China Exclusive: China to send Chang’e-4 to south pole of moon’s far-side, Xinhua
“China aims to send the Chang’e-4 lunar probe to land in the south pole region of the far side of the moon in 2018, according to China National Space Administration (CNSA). Scientists plan to send a relay satellite for Chang’e-4 to the halo orbit of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point L2 in late May or early June 2018, and then launch the Chang’e-4 lunar lander and rover to the Aitken Basin of the south pole region about half a year later, said Liu Tongjie, deputy director of the CNSA’s Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center. “We plan to land Chang’e-4 at the Aitken Basin because the region is believed to be a place with great scientific research potential,” Liu told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.”

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35 replies on “China's Growing Lunar Ambitions”

  1. There’s your shot across the bow, fellas…
    by the way who else is headed to L2 in 2018? 😉

    1. If you’re referring to JWST, it is going to the Sun-Earth L2 point not the Earth-Moon L2 point.

    2. Except that is not the point that is valuable, but a halo orbit around it. A relay satellite on the point would not be visible from Earth.

  2. Obama is too stupid to know that we should be leading, not following, the charge back to the moon.

    China is interested in the moon for economic and MILITARY purposes. Once OBAMA surrenders the “High Ground” the U.S. will be forever at the mercy of the Chinese. Is OBAMA a succesful “Manchurian Candidate” for China? Seems so in so many ways.

    2. Why would you want to put a base there? What possible military role can it have? A quarter of a million miles away and hanging in plain sight.

      Plus using He3 mined for fusion is dumb and much harder to do than the vastly simpler D-T fusion that we so far have been unable to make usable after 70 years of trying.
      Asteroids would be a better place to get minerals.

      Early military fantasy project:

      http://i2.wp.com/www.defens…

      I want to have the Moon colonized (and I would live there in a second), but military use is a dead end.

      1. The militarization of space is inevitable.

        The Outer Space Treaty is, if you will a set of “speed limit signs” in space with no effective means of enforcement.

        At some point in the near future, two parties will find themselves in conflict over a location on a heavenly body – probably related to resources. One party has occupied or “claimed” a location and another party wants the resources.

        If this were the movies it would be an individual, corporation or government that has followed the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty and has “claimed” a location and is engaged in lawful activities at that location. The second party is the “claim jumper” that wants either the resource or to deny the legitimate claimant from pursuing lawful activities.

        With no police (read MILITARY) force it is just like the Wild Wild West! The only law will be the law of whoever has the biggest stick!

        The first Moon base, if established by bad actors, could effectively deny access to the Moon and Cislunar space to all others. A simple solar powered rail gun on the Moon could launch simple kinetic weapons to intercept anything launched from the Earth towards the Moon. Present technology relies on a launch from Earth with a trans Lunar injection rocket burn which will leave the spacecraft coasting on a ballistic trajectory to a point in Lunar or Cislunar space where additional delta V is expended in one or more rocket burns to either enter Lunar orbit or land on the Moon or enter into a lissajous orbit around one of the Earth-Moon Langrangian points. Except for minor “mid course corrections” there is not enough delta V on board most spacecraft to make significant trajectory changes. A base on the Moon can see the spacecraft coming for, literally, days providing ample time to fire multiple clouds of kinetic weapons into the most likely paths of the spacecraft. In any case, the launch preparations would likely provide additional days of warning that a launch is imminent.

        A base, particularly one on the non Earthward side of the Moon, would be a perfect place to establish a military presence with an Earth facing forward observation post. Activities of the base would be hidden from Earth observation and the forward observation post would provide advanced warning.

        1. Your post makes zero sense. It is like a 1930’s pulp scifi magazine mixed with 1960’s Heinlein.
          With no police (read MILITARY) force it is just like the Wild Wild West! The only law will be the law of whoever has the biggest stick!
          Completely untrue.
          China is militarily vulnerable via sub or icbm or bomber right here on earth (and even more vulnerable economically). Death rays and catapults from the Moon would be pointless adventurism.
          The surface of the moon is FOUR TIMES the area of the United States. China nor anyone else is gonna reserve it for themselves!

