts of space bodies these days.
What would be impressive would be to bring it back safely.
Or even more impressive, send humans and "return them safely back to earth". That remains the single greatest technological achievement to date. 50 years unsurpassed. Still mind blowing, to build a vehicle capable of lifting 100 tonnes to low earth orbit. Then blast out of that orbit to another orbit round the moon. Detach a lander to the surface, humans get out and walk, drive a car that they brought along, play golf, pick up some rocks.
Then they get back in their little lander, and take off to meet their orbiting vehicle. Transfer to the orbiting vehicle and then blast out of orbit on a trajectory that takes them back to earths orbit. Then re-enter the atmosphere like a meteorite. Do that several times without losing a life on the actual missions.
Top that. Anybody.
England can go 'brexit' itself. Meanwhile, Scotland, with its satellite know how centred in Glasgow, will sail away - ending the UK - I assume your English arrogance is strong.
English Germany/Dutch owned Airbus Defense and Space including SSTL makes Scotland's Swedish owned Clyde space look a little bit wee.
Careful with that arrogance, it's bites back.
Check out THE BRITISH INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY
https://www.bis-space.com/
They have been going for decades. The UK has had a lot of important and impressive scientists working on such technology. It was never a technical problem. Rather it was, as it always is, the management that decided no, we will hand this over to the US. Or keep it secret as with HOTOL. The guiding principle seems to be to kill off all British space research and endeavour.
Dan Dare remains pretty good, though.
2019 - Chinese mission lands on the Dark Side of the Moon - High-fives all round etc
2020 - China launches 3 more missions to establish small colony for "scientific research"
2022 - China announces scientific discovery of vast precious metal mineral seams and claims squatters rights to Dark Side of the Moon. International outcry and condemnation follows. China ignores the problem and sets up first Lunar mines.
2023 - US opens first Lunar McDonalds
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No problem - Fake moon: Could China really light up the night sky
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I agree that it would be nice to see new photos of where Neil and Buzz landed but, IMO anyway, it would be wrong to take anything away from the site or have somebody else's grubby tracks stomping over the Apollo 11 bootprints. IOW put up a barrier 50m outside the places they wandered round and add a few frikken lasers to emphasize KEEP OUT: THIS MEANS YOU.
The near side has always been shades of grey; and the Apollo 17 crew got all excited when they found any traces of colour at all.
Now the Chinese have landed on the far side, and all the images are distinctly shaded red.
Insert Red = Communism jokes here...
The far side of the Moon has been far-too-often been incorrectly referred to as the "dark side" of the Moon. Idiots.
With this landing, most reporters have recently been very careful to refer to it as the "far side".
It's suddenly (and thankfully) gone from worse than 50% "dark side" nonsense to nearly 95% "far side" correct.
That alone makes this a highly successful mission.
Thank you.