Denying your opponent the use of space, be it Low Earth Orbit or points beyond in cislunar space, is hardly trivial. You would notice if the GPS, weather and communication functions of Earth’s satellite swarm were denied you. China and Russia understand this well, no matter how many people here may be stuck in their blinkered, reactionary opinion that “space is a waste of money”.
In this context, a pronouncement like this from the “leader”, or even the dementia-riddled tribal figurehead, of the US could be disastrous. Regardless of his proclivity to write his name in water, or the general understanding that we’re dealing with someone who was always emotionally and intellectually stunted, the world could watch as China starts to unlock the deeper potential of space science, while the USA grows aggressive and grasping in a domain where there are as yet no people, and no rules. Even with Trump gone, what do you suppose a President Hegseth or Vance would do in cislunar space? “Claiming” Luna isn’t feasible, unless you try to shoot down any craft landing there, but what about the Lagrange 2 point or the geosynchronous belt above Earth?
When you consider how Musk, Bezos and the FCC cabal have effectively been squatting in Low Earth Orbit with Starlink and other satellite constellations - to the point of crowding out other users - I wouldn’t put any of this past the post-Trump USA.
I wonder what would have happened if this imbecilic self-indulgence had come after China had successfully launched Chang’e 7. And by “wonder” I mean “dread”.
Chang’e 7, whose launch has been delayed, is a highly ambitious and comprehensive (uncrewed) lunar mission incorporating four separate vehicles into a single launch and mission: orbiter, fixed lander, rover, and - an innovative “hopper”, which has been previously implemented (by Japan) for landing on a small asteroid, but never a world as large as Luna, or as difficult to navigate.
This is definitely one of the most ambitious space probes ever to be assembled. One might even say the most ambitious, when you consider that the landing site is remarkably close to the South Pole - not the easier or safest region to visit, let alone properly explore. If this mission were going beyond Luna, I’d probably rank it in the same league as Viking or Cassini-Huygens - and in fact, depending on its longevity and science return, I ultimately might have to anyway.
Some have gone so far as to say that this mission represents the point where China’s spaceflight abilities are challenging, or even exceeding, the USA’s. I’ll leave that debate to the side here while noting that the science return from Chang’e 7 looks to be phenomenal and possibly groundbreaking, if they can pull this off. This isn’t a “flags and footprints” or purely nationalistic mission; China’s already done those. From the science standpoint, this looks like the real thing.
Those who consider Lunar science a dead and settled issue have some shocks coming, both geopolitically - because of the potential for exploitation of Lunar resources and development of military applications) - and scientifically. The equatorial and mid-lat regions of Earth’s Moon are not well-explored, despite what people think, with information about the origin and evolution of planets in general. And that’s before you consider that the Lunar South Pole could be a repository for comet and asteroid debris that is second to none. Explore that properly, return those samples to your labs, and you could be gathering data on the ultimate development of the atmosphere and biology on Earth.
It won’t, certainly not directly. It would help individual scientists if they can land funding from non-governmental sources, though.
I like your way of thinking here. I’m honestly not sure if the actual geologists working on lunar soil simulants today are more hardcore than Kubrick was back then.
With all the cuts to NASA and the American scientific enterprise generally, we could use this kind of angel perfectionist director these days. I wonder if Denis Villeneuve could be convinced to forget about Arrakis for a while and work closer to home…
Thanks for this post. People don’t understand about geology and context, I find. I would love to see more of your commentary in the Perseverance rover and Curiosity rover communities, although I do remember seeing you there in the past. My mineralogy is still rather basic, all told, and with the exotic lithologies Perseverance is uncovering (well, by Martian standards - granite and serpentine, yet!), your participation would be most welcome.
I don’t think the spacecraft are rotating in just the way you’d need to, but -
As the Voyagers speed away from the Sun at ~15 km/s, I sometimes visualize them as extending their booms upward each turn, like middle fingers, as they depart for greener blacker pastures.
I have to note that this is not correct. Chondrites make up the vast majority of meteorites, and even the most iron-rich chondrites contain much less than 50% iron by weight.
I haven’t been to Barringer Crater and I don’t know all the sweet, gory details of the big bolide that made it, but LPI seems to have a nice summary. The estimated 30 tons of meteoritic iron retrieved from the site certainly isn’t very much, and I have heard a variant of Agent641’s story before, so I’ll refrain on commenting there.
I’m a little sad thinking about all that oxidized iron, though. On Luna that stuff gets reduced instead, so that the regolith is peppered with little spheres of iron. Of course, here, we don’t get the little balls of iron, or much in the way of intact craters at all… damn it, we could use a few more.
Sighs Earth. For all the predators and the continent-busting rifts here, this place just isn’t very hardcore sometimes.