        2. More likely it will be trying to blind the other by taking out their space assets without leaving a trail to follow. Folks forget how importance space has become to the U.S. military.

          1. GPS is heavily integrated into our military machine and it leaves some serious vulnerabilities.

          2. Of course and kinetic weapons from the Moon could very selectively and easily knock out gps satellites with well known orbits in precision strikes — and any other satellites with known orbits as well, LEO, MEO, or Geosynchronous orbits. It would actually be extremely simple. Satellites in orbit are predictable in the extreme. Plotting an intercept for kinetic weapons launched from the moon would be absolute childsplay. Those satellites would never be looking for an attack from the Moon, only from Earth and this presumes an active system to evade ASAT weapons which most commercial satellites do not have and only recent military satellites might have. Ion propulsion would not be fast enough to evade such an attack so hypergolics would be required to achieve the delta V necessary to evade such attacks.

          3. “Plotting an intercept for kinetic weapons launched from the moon would be absolute childsplay.”

            Then please give it a try. Plot the trajectory for an intercept with the precision that would be needed to actually hit a target at a range of >200,000 mile, with perturbations by Moon, Sun, and Earth.

          4. You can launch a small cloud of kinetic weapons. In essence they would be like today’s dumb bombs and you would add a terminal guidance system (similar to JDAM). It could be optical, radar, lidar, thermal, even GPS) I presume that the GPS network could be used to provide precision positioning in Earth orbit above LEO same as below it.

            Orbital perturbations are easy to account for once you know the gravity anomalies of the Earth and Moon. (oh and don’t leave Jupiter and Saturn out of the mix!)

          5. With projectiles from the Moon? That would leave a pretty clear trail to follow, if you could actually hit a satellite in Earth orbit with an unguided projectile from a range of over 200,000 miles.

      2. The H3 fusion reaction produces protons rather than the neutrons a.D-T reaction generates. That should mean it does not active the surrounding material and produce radioactive wastes. That is the whole point. Of course the people making that point are being quite optimistic, for the reasons you mention. But I’m not sure I’d call extreme optimism stupidity.

        1. A few things. Even the easier D-3He reaction takes MUCH more energy to initiate then the standard D-T reaction (which still after 70 years is a dead end) plus it does release a neutron in D-D side reactions. The direct 3He-3He reaction requires vastly more energy than the commercially out-of-reach D-3He reaction.

          The “dumb” aspect I mentioned was not the possibility of making it work, but instead, the wisdom of doing so.
          Its a case of our know how exceeding our know why.
          One very serious downside of helium3 fusion is that the copious proton production makes it a natural for atomic bomb production where the protons are streamed into lead or bismuth targets which produce neutrons for breeding fissiles.

          Plus these “paper reactors” will be competing with mature renewable sources and efficient energy end use that will out-compete enormous central power stations (regardless of source).
          It is a future technology whose time has passed.

        2. The idea of getting helium 3 from the Moon was developed specifically to find a rationale for going to the Moon, without bothering to check the facts. It has become a persistent urban legend. It has no basis in reality.

          Even if 3He fusion were possible, 3He is EASILY PRODUCED ON EARTH FROM THE DECAY OF TRITIUM!!! It’s not even particularly expensive to buy today. Getting it from the Moon would be absurd.

    3. By the way, both the US and China are legally bound to the Outer Space Treaty which says:

      Article IV
      … The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.

        1. So, China, after voluntarily, and while it was at its most extreme period of Red China, signing the treaty, will now, FOR NO SENSIBLE MILITARY REASON, violate that same treaty (which could not be concealed in any event)??
          You did not address the point that there is no value whatsoever in militarizing the moon.
          As an aside, China has taken the lead in actually trying to formally expand the scope of demilitarization of the treaty – a move the US opposes due to verification issues.

          1. Hmm. The argument could be made that China agreed to the treaty in an effort to hobble the US?

          2. It would make sense. When you are running decades behind, it makes sense to limit the gains of your competitors. This can be seen strongly in the treaties related to exploiting the sea beds.

