So, now the USA can prove they finally went to the moon with pics of the bits n pieces they left behind courtesy of those kind Chinese folk?

Or not.

I know this has been asked on nearly every China/Moon post, but is there actually any chance that China will look for and photograph the previous US landing sites? I mean, they are there (sort of) and taking photos anyway.

Ever since the Daily Sport reported these intriguing stores I've been dying to knpw.

"Surely the most important task for these countries"

Actually, no. Other countries have absolutely no reason whatsoever to pander to the whims of the uneducated who insist that there even *is* a mystery.

Such people may wish to visit www.clavius.org or www.badastronomy.com if they want "the truth". Or they could continue living in a paranoid/delusional fantasy-world wherein the US govt can keep a 500,000-person conspiracy hidden, but cannot hide a single blow-job.

And AFAIK, neither of these probes have a resolution high enough to spot the landers. The moon is a lot larger than you may suppose, and the landers are very small. Anyway, even should such pictures emerge, it wouldn't matter to the truly committed conspiracy nuts.

Fortunately there is another US probe going up soon (the name escapes me) that will, indeed, have a spectacularly fine-resolution camera, and may well return pictures of the landers. (But not of the cheap, store-bought flags, which will have long-since been destroyed by the decades of UV.).

This may serve to convince a few fence-sitters of the reality of, well, reality. But the lunatics (pardon the pun), and the charlatans making money of this ridiculous urban legend, will decry it as a photo-chop from the eeevil NASA, who are still following the commands of the Illuminati, after all.

We need Google to sort it out as you can clearly see cars, buses, planes and presumably lunar rovers on those images, anyone got a spare satellite to lend them?

Its a shame to note that both the developed and the developing countries are spending billions of dollars on sending such space missions to moon, mars and dont know where else. I have heard justifications thats all is being done to further knowledge and also that it is a far attempt to search for resources that could be consumed when earth runs out of natural resources.

I would have thought with more urgent matters to deal with such as cancer, aids etc government still want to spend so much on sending space shuttles half of which never make it past our outer atmosphere. If it was a communication satellite i can understand the need but a lunar probe???

Most of these countries moan about overburdened public services and lack of funding to improve the infrastructure and raise the standard of living for the middle class individiual. Where they get money for space trips i wonder :(

@ Mike Richards

Quote:Their denials of the totality of the evidence is every bit as absurd as the creationists denial of evolution.

Creationism and evolution are both espoused by religous fanatics neither who can empirically prove their theories ( well over 90% can't).

I'm not pushing any philosophy, however, before you make such a comparison, you must note that Evolution falls when put against even the most basic of mathemtical tests. All theories, e.e. Relativity, are tested rigourously against these tests and somehow evolution continues to fester when it continues to fail said tests.

The lunar landings have passed encyclopaedic levels of tests and yet we still have these furry gizmos who think that they were a hoax.

Its a shame to note that both the developed and the developing countries are spending billions of dollars on sending such space missions to moon, mars and dont know where else. I have heard justifications thats all is being done to further knowledge and also that it is a far attempt to search for resources that could be consumed when earth runs out of natural resources.

I would have thought with more urgent matters to deal with such as cancer, aids etc government still want to spend so much on sending space shuttles half of which never make it past our outer atmosphere. If it was a communication satellite i can understand the need but a lunar probe???

Most of these countries moan about overburdened public services and lack of funding to improve the infrastructure and raise the standard of living for the middle class individiual. Where they get money for space trips i wonder :(

"...you must note that Evolution falls when put against even the most basic of mathemtical tests..."

I "must" do no such thing. First you have to convince me of the applicability of the test. Tell me what it is testing, and how its outcomes verify or fail to the predictions made by the ideas behind natural selection.

As I see the corpus of knowledege, speciation rates have been correlated quite tightly with rates of mutation in DNA. Simulations of evolution have demonstrated that large numbers of iterations of selection can produce marked and surprising changes in taxonomy.

Rather than vaguely insinuating that evolution is tested, just give us a link so we can judge for ourselves. Elsewise you *are* pushing a philosophy, and using dubious means to do so.

i so love the way they do that.

"We are willing to co-operate with the rest of the world to the benefit of humankind," the BBC quotes Long as saying. "But as to what kind of co-operation, it depends on specific circumstances."

i once heard diplomacy defined as the art of saying "nice doggie!" until you find a rock. this sounds very similar.

it is likely that the cooperation will decrease as the need for it diminishes, like if/when they have the facilities in place for kinetic bolide bombardment. after that, maybe not quite as much cooperation; more like, "who's the superpower now, bitch?"

i, for one, will welcome our new Chinese overlords (but i'll have to learn Mandarin - good thing the wife is already working on that).

Whether or not China does end up ruling us all, it probably is no bad thing to learn Mandarin - after all, they make up at least 1/6th of the world population, do they not?

Why don't they just point the Hubble telescope at the moon and take pictures? Surely if it can see distant galaxies, it can pick out lunar modules, B-52's and Red buses?? Perhaps it will even find the first-strike complex built by the evil Plutonian dog-bats coming to eradicate all the scientists that voted to demote Pluto from planet status.