Made in China rover

Broken: http://news.discovery.com/space/chinas-jade-rabbit-lunar-lander-may-be-out-of-luck-140127.htm

/sad trombone

That is a shame. Expected, but a shame. They went from no space projects to putting a rover on the moon in record time, so growing pains are to be expected

Did it turn left from the right lane?

our rovers aren't perfect either. I just read one of ours has a wheel that won't turn left or right, and possibly kicked up a rock that showed up on some of their pictures. of course, it's 10 years past the expected life of its original mission of only a few weeks, but still, not perfect.

Rufledt wrote: our rovers aren't perfect either. I just read one of ours has a wheel that won't turn left or right, and possibly kicked up a rock that showed up on some of their pictures. of course, it's 10 years past the expected life of its original mission of only a few weeks, but still, not perfect.

i think Opportunity has had a bum wheel for like 5 years now.. Spirit was running in reverse for most of it's mission because of a dead wheel, and that's what led to it's demise when it got stuck for the winter with it's solar panels pointing in the wrong direction.

Last month my daughter did a school current events presentation on this thing. She got bonus points for talking about what a waste of the Chinese governments money and resources it was. Yesterday she was assigned another current events project. She decided to do it on the Jade Rabbit again and turn it into a discussion about cheaply made Chinese Wallmart crap that lasts half as long as it's suppose to.

I don't like seeing ambitious projects fail. I hope they can save it.

Considering that it's their first one, I think it did very well even if it didn't go as planned.

Shawn

tr8todd wrote: Last month my daughter did a school current events presentation on this thing. She got bonus points for talking about what a waste of the Chinese governments money and resources it was. Yesterday she was assigned another current events project. She decided to do it on the Jade Rabbit again and turn it into a discussion about cheaply made Chinese Wallmart crap that lasts half as long as it's suppose to.

see, I do not think of it as a waste money. To use the tag line from the X-Files. "the Truth is out there". Earth is a closed system and entropy will eventually kill it and everything on it. We -need- to get off of this rock if we are to survive as a species.

agreed, it costs more than my weight in diamonds to get to the moon, but they shouldn't stop because of a failure. NASA didn't stop when Challenger exploded, and now they are driving around on another planet.

Money gets lost, rovers crash, missions fail, and people die. That's the reality. It's always that way. Look at the settling of this country. Money, new resources, war, death, failures. In the end, here we are. The difference with space is that we won't be stealing Mars from the martians, people will only die on one side. Don't give up now. I'm waiting for a Mars rover race. I don't mean who can get more rovers up there, I mean line them up at the base of olympus mons, drop a green flag, and see who reaches the top first. Competition spurs advancement. America can't be the only one doing this or progress will be slow.

mad_machine wrote:

tr8todd wrote: Last month my daughter did a school current events presentation on this thing. She got bonus points for talking about what a waste of the Chinese governments money and resources it was. Yesterday she was assigned another current events project. She decided to do it on the Jade Rabbit again and turn it into a discussion about cheaply made Chinese Wallmart crap that lasts half as long as it's suppose to.

see, I do not think of it as a waste money. To use the tag line from the X-Files. "the Truth is out there". Earth is a closed system and entropy will eventually kill it and everything on it. We -need- to get off of this rock if we are to survive as a species.

Most of the technology we enjoy today is derived from stuff we ripped off from the Nazis after the war, 60s NASA(which used a lot of stolen German scientists), and various cold war berkeleyery(like the internet). So I'd say the government burning money on bleeding edge science is pretty important.

The goal of science is to fail, to prove yourself wrong, and learn from it, if you always get it right you aren't really asking many questions.

I'm hoping tr8todd's daughter got bonus points for presenting both sides of the story, both pro and con. If she got bonus points for just dissing it, that would explain a lot of internet posters...

Her point was China would have been better served spending money on infrastructure such as pollution controls, or efforts to stop the desertification of it's much needed farmland. She presented her argument well enough to score 110 out of 100 on her project.

tr8todd wrote: Her point was China would have been better served spending money on infrastructure such as pollution controls, or efforts to stop the desertification of it's much needed farmland. She presented her argument well enough to score 110 out of 100 on her project.

yes and no... when you figure out how little china spends on their space program (more than ours at least) that amount of money would not go very far taking care of their infrastructure. In all reality, when you compare how much you get out of a space program compared to what you put in, it is maximum bang for the buck

mad_machine wrote: see, I do not think of it as a waste money. To use the tag line from the X-Files. "the Truth is out there". Earth is a closed system and entropy will eventually kill it and everything on it. We -need- to get off of this rock if we are to survive as a species.

From that standpoint, spending money on space travel right now makes zero sense. We're not going anywhere unless we can blow through the speed of light like a literbike through a city speed limit.

