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If kids ruled the world, “Capture the flag” would decide all the boundaries. They would be ever shifting, and the battles would wage on. We are adults, and forget that a planted flag isn’t a permanent marker. Our flag on the surface of the moon will face another across the void of space. China has landed on the far side of the moon.
The best we can hope for in this situation is that they don’t find some resting Autobot and steal its technology to completely overtake the universe.
President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget request has effectively shut down NASAs five-year effort to return astronauts to the moon, leaving the U.S. space agency with lofty goals — but no firm deadlines — to once again send humans beyond Earth orbit.
“This space mission shows that China has reached the advanced world-class level in deep space exploration,” said Zhu Menghua, a professor at the Macau University of Science and Technology who has worked closely with the Chinese space agency. “We Chinese people have done something that the Americans have not dared try.”
“The Americans have not dared try.” Wow this makes me angry, because he’s right! Our country has been so busy trying to force a culture change that mimics the “United Federation of Planets” , that we forgot to focus on actual space exploration. The Chinese did not. The Chinese have been playing a massive game of “capture the flag” and kiss my bao-buns if you don’t like it.
Our leadership decries “imperialism”, while China plants a flag on a rock in disputed territory and dares someone to push them off. Then they terraform that rock and make it an outpost. What happens while the international courts decide who is “rightfully in place”? China puts people on that tiny bit of land, and expands it. David Tweed writes in Bloomberg on
China claims more than 80 percent of the South China Sea and has stepped up its military presence as well as constructing artificial land features. Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan claim parts of the same maritime area, a thriving fishing zone through which more than $3 trillion of trade passes each year. In a case brought by the Philippines, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2016 that China’s claims had no legal basis. China dismissed the ruling, saying the tribunal had no jurisdiction.
In case you are curious about what it looks like, here are pictures via China Xinhua News.
What does the far side of the moon look like?
China's Chang'e-4 probe gives you the answer.
It landed on the never-visible side of the moon Jan. 3 https://t.co/KVCEhLuHKT pic.twitter.com/BiKjh7Fv22— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 3, 2019
"It was a great challenge fulfilled in a short time, and with high difficulty and risks." Check out these breathtaking photos of Chinese lunar probe Chang'e-4's 12-minute landing on a crater on the far side of the moon https://t.co/hSm6uZsDcE pic.twitter.com/GeItoxhMX9
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 3, 2019
Meanwhile what’s left of NASA did tweet out this exciting information:
Our @NASANewHorizons scientists just released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored! Congratulations to the New Horizons team and @JHUAPL! https://t.co/sWHgykXmpu pic.twitter.com/9Geqcj7dq9
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) January 2, 2019
As I look over and see my sleeping 12 year old daughter, I am reminded of the bedtime stories I used to read. Like most kids, she had her favorites and most favorite was “Goodnight, Moon.” I never thought that in under a decade, I’d be watching her sleep whilst writing a post about “Goodbye, Moon.”
If you need a reminder of how it felt to be the first in the race to explore space, I offer this video. For now it’s in English.
Scott says: I guess there idea of Chang’e is a little different than the JEF’s…
I read about America’s loss of nerve and think of China’s history… China had a massive exploratory fleet that they scrapped as they turned inward.
Just like America is doing now.
China plans in eons, while America plans in decades. We really do ourselves a disservice by focusing so much of our mandatory education on Western Civilization and History. We would do better to study Asian history and civilization. It’s easy to dismiss the country that supplies so much of our disposable crap, while forgetting that very country had a vast civilization well before our country was discovered by a guy looking to expand a trade route to Asia. American politicians think the long game is the next election cycle. It’s going to bite us in the long run.
There’s a reason I want my kids to take Mandarin. We’ll see how it goes, but I think we have been caught flat footed on this one. Maybe if Elon Musk can keep his crap together we can work on a private venture for future settlements. Looks like private will be the best option to stay competitive.
F.D.R. in Hell says: Are you 100% certain this is authentic?
NC says: Well, as certain as anything in space can be authenticated…. Are you implying they did a CGI moon lading? Or that both NASA and China coordinated to fake a moon landing conspiracy?
F.D.R. in Hell says: I’m implying nothing; just asking a serious question.
Marta Hernandez says: I suppose it’s possible the Chinese would fake that for propaganda purposes, but who knows?
This is really interesting. I would not say we’re lost yet. But we should pay attention.
One of the very biggest developments the future decades will be the development of the economy in space; it will require development of property rights in outer space (currently supposedly prohibited by the international Outer Space Treaty, but that will prove a dead letter). The race is on, now, to do this, and whoever owns space will essentially run human civilization for the next few centuries. Fools in the Western nations who imagine the great global challenge is “sustainability” and that the great goal is to decarbonize and to detechnologize would hand the game to the Chinese. (I suppose everyone is aware Obama shut down space exploration to focus on climate change.)
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