back to article China eyes the dark, sorry, far side of the Moon

A Chinese space boffin has said his country will land the first probe on the far side of the Moon* before 2020, the BBC reports. Speaking to state TV, Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the purpose of the Chang'e 4 mission would be to "study geological conditions" on our satellite's hidden face. The landing …

  1. Grikath

    Challenging indeed...

    The far side has a wee bit more Geography than the near side, so landing stuff there , and getting away with it, is pretty challenging.

    What I'm curious about is if there'd be a noticeable difference in composition of the moondust there, especially regarding the rarer earth metals, given that the Ass End has been vacuuming up quite a lot of meteorites that never hit the bit that's Mooning us at night.

    (sorry, couldn't resist... ;)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Challenging indeed...

      Its not the geography that makes landing challenging, but all the secret alien/Nazi/etc. bases that litter the dark side. Land in the wrong place and your lander will be zapped with a Death Ray quicker than you can say Nicola Tesla.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Challenging indeed...

        But that's exactly what the Chineses are interested in!

        Anyway, it's interesting the builders of the bigger coms firewall on Earth, are putting so much effort to bypass the largest radio firewall nearby Earth...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Challenging indeed...

      "...given that the Ass End has been vacuuming up quite a lot of meteorites that never hit the bit that's Mooning us at night."

      Doesn't quite work like that. From the Moon, the Earth only occupies about 4 sq degrees of the sky out of total of about 41k sq degrees, so the Earth doesn't really protect nearside; as a result, both nearside and farside would have received about the same number of impacts. It seems that current thinking on the cause of the heating that resulted in the maria on nearside was heat from the Earth following its collision with theia

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Verification

    If the probe lands where we can't see it, did it really land? How would we know it's not in some movie studio in Shanghai?

    The obvious solution to China's credibility problem would be a large mirror in lunar orbit...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Verification

      are you saying someone could fake moon landings?

      I never thought such things could happen, I'm off out now to have a picnic on a grassy knoll.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Verification

      Why? The presence of the corner cube reflector mirror that the Apollo 11 astronauts left on the Moon hasn't stopped the doubters...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Verification

        While I hate to speak in favour of the moon landing hoaxers:

        Getting an artifact on the moon is not proof of landing a man on the Moon. It is (relatively) simple to put artifacts like retroreflectors on the Moon.

        There are man-made artifacts on Mars sending information back. Doesn't mean we have landed people there (that's a whole other conspiracy theory...)

    3. Fungus Bob
      Boffin

      Re: Verification

      All China has to do is release the colonoscopy video of the ass-end of the moon. Credibility problem solved!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I've spent...

    a lot of Time on The Dark Side Of The Moon. It's madness.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've spent...

      Like the Red Queen on a planetary treadmill, there's no getting off.

  4. Youngone Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Dear Sir,

    I also am angry about these rock and roll groups and their scientifically inaccurate record album titles.

    It should not be allowed. I blame the schools.

    Yours

    Angry of Mayfair.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dear Sir,

      Just hire Brian May as your guitarist...

      1. phuzz Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Dear Sir,

        That's Dr Brian May to you mate!

  5. Kharkov
    Trollface

    Here comes the new space race...

    The U.S. is pretty relaxed about space right now and why not? They have more, and better launchers, than most other countries but what's this? Someone else pushing out further than the U.S.?

    Start measuring dicks... er... I mean building rockets! says the U.S.. They'll start up the space race again just to one-up the Chinese...

    A bit sad, really, but hey, as long as it gets us out there...

    Oh, and go China! The more, the merrier, says I.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: Here comes the new space race...

      Oh sure, competition in space is so stimulating. Hey, let's all race towards total launch-interdiction capability via orbital weapons! What could go wrong with that?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Here comes the new space race...

      Relaxed about space? Just, their playground moved to Mars and beyond. Let little children play in the lunar sandbox...

  6. Mint Sauce
    Happy

    Nazis on the moon...

    ... mmmm Julia Dietze

  7. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Dark side of the Moon ...

    could be grammatically, semantically and scientifically correct.

    'Dark' simply being used as a metaphor for lack of knowledge about something - for example 'the dark ages', 'I'm totally in the dark about that', 'I'm always being kept in the dark', 'Why do you keep me in the dark?' ...

    The accuracy and artistic perfection of The Pink Floyd must not be questioned ... especially by anyone under 40 ...

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: Dark side of the Moon ...

      Of course Pink Floyd acknowledged in Eclipse

      "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

      which was borne out by the recent DSCOVR image sequence: “It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon," said Adam Szabo

      http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/from-a-million-miles-away-nasa-camera-shows-moon-crossing-face-of-earth

      1. Martin
        FAIL

        Re: Dark side of the Moon ...

        Of course Pink Floyd acknowledged at the end of the album....

        FTFY

        There are no tracks on Dark Side of the Moon. There may be track names, but no-one ever paid any attention to them. There's just Side One and Side Two.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dark side of the Moon ...

      Actually, it is the dark side of the moon (for half of the moon's orbit around the Earth). You just need to specify when you're referring to the moon.

    3. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Dark side of the Moon ...

      At any given moment in time, the Moon has both a light side and a dark side (but there the similarity with duct tape ends),

  8. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    Lunar orbit

    "the mission will presumably require an orbiting spacecraft to maintain comms between Earth and the probe"

    I thought a stable lunar orbit was impossible (without fuel eating corrections) due to the large number of mascons it has?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Meh

      Re: Lunar orbit

      mascon = alien / nazi base

      1. Swarthy
        Alien

        Re: Lunar orbit

        Mascon? Is that anything like a Magnetic Anomaly, like the one discovered in Tycho in that documentary.. What was it called?

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Lunar orbit

      Can't they just orbit further out so mascons don't matter* so much?

      *pun intended

  9. Zmodem

    put 1 of these badboys on the orbiter

    http://www.blueview.com/products/3d-multibeam-scanning-sonar/3/

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