Will it make a claim?
I sort of hope it does. It would bring things to a head with the problematic Outer Space Treaty.
[Update a few minutes later]
I haven’t looked at the pictures myself, but a reader has emailed me wondering if they’re potentially faked, based on inconsistent shadows, and similarity to past images (while not wanting to sound like the “Apollo moon hoax” people). I don’t have an opinion, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
My worry is that China will make a claim, the same way they claim everything that can be connected to China by a string wrapped around a globe, like Siberia, Tibet, big sections of the Pacific, islands in the Philippines, and that the world of course will reject the claim the way they reject almost all Chinese claims of sovereignty and territorial possession, and thereby enforce the line against any such things.
I doubt it’s a hoax. Too many people around with large telescopes. They could humiliate the Chinese on the world’s stage, can’t have that.
Besides, they’ve put people in orbit. Is it really that hard to put a small rover on the Moon? The Soviets did it with 1960s technology.
You probably couldn’t see the lander even with the most powerful telescope. LRO can probably image it from lunar orbit and probably will. From what I recall, no one actually saw any of the Apollo spacecraft orbit or land on the moon. However, if they know the correct frequency, skilled ham radio operators could likely pick up the Chinese lander’s radio signals from the moon. It’d be rather difficult to fake that. Some hams did track the Apollo missions and receive the radio signals.
a reader has emailed me wondering if [the pictures are] potentially faked…
Of course, it could be “potentially” faked. The Moon “potentially” may be made of blue cheese. The question is, is it reasonable that the images would be faked?
I don’t have the absolute answers to the following, but I believe it is possible for a rocket, launched from Earth, to reach the Moon. I believe that it is possible to soft-land a payload on the Moon, and I believe it is possible for a robotic vehicle to roll onto the lunar surface. That said, is anyone questioning if China launch a rocket to the Moon? Is anyone questioning that their payload soft-landed on the surface?
We have the ability to monitor signals coming from the Moon. Even if encrypted, a carrier should be detectable. Is anyone in Russia or the USA claiming that there are no signals coming from the Moon? So, if they indeed launched a rocket to the Moon, and if they indeed landed on the Moon, is it that far fetched that they actually accomplished rolling onto the surface?
This sounds *exactly* like the Apollo Hoax people.
A hoax would be pretty stupid considering LRO is still operational.
CNN had someone on to discuss ‘The State of the US Space Program’. It was the predictable “Oh, NASA is the only game in town, New Space is boys with toys playing in LEO.”
I sort of hope it does.
Seriously? You want China to commit itself to militarily opposing American (and all other attempts) to land on the moon?
Your sentiments remind of the disappointment expressed in some space advocacy circles when it turns out a particular asteroid will not impact the earth.
You want China to commit itself to militarily opposing American (and all other attempts) to land on the moon?
No.
Did I say I hoped it would claim the entire moon? No, I did not.
Did I say I hoped it would claim the entire moon? No, I did not.
Fair enough. Exactly what claim do you sort of hope they make?
I hope they make a territorial claim for mining.
The images look a bit oversaturated, but that may be a choice of the folks running the mission. They released footage of the landing, which appeared to be completely legit, I don’t see a good reason to doubt the authenticity of this mission.
I think the landing is legit, until I see evidence to the contrary.
I remember when they performed a spacewalk a few years ago, somebody claimed that the video was faked. Supposedly air bubbles were visible. Then again, I dimly remember that same charge being leveled against the film footage of Alexei Leonov’s 1965 spacewalk when I was a child. Sounds like sour grapes to me. They were probably just camera artifacts.
I wish China well, along with India and its Mars orbiter. As Douglas Adams said, “Space is big.” There is plenty of room for everybody.
(After the launch of Shenzhou 9 on its docking mission to the Tiangong 1 space station, I left a comment on a YouTube video saying that as an American, I wished them a successful mission. I can’t find it now, but for a while I had the top-rated comment, with others saying things like, “Thank you! You are great friend of China!”