          3. The last story to claim a military advantage for a base on the moon was Heinlein’s “The Long Watch (1949)”. Of course the development of modern ICBMs made such a strategy nonsensical. An ICBM fleet can strike its targets in a few minutes, days before warheads launched from the Moon could reach Earth. Of course exploring space in collaboration with China would help to develop an atmosphere of trust and understanding and act to prevent such a new cold war. Isn’t that better than doing our best to start one?

          4. Yes, it was initially the Russians that wanted to “hobble” the Americans after the Moon landings and and American dominance of space was a given. The Russians (and others) were intensely afraid that everything would be “claimed” by the U.S. long before a response could be launched. Neither the Soviet Union or the Communist Chinese had the budget to compete with the U.S. Space program. The Chinese lacked the technical capabilities and one could argue that the Russians likely lacked technical competency in deep space exploration at that time. It was a very crafty way to put the American Congress to “sleep” and turned out to be extremely effective because we have not returned to the Moon and we have not gone to Mars. All the other nations that ratified the treaty saw the same benefits. Congress, seeing no obvious threats in Cislunar or Martian space turned NASA into a Jobs program with the Space Shuttle that was limited to LEO. We hobbled ourselves with Space Shuttle. To some extent, ISS was also a way for the Russians to hobble future U.S. Space dominance by concentrating the U.S. on LEO.

            One thing to remember: Directed energy weapons from the Moon do not have the interference of the Earth’s atmosphere to hinder range and effectiveness for anti-satellite weapons such as directed energy or simple kinetic weapons. Missiles launched from the Moon do not have the tremendous disadvantages imposed by gravity compared to the Earth and can be smaller, cheaper and more difficult to counter. Simply put, weapons launched from the Moon could be “dumb bombs” with a JDAM like terminal guidance system once they reach Earth Orbital space to take out satellites or fixed ground targets.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi… was primarily about colonization of space, there were sections that dealt with the militarization of space (1976). He argued assiduously that OST was literally a surrender by the U.S. of the High Frontier.

        2. Good observation. China has signed the Law of the Sea Treaty, but their behavior in the South China Sea is in violation of the spirit of it if not the actual wording.

          http://www.cfr.org/global/g…

          And note that while military maneuvers are prohibited the OST does allow the use of military personal for exploration. The line in Article IV immediately after the one quoted above states.

          “The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited.”

          So they bring explosives and missile launchers to do scientific research and not for military purposes 🙂

  3. GO CHINA!! The U.S. manned space program not focusing on the Moon is in my opinion, a big mistake.

  4. There is plenty of room.

    I wonder if the Chinese will visit Luna, certainly at great cost, and determine there’s no ‘there’ there just like the US (apparently).

  6. NASA will always be able to buy the data from China. It’ll be an import situation, not regulated, and cheaper then sending their own mission. Market is good, right?

    1. How would NASA buy data from China? I’m not aware of anything in the budget about purchasing data from outside sources. (Note that the SpaceX Mars arrangement is an exchange of services, not dollars, for data.) I am aware of restrictions on NASA funding going to anyone working for the Chinese government. Also, I’m not sure if the Chinese government would want to sell the data, or what price they would set. The policy in the US and ESA is to make the data public after some period of time (zero to one year, depending on the mission.) China, to the best of my knowledge, has no such policy. So there isn’t a market price for data.

  7. I am not sure about the US,but China is not interested in a space race. If they lost they would look foolish. If they won, they would irritate their biggest customer, which is us. China’s goals in space are to 1) build pride in their domestic audience, 2) demonstrate their civil aerospace capabilities to potential customers, and 3) demonstrate that they have “joined the club” of the world’s leading nations. These goals are best satisfied by proceeding at thier own pace, not by getting involved in a race.

  8. For those quick to dismiss the notion of a Chinese military presence on the Moon, or the value of such a capability, have a look at today’s South China Morning Post – http://www.scmp.com/news/ch… which discusses debate in China over a manned ‘radar base’ on the lunar surface. Although the article acknowledges that there are views opposed and for such a development, it also notes that such a base might have a military role. With enough power from solar arrays, or a compact nuclear reactor, would a lunar-based radar system make military sense? Interested to hear thoughts about this.

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