I think it makes sense in terms of scientific research and establishing asteroid defense that would be needed to have a planet to launch from at some point in the future...but space colonization is beyond our reach right now like supersonic flight is to a caveman.

tr8todd wrote: Last month my daughter did a school current events presentation on this thing. She got bonus points for talking about what a waste of the Chinese governments money and resources it was. Yesterday she was assigned another current events project. She decided to do it on the Jade Rabbit again and turn it into a discussion about cheaply made Chinese Wallmart crap that lasts half as long as it's suppose to.

That's scary :o

Keith Tanner wrote: I'm hoping tr8todd's daughter got bonus points for presenting both sides of the story, both pro and con. If she got bonus points for just dissing it, that would explain a lot of internet posters...

You assume that lots of teachers are better than your typical everyday forum goer. Having met many recently graduated bachelor of education ladies lately, I would point to the contrary.

As the son of two teachers, the grandson of a teacher and someone who nearly went into education himself - I do assume lots of teachers are better than your typical everyday forum goer. I have copious personal experience with members of both cultures.

Of course, I also think 110% is ridiculous even when football coaches use the term.

In the case of China's space program, I'm with mad machine. The cost/benefit ratio of space exploration in terms of expanding knowledge and developing new technology is excellent, and the actual outlay is minuscule when compared to the cost to work on infrastructure. Nations should be going into space for the same reasons car companies should be racing.

tr8todd wrote: Her point was China would have been better served spending money on infrastructure such as pollution controls, or efforts to stop the desertification of it's much needed farmland. She presented her argument well enough to score 110 out of 100 on her project.

is she (and her teacher, and you) aware that they don't just stuff money into every nook and cranny in the rockets and launch it into space? or that every bit of money that was spent is still here on earth currently being spent on other stuff- like food and shelter for the families of the scientists, engineers, machinists, assemblers, and janitors that work at the facilities that made, launched, and operated that little rover?

There was a lot of complaining about the cost of the US space program too. But the side bennies: pacemakers, faster computers, specialized metal alloys, LEDs, infrared ear thermometers, better materials for tires, freeze drying, all kinds of stuff we then the cost/benefit ratio starts looking a lot better. If the kids who were inspired to go into engineering and the sciences are factored in, the benefits of that investment go even higher.

China needs to clean up their environmental act, yes. But remember this: the US went through the same thing in the 1960's and 70's, we cleaned up our act and put men on the moon as parallel developments.

Keith Tanner wrote: Of course, I also think 110% is ridiculous even when football coaches use the term.

Hey!

Stacking those cones and putting the balls in the mesh bag isn't as easy as it looks.

On the other topic, I'd rather have the tax dollars going for space exploration than some of the other crap we waste money on.

I'm pretty certain that no scientific breakthroughs are going to come from the bottom of a heroin spoon..

Keith Tanner wrote: I do assume lots of teachers are better than your typical everyday forum goer. I have copious personal experience with members of both cultures.

So do I, no need to be a dick about it! Clearly our experiences have differed, but I stand by my statement.

My point is that the OP's daughter sounds like she drank a bit too much of a political pundits/talking heads koolaid.

I wasn't being a dick.

It's cool on Internet forums to simply disparage anything as a knee-jerk reaction, based on nothing more than a 15-second read. It's tiresome for those who think about things. Hopefully this teacher is not reinforcing this behavior, and is instead reinforcing critical thinking backed up by reasoned arguments. Teachers are educated folks - they have to be in order to get a teaching degree - so even the poor ones should have some reasoning ability. And in my experience, there are many good ones for the few poor ones. There's a lot of thinning of the herd in the first few years, so you can't judge the teaching profession by someone with a shiny new diploma.

The amount of money spent on space programs is a good example. Those who have never looked into it assume that it's a massive line item in the national budget with no return other than bragging rights. So what if China did spend their space budget on infrastructure? What could they do with a budget of that size? Would it be worthwhile, or simply a sop to those who just have a knee-jerk reaction to seeing any sort of spending? What are the potential spinoffs? That's what teachers teach.

Making fun of Chinese rovers, realizing we go to the ISS on Russian rockets, is ludicrous.

Appleseed wrote: Making fun of Chinese rovers, realizing we go to the ISS on Russian rockets, is ludicrous.

the Chinese rover is dying a premature death... the Russian rockets have an impeccable safety record going back decades.

HiTempguy wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I do assume lots of teachers are better than your typical everyday forum goer. I have copious personal experience with members of both cultures.

So do I, no need to be a dick about it! Clearly our experiences have differed, but I stand by my statement. My point is that the OP's daughter sounds like she drank a bit too much of a political pundits/talking heads koolaid.

hopefully she just knows what the teacher wants to hear and says it to get good grades.. because that stuff totally goes on your permanent record..