Hey, just doing my part for international peace, love, and understanding. đ
(while not wanting to sound like the âApollo moon hoaxâ people)
But you just did and this is extremely disappointing. So many people joined to watch the launch live, tracked the probe on the way to the moon, and everyone who really cares about humanitys progress in space was watching the lander zero in on the landing spot rover rolling off the lander on a live broadcast – you know, it was televised. LRO and LADEE were aiming at the thing at the same time. Maybe these are hoaxes too.
Sheesh
But you just did
Really?
Moon-hoax people make claims that it was a hoax. I must have missed where I did that.
You didn’t make the claim. But in raising the issue, you “sounded” like them. Which, ironically, is what you stated you didn’t want to do.
I disagree. I was simply tossing out a topic for discussion.
And you did this without even looking at the pictures? Such integrity on your part, fishing for hits from moon hoaxers. Bravo, sir. But I suppose there already is a substantial overlap between conservatives and moon hoaxers, so it may pay off in hit counts. Nicely done!
Such integrity on your part, fishing for hits from moon hoaxers.
Well, if you were shooting to post the dumbest comment yet, congrats.
Yes, because ESA tracking and telemetry stations are all in on the vast conspiracy.
There is a topic of discussion, and then there is just stuff that you .. run into on internet.
Well, if you were shooting to post the dumbest comment yet, congrats.
I was too late for that, I’m afraid. Your “[Update a few minutes later]” addition already beat me to the punch. Hard to top that one.
(while not wanting to sound like the âApollo moon hoaxâ people). I donât have an opinion, but I wouldnât put it past them.
There’s no rational reason to suggest a hoax, I doubt a hoax is even possible.
Will it make a claim?
I sort of hope it does.
If you think China making a Lunar claim is even remotely possible because they’ve landed this probe on the Moon, you’re not living in the real world.
Thereâs no rational reason to suggest a hoax, I doubt a hoax is even possible.
I think it extremely unlikely, but wondering why you want to not allow it to be discussed at all.
If you think China making a Lunar claim is even remotely possible because theyâve landed this probe on the Moon, youâre not living in the real world.
Well, we are all entitled to our “real worlds,” regardless of how “real” they are.
I think it extremely unlikely, but wondering why you want to not allow it to be discussed at all.
Dammit, you got me, I confess, I’m a Chinese secret agent just doing my job, which is to sew doubt amongst those who might discover The Truth about our fake Moon landing.
Why would you feel compelled to make such an idiotic “confession”? Surely you can’t imagine that it helps the cause of “catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.”
Surely you canât imagine that it helps the cause of âcatastrophic anthropogenic climate change.â
Sorry, are you suggesting that you imagine that I imagine that this has something to do with CAGW?
Haven’t I always made it clear that I don’t promote CAGW as a probable outcome? After all, I work for the Ministry of State Security of the People’s Republic of China (MSS), not the environmentalists.
How is it not possible? The rover is there, and if it or successor robots actually do actually mine some valuable material, China needs only give one year notice to remove its name from the Moon treaty.
It doesn’t fit with the reality of the situation, what resources could the rover find in its location that would be economic to mine within the next 40 years? If it did find something exceptional, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the lid on it rather than announce a claim which would immediately lead to investigation by China’s competitors?
At this stage the US Russia, and Europe are likely to beat China in a race to Manned missions and exploitation of Lunar resources.
There is way more to the moon hoax claims than commonly thought.
Back in the 1970’s and early 1980’s many of us feasted on what was called “government cheese”, an unearthly delightful cheese that is best described as a blend of American and Cheddar. They never really explained where such a wonderful cheese came from, and they never remotely explained why the supply of it dried up.
To those of us in the know, the answer is pretty obvious. The Apollo program was a sham, and the main thing they brought back was thousands of tons of cheese, just based on how much government cheese everyone ate. Their vehicles must have been far larger than admitted, and their payloads thousands of times larger.
We shifted to the LEO Space Shuttle program, and the government cheese just dried up. Nobody ever really figured out where the cheese came from, they just made some strained hand waving about dairy programs, and yet have never explained why nobody on Earth seems to be able to replicate the “government” cheese, even though you’d think that between government and private industry somebody would’ve written down the secret to making it. The denials strain belief.
