China scientists propose both a communications and GPS-type infrastructure on the Moon
In line with the remarkably rational and long term plans China has developed for exploring the solar system, Chinese scientists have proposed the country develop both a communications and GPS-type infrastructure on the Moon, with both including constellations of satellites in orbit as well as facilities on the ground.
A first phase would establish satellites in elliptical frozen orbits around the moon. A second phase would see further … satellites and spacecraft at Earth-moon Lagrange points 1, 2, 4 and 5, a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), and a spacecraft in geostationary orbit, termed a cislunar space station.
A third and final phase would add satellites in existing and new distant retrograde orbits (DRO), forming a near-moon space and extended space constellations. The system also includes comprehensive ground-based facilities.
While this plan is simply a proposal, it fits with China’s overall strategies for lunar exploration, all of which are designed carefully so that they can be scaled up for more complex operations there as well as elsewhere in the solar system. And based on China’s track record in space in the past decade, we should be entirely confident this program or some variation will be built.
That is, unless China undergoes a major economic collapse and a change in leadership that has different priorities.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In line with the remarkably rational and long term plans China has developed for exploring the solar system, Chinese scientists have proposed the country develop both a communications and GPS-type infrastructure on the Moon, with both including constellations of satellites in orbit as well as facilities on the ground.
A first phase would establish satellites in elliptical frozen orbits around the moon. A second phase would see further … satellites and spacecraft at Earth-moon Lagrange points 1, 2, 4 and 5, a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), and a spacecraft in geostationary orbit, termed a cislunar space station.
A third and final phase would add satellites in existing and new distant retrograde orbits (DRO), forming a near-moon space and extended space constellations. The system also includes comprehensive ground-based facilities.
While this plan is simply a proposal, it fits with China’s overall strategies for lunar exploration, all of which are designed carefully so that they can be scaled up for more complex operations there as well as elsewhere in the solar system. And based on China’s track record in space in the past decade, we should be entirely confident this program or some variation will be built.
That is, unless China undergoes a major economic collapse and a change in leadership that has different priorities.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The PRC is already undergoing the early stages of a general economic collapse. One can admire the ambition and scope of PRC plans for space while also appreciating that they will prove impossible to actualize with a national economy whose foundations are busily turning to quicksand.
But you said the same thing two years ago….
These aren’t a bunch of drunk slaves, you know.
The old joke about a well organized outfit looking like a “Chinese Fire Drill?”
There is a little something to that.
Xi is a villain–but he’s their villain.
One of the better superhero cartoons from the 1990s-early 2000s had Superman being brainwashed into attacking Earth.
In his fury he almost killed a villain named Darksied, whose body he threw to the masses below. “You’re free.”
What happened next astounded Kal-El
The oppressed masses gingerly gathered up Darksied and carted their leader off–their oppressor was their hero.
Go figure.
Not to just cast shade on good Chinese scientists but I bet all these proposals have already been out in the wild.
The real sad thing is that China will more than likely start the process and thus set the standards.
Instead of multiple missions to progressively set a GPS-Internet system around the Moon, why don’t they just launch their Starship with dozens of Starlink-GPSs and be done with it? Oh yes, they have no Starship (fleet). Point being, we have little to worry about.
They don’t have Starship–yet.
These guys are willing to drop cores on their own populace–the polar opposite of Green fools who would put obstacles in Musk’s path.
Imagine Elon defecting to China—
They’d give him his own Mittlewerk Archipelago
And would produce Starships by the gross.
A part fails–they’d be executions.
That’s more frightening than Iran getting The Bomb (the Sampson Option post-Tel Aviv would stay their hands).
Jeff,
I said it two years ago because it was also true then – it’s only gotten worse in the interim. The conventional wisdom back in the late 80s was that we’d have to deal with the Soviet Union indefinitely. Ooops. The PRC is following the same path, but more quickly and after a very late start.
The PRC economy of the past 45 years has been based on making low-cost stuff for foreigners to buy. But, in the rich countries, there aren’t as many foreigners in the prime stuff-buying age cohorts as there used to be and none of them are willing to let what industries they have left be wiped out so the PRC can go on as it has over the past 4+ decades. The PRC, itself, has the same population problem at home – even worse, actually. There is no way its own population can absorb all the goods it now makes for export. Something’s got to give and the PRC has no real leverage to keep neo-protectionism in the West – and elsewhere – at bay.
Ignore all of this if you want to. You, lord knows, have plenty of company in doing so. But the laws of demographics and economics are nearly as inflexible as the laws of physics. Sooner or later, the equations will balance. I think that time will be fairly soon and I also think it won’t be very pretty when it happens.