a camera capable of two-metre resolution from a height of 400kms
One has to hope that when they get there, that either Curiosity or, preferably, the Martians, have drawn a great big willy in the sand.
China has successfully launched a Mars probe. The middle kingdom’s previous red planet effort, 2011’s Yinghuo-1, rode on a Russian rocket that failed to leave Earth orbit and therefore did not fulfill its orbital observation mission. For this new mission, dubbed Tianwen-1, China has used its own Long March 5 heavy lifter and …
Shouldn’t that be 5G of MCAT amongst the pidgeons amFM?, another great Chinese MK Ultra export?...... Cliff Thorburn
:-) No, CT, that would be misleading*, although I imagine the West would just love it to be so, just so that they do not have to try and compete with or against SMARTR Opponents with Components and Assets Travelling in a Virgin Space which they, the Chinese, may have cracked the leading codes for.
* the post was quite amusing though ..... and all too easily recognised as a possible and therefore probable cause of increasingly destructive home-based problems.
The supply of such 4G mandarin import ended as abruptly once future communication infrastructure began the next generational stages of stealthy supply.
It kinda makes for interesting moves does it not, now that the US has played its Trump card?, ready for a shuffle of the deck ready to begin the unearthing of yet another Russian Doll, revealing tantalising tactics of the next stages of red corner global Red and Mandarin alliance, against a change of guard in the motherland.
I guess the question, will the words “Back of the Queue” resonate a resurrection of promises of presidents past weakening further an already brittle Special Relationship?, with tension in a Union where all corners seek sanctuary in sanity of something that provides stability?
All to play for and interesting spectation in a great game coming soon/already here ‘the future is now’ kinda way :O)
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Have an upvote for the laugh.
To be fair, I believe Beagle 2 did actually land successfully and intact, just it failed to deploy its communications array properly once on the ground, so it should count as a landing. However it was British, although part of an ESA mission, so I'm not sure even then that the EU should get credited with a landing.
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I don't approve of China's government (or, for that matter, Russia's or the UAE's governments) but I applaud their space exploration efforts.
The next step will be a burn to put them on course to Mars which should happen relatively soon. I hope it goes well.
A pint of Tsingtao for the boffins.
agreed. the entire idea of privatizing space (so it becomes less prohibitively expensive to explore it) ought to include other nations' space programs as well as private companies in the USA, etc..
I wonder when India will send something...
/me wonders how long before a Russian company launches rockets from Baikonur... (or have I missed something?)
Russia is already looking at building a spaceport on it’s own soil or it could just be part of negotiations with the Kazakhs for the cost and access arrangements.
They might even tell the world about it before it’s built. Though the Americans and Chinese will want to know since a spaceport and a missile site have certain similarities.
That's a pretty weird way of looking at things for such a high risk venture. If a proven method works for what is a multi-year, multi-billion (insert currency of choice) project, then surely it makes sense to stick with it unless there is good reason not to or your intent is to prove out a different method. If "Getting there" is just part of the admin of getting the real job done it totally makes sense to copy what was successful previously. Labs all over the world "copy" techniques developed elsewhere precisely because they're proven to work