[HN Gopher] China releases videos of its Zhurong Mars rover
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China releases videos of its Zhurong Mars rover
Author : pseudolus
Score : 194 points
Date : 2021-06-28 10:39 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| freddealmeida wrote:
| Let me correct this. China releases CGI of a Mars rover. No way
| they got there. God propaganda is insane
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| [citation needed]
| sct202 wrote:
| NASA has been releasing pictures over time of the landing site
| taken from the Mar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the rover is
| visible and moving slowly from the lander.
| https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-zhurong-nasa-hirise-p...
| williesleg wrote:
| Obviously built by a bunch of black and transgender queer china
| engineers.
| eunos wrote:
| Physical engineering aside, the operating system used is also
| quite interesting https://cntechpost.com/2021/06/22/chinas-
| tianwen-1-probe-pow...
|
| real-time response accurate to 8 milliseconds range. I am not
| that familiar with embedded software, but does that value really
| difficult to achieve?
| grawprog wrote:
| Siemens Siamatics PLC controllers can achieve real time
| response in the 250ms range.
| magicsmoke wrote:
| Looks like Kylin OS uses the Linux kernel. While not impossible
| to use in a real-time application (SpaceX Falcon 9 uses it)
| there's definitely work involved in stripping it down enough to
| work as an RTOS. NASA Perseverance uses VxWorks instead, which
| was designed from the beginning as an RTOS. VxWorks is also
| proprietary and looks like it's US export restricted.
|
| 8 ms isn't hard to hit. 8 ms with 100% reliability is.
| edrxty wrote:
| What?
|
| 8ms is incredibly slow for realtime systems. A difficult
| target for a control system would be three orders of
| magnitude lower than that on a full size OS like linux.
|
| VxWorks is being partly phased out too, last I heard wind
| river was pushing people towards their own linux based
| offering. Speaking from experience it's absolutely miserable
| to develop on because of the licensing model and reliance on
| the Eclipse IDE. If you need a low level system
| FreeRTOS/CMSIS is a far better option and if you want linux
| compatibility (frequently just the convenience of ssh and
| rsync) just use real time linux.
| carlsborg wrote:
| In some "hard real time" systems failure to meet the deadline
| is treated as system failure. Vs "soft real time" where its a
| transient error. So the goal is bounded response
| time/latency/jitter at the 100th percentile.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's only impressive in the sense that they have to use really
| shitty computers to achieve that number. Playing around with
| Rust on a reasonably powerful x86 box, you'll have no problem
| writing programs with a response time in _microseconds_ , but
| they aren't using the same computers you and I do (or Rust for
| that matter). Word on the street is that most space tech is
| based on PowerPC, since you can buy decently powerful
| radiation-hardened RISC chips without breaking the bank (only
| $300,000 or so).
| edrxty wrote:
| This commenter is correct. Things like radiation tolerance
| and power draw are much bigger concerns. I've seen a number
| of projects using RT systems entirely because they were based
| on earlier systems that were RT and therefore the engineers
| just used the same kernel despite having no RT requirements.
|
| PowerPC is popular because there are a couple companies out
| there that are taking these parts and running them through
| radiation beams to certify them for spaceflight (essentially
| profiling their failure modes so devs can account for them).
| ARM isn't popular yet as they tend to make it difficult to
| license designs for lower volume silicon but RISC-V in
| particular is gaining traction here very rapidly.
| justicezyx wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_(operating_system)
|
| If my impression is correct, this is based on Linux kernel.
|
| Since other comments appearing not mentioning that, just add
| here in case someone mistaken it with a custom embedded OS.
| (Although I know little about embedded OS either).
| crazypython wrote:
| Most games have real-time response around the 8-16 millisecond
| range.
| edrxty wrote:
| Games are real time in the sense that their response window
| is 1/[desired frame rate] of-a-second. As far as hard
| realtime systems go, they're some of the slowest.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| would you say that about games that are designed to run at
| 125+ fps?