The truth is, the government can’t replicate “government” cheese because the government got the cheese from the moon, and didn’t spend any time or resources in figuring out how the moon was making that cheese. The Chinese are now up there with a rover, and of course they’ll realize what everybody knows, that so many Chinese are lactose intolerant that they can’t recoup their investment in a lunar program without making China’s smog problems far, far worse.
One day we’ll know the truth about the Apollo program, because Buzz Aldrin, Chris Kraft, or someone else will spill the beans on the cheese, or the cheese on the beans, and people will start to look on the moon as either a potential resource or as an unlicensed competitor to our heavily subsidized dairy farms.
.
There are of course other levels of fakery. It’s highly unlikely that they wouldn’t launch a rocket (too easy to prove). As others have noted, they also certainly have sent their craft to the moon (again, too easy to prove otherwise). This doesn’t discount all kinds of fake. Why not prepare some footage in advance? It’s a low risk way of increasing the chances of a propaganda success.
Can anybody explain why the image quality from the Chinese mission is so poor? Viking 1 and 2 sent back better images of Mars in 1976. Overall, Chinese space technology might be close to Apollo level, but that doesn’t apply to digital cameras. So why are the images so terribly unclear? Is there a good reason for this? Some technical issue that would require them to send very low resolution images? I mean this as a serious question. I hope someone can answer this.
>>Can anybody explain why the image quality from the Chinese mission is so poor?
Because all posted images are screen grabs of screen grabs ! You must have missed the live broadcast of the landing and rover deployment, where most of the screen grabs were taken from. If you actually paid attention, you would know how most of the western media obtained the images.
And the reason why they dont have the original high res data is that they cant speak mandarin.
Yes, the poor quality images are indeed pictures taken of computer monitors and projected images. Not the best quality at all.
But the original data should eventually be posted here – or a sister site: 159.226.88.59:7779/CE1OutENGWeb/
(A Site that has data sets from the previous two lunar orbiters)
Thanks for the link. I’ll watch for better images here.
So that would explain why the CCTV13 (China Central TV) coverage has the same level of resolution? That doesn’t seem to explain it. If you could direct me to some footage showing higher resolution, I’d be most grateful, but so far I haven’t been able to find any. Chinese media images that I’ve been able to find are no better. There’s only one somewhat higher res shot that I’ve been able to find, and that’s the more elevated one clearly taken from the camera on top of the lander, and this is taken after the rover has turned around and face back towards the lander in order to show off the Chinese flag. At least I presume that was the reason to do it. Oddly, the video footage of Jade Rabbit rolling off the lander always cuts off before it turns. It ought to be out there, but I’ve not succeeded in finding it yet. If for some reason the elevated camera is simply a better camera with higher resolution, then it’s annoying that they seem to have used exactly one still image from it.
This seems to be typical of Chinese language videos out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEMyliWcFW0
Anyone else got any suggestions? The low res isn’t caused by it just being screen grabs. Distortions at one point seem to be caused by the use of an extremely wide angle lens, but the resolution seems to get even worse as the rover rolls down the ramp.
>> that would explain why the CCTV13 (China Central TV) coverage has the same level of resolution?
Do you understand how the broadcast media works ? What comes out of CCTV is ALREADY massively downsampled and decimated image – because they get it through CASC official live feeds – and this just a regular TV feed. Its video, not images, and whatever you grab out of video is always going to look like shit.
The properly calibarted high resolution imagery has simply not been put together and released to the press.
I’m going to hazard a guess here: you know a lot more about the space program and technology than me. I’d also be prepared to bet that my knowledge of China outweighs yours to a similar degree.
First off: CASC and CCTV are both state organs. Second, when it comes to pre-prepared propaganda events, the degree of coordination between different branches of the Chinese state is a wonder to behold. (When something catches them by surprise, they tend to freeze all responses until they can come up with a coordinated response.) Third, did you notice who they have sitting there, prominently watching the landing (at 0.42 in the following clip)? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyuyjjB6cV4
That’s the Chinese president.
