China's Chang'e 5 lunar test vehicle captures amazing Earth + Moon image.

[True Blue Door]

[img][/img]

http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/earth/earth-and-the-moon-from-change5t1.html

The little-seen Far Side of the Moon is visible.

The image on the site can be expanded to see details.

Chang'e 5 is an unmanned vehicle on a circumlunar flight to demonstrate technologies for an eventual lunar sample return mission.

[Fred Sanders]

1. Third rock from the sun, the only rock we will ever have. Thank you and to China.

India has a Mars orbiter. Since America blew all its resources on wars, other nations will have to pick up the slack.

http://t.space.com/all/23203-india-mars-orbiter-mission-photos#1

[True Blue Door]

3. I disagree that it's the only we will ever have.

That would be like saying the tide pool on which we first crawled on to land is the only one we would ever know.

[Fred Sanders]

4. The tidal pool was on the planet, what OTHER planet could we possibly get to and live on? Mars?

Maybe, but America can not even launch a garbage pickup and food delivery rocket these days.

[True Blue Door]

5. Mars, absolutely - and within our lifetimes.

And you're over-generalizing a rocket failure that happened with one contractor because of a 40-year-old Russian rocket engine.

SpaceX (not Orbital Sciences, the one whose rocket failed) is steadily advancing the technology and reducing the cost of spaceflight. They have about a dozen flights scheduled over the next year, and most of them will provide opportunities to land a first stage for reuse. If they succeed, which they likely will on at least one of those flights, they will be able to gradually reduce the cost down to a tenth of what it is right now over two or three years.

Mars is more or less inevitable. Longer term, there's no fundamental barrier to filling the solar system with humanity. Even floating cities in gas giant atmospheres are technologically possible, although that's centuries away.

There was a lot of irrational enthusiasm during Apollo that thought everything would just automatically leapfrog to new heights beyond the Moon, but now there's irrational pessimism because of the "hangover" decades after the end of Apollo. Also, people don't pay attention to developments in this area, but I do, so trust me - you'll be seeing humans going places over the next decade.

[Fred Sanders]

6. It is the unimaginable distances that overwhelm the technology...the fastest manmade object to

date has gone to 10 miles a second....a fraction of the speed required to ever even think about colonizing Mars, and living in a tent outside of which you instantly die is not colonization.

Time and distance, it will take a theoretical revolution in travel to make it happen....not in our lifetime.

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but.......

[True Blue Door]

10. It will not take any theoretical revolution.

Current technology allows roughly 9-month transits every 2 years or so when orbits align. You need heavy shielding when you leave the Earth's magnetosphere, but that's not a problem if you radically reduce the cost per kilogram of spaceflight (as I've said SpaceX is on the verge of doing). Also not as big a deal if you have propellant depots already in space. Trust me - the numbers have been worked out by smarter people than I.

But next technological steps are on the horizon that would allow for much more frequent trips with transit times of about five weeks: VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulsive Magnetoplasma Rocket). Testbeds already exist, and a scale demonstrator thruster will be tested on the space station next year if I'm not mistaken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket

For manned interplanetary travel, VASIMR would need a large space-rated nuclear reactor considerably larger than have yet been deployed, but not to any absurd degree. And certainly within range if this happens:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531836/does-lockheed-martin-really-have-a-breakthrough-fusion-machine/

[BlueJazz]

2. Good shot of some of the side we don't see.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Wonderful image. Thank you. n/t

[lastlib]

8. There is no dark side of the moon. matter of fact, it's all dark.

(according to David Gilmour, who, I'm sure, has seen it............ :| )

[True Blue Door]

12. Which is why I said Far Side.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. the lighting is wrong... n/t

[True Blue Door]

11. I see what you mean, but if NASA doesn't think it's fake, I defer to their judgment.

China's government is ludicrous, but not that ludicrous.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

13. I wouldn't put it past them...

eh... who knows or cares. soon, china will claim the moon for its own and we will have to ask if we can go back...

sP

[True Blue Door]

14. Doubtful. Their space program is in no big hurry.

And we've got SpaceX.

[lastlib]

15. China has signed the 1967 Treaty on Outer Space.

Under its terms, they cannot legally claim the moon for themselves; it is essentially international open territory.

[True Blue Door]

17. That treaty will be scrapped

the moment any country is in a practical position to violate it advantageously. Such are the realities of economically significant frontiers.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Wow. Awesome shot.

[Odin2005]

18. The double planet.