| danhor wrote:
| Seriously depends on what you do. Iq you're doing really low-
| level stuff, you could probably get in the microsecond range
| quite easily (for trivial stuff). But 8 milliseconds doesn't
| sound that impressive to me.
| edrxty wrote:
| IIRC you can get into the tens of microseconds with an x86 box
| running a heavy linux graphic desktop with real time patches.
| Single digits with core pinning on a light headless system.
|
| Bear in mind that real time performance and throughput are
| perpetually at odds with each other. Long story short,
| scheduling things such that everything happens in a tight time
| window means you need to leave gaps in the timeline.
|
| This tradeoff is variable so you can loosen requirements for
| running something like a rover where there isn't really all
| that much need for tight realtime control, it's not trying to
| achieve micron positioning as it drives around. That means you
| can use a more efficient CPU and lower your idle current which
| is probably the real constraint here.
| [deleted]
| monster_group wrote:
| Those are some awesome videos from Mars. Why is there no coverage
| of this in US media?
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| One big factor behind the difference of coverage the fact the
| Chinese are really restrictive with releasing footage: maybe
| you noticed in the article that the landing happened May 14 but
| the footage showed up just now.
|
| So it's much less interesting for eg CNN to plan a big feature
| for the touch down if they can only count of stock footage.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > maybe you noticed in the article that the landing happened
| May 14 but the footage showed up just now.
|
| Communist party centennial is on July 1.
|
| The propaganda ministry have a reserve of "highly patriotic
| news," which they throw on around big events.
| godelski wrote:
| Also note that when the rover _did_ touchdown there was news
| about it. Same when it was launched. But the slow release of
| footage and updates makes it harder to tell compelling
| stories. Stories happen when things are released, such as
| now.
| varispeed wrote:
| Plenty of time to create a video like this without actually
| landing on Mars.
| ineedasername wrote:
| And pretty easy for US monitoring of launches to determine
| if no launch corresponded to this and tell the world it was
| fake. If was a fake, it would require a fair number of
| people outside the PRC to remain silent.
| gpt5 wrote:
| The landing was confirmed with US satellite footage of the
| landing site: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
| environment-57427797
| mahkeiro wrote:
| This is nonsense, If you want to fake it you can also do it
| before...
| [deleted]
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Good point. Never mind that at this point it's "yesterday's
| news" (and then some!).
| pp19dd wrote:
| To be fair, there's definitely plenty of coverage of both
| rovers. These and all science stories are particularly easy to
| cover [read: labor-cheap] since everything is spoon-fed on the
| account of not being able to get boots on the ground.
|
| But what we can't do generate interest. There's only so much
| shoveling you can do before people not only lose interest, but
| get repulsed by the attempt.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Well, since they're competitors in this space, and it's not
| exactly a novel experience to drive a rover on Mars, they'd
| probably end up only using it to stir the pot. I guess be
| thankful they're not doing that?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Why is there no coverage of this in US media_
|
| Because you didn't bother to look for it, and just assumed it
| wasn't there because of your worldview?
|
| I see it in plenty of U.S. media coverage. A quick search turns
| up CNN as the first result.
| mullen wrote:
| China's current rover is what the US put on Mars, twice, 16
| years ago (Those rovers ran for 6 and 12 years).
|
| The US is currently putting nuclear powered rovers on Mars.
| That is why there is no huge US media coverage of this story
| in the US.
| bogwog wrote:
| That's bullshit. China landing a rover on Mars is a huge
| accomplishment even if it isn't as advanced as what NASA
| has.
|
| Do you think the editors of CNN/Fox/whatever saw this story
| and decided not to run with it just because the rover's
| power system is outdated?
| aardvarkr wrote:
| They reported it because it's noteworthy but do you
| really think it's a huge accomplishment for the US and
| deserves propaganda-level hype on all major news networks
| for an event that happened on may 16?
|
| Instead you get incredibly hostile and defensive. It's a
| great accomplishment for the Chinese but seriously man
| check your biased worldview at the door.
|
| Do you get just as upset when China doesn't report on the
| US gymnastics superiority in the olympics and instead
| chooses to focus coverage on the Chinese prowess in
| weightligting, table tennis, and diving?