Next, you may recall that in 1995, the Chinese launched a rocket live on TV … that promptly blew up. Almost immediately, someone pulled the plug on the broadcast. I still recall seeing the screen turn to hash. Chinese news reports said 6 people died, and 23 were injured in the accident, though foreign analysts reckon the toll was probably a lot higher. In 1996 another launch failed. At first they claimed a similar number of casualties, then they upped to 20-something dead. Then video footage taken by a foreign worker came to light, and suddenly it was in the 50s dead… and few if anyone outside China believes this final figure. After these experiences, the Chinese learned a lesson about the risks of live coverage, so now they are very cautious with live TV… and in this case, the president is sitting right there in the room watching it all unfold live!
Look at this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFT3UhZ5cq8
Especially look at the part around 2.45, where a computer graphic image shows the Chinese lander descending, and as the computer image touches down, everyone claps.
The whole event is very carefully choreographed, and that is only to be expected. They wouldn’t do it any other way. So … back to the original point: no one is saying China didn’t send a moon mission, and no one is saying that it didn’t land a craft on the moon. This isn’t a moon landing hoax thread (except from folks who chose to misinterpret what Rand said at the start). I should note too, that I share your contempt for moon landing hoaxers. My skepticism is of the media management, and the immediate images that have been released. With any propaganda event in China, the rational FIRST premise has to be that it is stage managed in every shape and form that CAN be stage managed. Clearly with a moon landing, there are events that can only be left to chance, but they would do everything they could to reduce all other possible risks for embarrassment. I’ll have no problem admitting that my suspicions turned out to be wrong when better images of the same scenes appear, since I’d personally give my doubts about a 25% chance of being right.
Just by way of context, let me add the following concerning an accident in China last month. It’s the directive from the Chinese government to all media outlets in the country (these kinds of things get regularly leaked and reported outside of China):
“Central Propaganda Department: All media must strictly control the proper guidance of contents [information] concerning the oil pipeline explosion in Qingdaoâs Huangdao open economic zone. It is absolutely forbidden to dispatch reporters to the site of the incident. Corresponding reports must accord with authoritative information issued by the departments handling the accident. Internet and print media may not assemble overviews of previous serious safety accidents; may not exaggerate or speculate [on the story]; may not publish irresponsible commentaries; and may not guess at the cause and responsible [parties] [of the accident]. (November 24, 2013)”
A conspiracy so vast…
spaceflightnow.com/china/change3/131214landing
Two European Space Agency tracking antennas were called up to receive signals from Chang’e 3 on Saturday. One of the European-owned ground stations in Australia tracked the lander throughout its descent, and another near Madrid was on standby to pick up a signal from Chang’e 3 a few hours after landing.
The New Norcia station near Perth received a strong signal from Chang’e 3 throughout its descent, according to an ESA official at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
[snip]
Using quasars, bright beacons at the hearts of distant galaxies, ESA can attain precise position estimates for spacecraft flying through deep space. Chang’e 3 will be the first time the technique — Delta-Differential One-Way Ranging, or delta-DOR — has been used for a stationary probe on the surface of another celestial body.
In the delta-DOR technique, engineers compare the exact time a spacecraft’s signals are received at two ground stations — in Australia and Spain for the Chang’e 3 mission. The antennas simultaneously track a quasar, which have known locations, to correct for errors induced by radio signals passing through the Earth’s atmosphere.
The conspiracy will get even more half-vasted next week when the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft attempts to capture images of the lander and rover. There are imaging opportunities on the 24th and 25th.
Why do you have to go and bring such a pesky thing as reality in to this? This will just disturb Rand’s reach-out to his Moon Hoaxer friends. đ
But wait – Pretty soon another hoax or conspiracy idea will be floated using the good old “a reader has emailed me” technique.
This will just disturb Randâs reach-out to his Moon Hoaxer friends
My what?
Only someone utterly ignorant of me and my history could fantasize that such things exist.
I know a person who believes the earth is flat. He argues a round earth is a hoax perpetrated by the powers that be. I don’t have an opinion, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
Ilya Somin at Volokh has a post up on this topic.