moon landing, Apollo 11, and Neil Armstrong, the telescope and the black-and-white television. It is a story. But the fascination for the moon is back, as the worldwide interest in the first landing on the far side of the moon at the beginning of the year has shown. Had succeeded the Chinese with their probe, Chang’e-4, named after the Chinese goddess of the moon. Beijing is not recorded so that only a Prestige success. Rather, China now belongs definitely to the exclusive circle of world powers, with the United States, Russia, and – of lesser importance – the European Union, Japan, and India. The Chinese are a real Premiere.
Since the end of the Cold war, it has been cooperating in the space-Club. As the space Shuttle remained from 2011, on the ground, flew to ISS, US astronauts using Russian Soyuz rockets to the International space station. This is still the case, although the tensions between the US and Russia have increased due to the crises in the Ukraine and in Syria; the universe, however, remained of sanctions spared.
If the harmony persists in the Orbit, however, seems questionable. For China to colonize the moon with Outpost, not dissimilar to those in the South China sea. President Xi Jinping has made aerospace a priority of the Communist party of China will not only be the world’s number 1, but also in space.
Chang’e-4 was also not the end of the moon program, but the end of the Beginning. The strategic goal of the Chinese was on the moon a base to explore the universe, writes Namrata Goswami. The Indian security expert advises the government in Delhi and published in the United States on the topic of “space and major powers”. At the lunar South pole, hundreds of millions of tons of water are suspected, what are the two most important components for rocket fuel would be available for hydrogen and oxygen. “That’s enough for countless missions to the edge of the solar system.”
gas station in space
so Far, the Radius of the humanity has remained limited, because the missile in outer space can not be refueled. This should succeed, it would be a quantum leap, since the movement requires much less energy once gravity is overcome: to transport a ton of cargo from our planet to outer space, it takes 19 tons of fuel; the guard of a ton is sufficient. So asteroids yields, circles around the sun are closed. These Mini-planets, contain vast resources, including iron ore, frozen water, Thorium, titanium, or platinum.
“The Chinese, it’s not just about the moon as a base,” says Namrata Goswami. You also want to exploit the moon itself, especially the South pole, the rich soil was appreciate. The Chinese probe has been placed, therefore, in the vicinity. During the Apollo 11 exploring the moon, to him, were the Chang’e-4. This is the first step towards the industrialization of the moon, a solar satellite. So sun, you could collect energy and the earth spread. “The Americans have no national programme for such large infrastructure projects,” says Namrata Goswami.
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced – with an eye on China’s ambitions in space – the Foundation of the US Space Force (USSF), the sixth U.S. armed forces. If Washington can respond to the Chinese Expansion, it remains to be seen. A political scientist Namrata Goswami is skeptical: “America and its leadership have not yet woken up.” At the least, has now announced but Trumps Vice on Tuesday that the United States should return within five years on the moon. “The first woman and the next man will be up there by American astronauts,” said Mike Pence in front of the national Raumfahrtsrat in Huntsville, Alabama, and he urged haste: “Failure is not an Option.”
This situation is reminiscent of the so-called Space Race in the 1950s and 1960s. Also Pence compared today’s Situation with the time when the super powers of a “space race” provided. It was a Cold war Thrill, almost like the ice hockey games between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, it was the Space Race not only of Propaganda success, but also to the development of ballistic missiles, the ferry, instead of a moon, a nuclear warhead could carry.
The Chinese probe Chang’e-4, landed on 3. January 2019 on the back of the moon. Photo: Keystone
The Soviets had surprised in 1957 with the flight of the Sputnik, the world and the Western governments are shocked. In Switzerland, you responded with the introduction of set theory in mathematics, the Nato countries upgraded, and the United States invested in the development of missiles. Moscow, however, triumphed again and again, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin flew as the first human into space, circled many times the earth and ended up as a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Under pressure to act, US President John F. Kennedy, seemingly reaching for the stars, as he announced shortly thereafter, to bring to the end of the decade, a man on the moon and safely back: “We have chosen the moon as a target, not because it is easy to get to, but just because it is difficult.” 21.In July 1969, fulfilling the promise of Neil Armstrong Kennedy. Switzerland, too, rejoiced and invented the rocket-Glace. With the residue into the race started, the USA was the world’s admired the winner.
This Time, we stay on top
If again, such a comeback can succeed, is controversial. But the US want to go back to the moon. Startled by the Chinese success, Trump shifted the focus of Nasa from Mars back to the moon. “This Time, if we fly to the moon, we will stay,” said Jim bride Stine, the chief of the U.S. space Agency. Analogous to China, the U.S. is also planning an Outpost.
Meanwhile, the Chinese already practice it, to survive on the moon. At the Beihang University in Beijing simulated by the Chinese in 2017, a research station on the moon. Eight students lived 365 days with a bioregenerativen Support System: the subjects of The recycled oxygen, water and food, and raised potatoes, wheat, onions, and carrots. According to Namrata Goswami also had a successful world premiere. Whether or not people can survive on the moon for extended periods of time, remains unclear. It is undisputed that China will continue in the next 10 to 15 years, a lot of it, to create the technical preconditions for this.
Not all of the space travel experts in the West, the Chinese success to worry. Adam Minter, a technology expert at Bloomberg, refers to the fact that in the USA, not only the state of Nasa take care of the space. “Dozens of companies offer their services from the construction of small satellites to exploration of the moon,” writes Minter, lives temporarily in Shanghai. He refers to Elon Musk, who has recently graduated with his company Spacex for a successful Test. The new capsule Crew Dragon is designed to fly in the future, U.S. astronauts to the ISS. Or on Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. The richest man in the world is planning for 2023 an unmanned landing on the moon.
Namrata Goswami from India remains skeptical: “to rely on a few idealistic billionaires, is a risky strategy.” The US Vice-President, the private initiatives, however, located to the Nasa, he is “accused of bureaucratic slowness”, pressure: “If commercial rockets are the only way to bring American astronauts in five years, to the moon, then it will be a commercial rocket,” said Pence.
so Who can prevail in a technological race, a rigid Communist dictatorship or a liberal democratic society? This is the Central question in the Space Race of the 21st century. Century. As already in the forerunner in the 1960s.
(editing Tamedia)
Created: 27.03.2019, 18:24 PM