| unity1001 wrote:
| Envy, ill will, sore loser-ness, exceptionalism. Ending up
| lying, propaganda and obscuring the truth.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Was there similar coverage of US missions in Chinese press?
| How do you quantify that?
|
| The US landed a Mars rover almost a quarter of a century ago
| and there was almost no major coverage of the recent rover
| mission in the US press.
|
| > sore loser-ness
|
| What does that even mean?
| shadofx wrote:
| It means that the US had a responsibility to prevent anyone
| else from landing on Mars, and has failed in that. Should
| have used NORAD to intercept the Chinese rocket while it
| goes up, I suppose? That's what you get for sleeping on the
| job.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Very poor attempt at humor.
| canadianfella wrote:
| No.
| woeirua wrote:
| LOL. I get that bashing the US is popular on this site, but
| this comment is really detached from reality. The US landed
| its own rover on Mars not that long ago, and they're not even
| covering it in the domestic press. Why would anyone expect
| them to cover another country's rover if they wont cover
| their own?
| monocasa wrote:
| Perseverance had (and still has) tons of domestic press.
| coldtea wrote:
| For the same reason US coverage of Olympic Games are 24/7
| spotlight on American athletes.
|
| Shauvinism, exceptionalism, and provincialism.
| fma wrote:
| If you're NBC and you're out to make money from
| advertisement...would you get more views showing spotlights
| of athletes from random countries...or spotlight of athletes
| from the US?
|
| I guarantee you China isn't doing a spotlight on US athletes.
| Hell, there are some athletes they are taking away the
| spotlight.
|
| https://radiichina.com/li-ying-coming-out/
| coldtea wrote:
| > _If you 're NBC and you're out to make money from
| advertisement...would you get more views showing spotlights
| of athletes from random countries...or spotlight of
| athletes from the US?_
|
| If it had a mature audience, and not provincial chauvinists
| that only know/care for their "heroes" in a sports event,
| then they'd make money "showing spotlights of athletes from
| random countries" too, like it happens all over the globe.
|
| > _I guarantee you China isn 't doing a spotlight on US
| athletes_
|
| Don't know about China, but I've seen the Olympic games TV
| coverage from several countries, and only the US cancels
| out the rest of the world. Others get the full picture.
|
| If China does the same, that's their loss, not some new
| standard the US is OK to follow...
| axguscbklp wrote:
| I am surprised that there is even as much coverage as there is.
| We are still getting basically the same footage of big deserts
| full of broken rock from Mars that we were in the 1970s, it is
| just in higher resolution now. There is not much reason for a
| person to get particularly excited about yet another Mars rover
| unless that person is interested in some pretty technical
| stuff. And with a Chinese rover, US audiences do not even get a
| nationalist thrill from news about it. Basically, unless you
| are into science, the reality of Mars is kind of boring. It is
| like Antarctica - there can be a lot of drama in getting there
| and surviving there and traveling around its rough conditions,
| but actual footage from there is almost entirely just very
| similar-looking vast white plains.
| ilamont wrote:
| In Google News, there are articles and video from CNN, ABC,
| Space.com, and other U.S. news organizations, some of them
| dating from yesterday (Sunday).
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Because propaganda.
|
| How much coverage of US missions made it into Chinese media
| outlets? Significantly less than the coverage of US missions in
| US media outlets. Why is that? Chinese propaganda.
|
| For the same reasons, the coverage of Chinese missions will be
| downplayed in US media.
|
| You can't downplay US missions and then ask why the US
| downplays yours. You already know why. Because of the
| propaganda war.
| llboston wrote:
| I might be too cynical, but I feel dropping a remote camera to
| take this video and releasing it now are mostly a present for
| CCP's 100th birthday, to show how great CCP is.
| justicezyx wrote:
| Wow, I am not sure are you trying to belittle the engineers and
| scientists achievement, or deliberately make sure people
| emphasize CCP's role in this event?
|
| I don't get it, if you don't pay attention to CCP, it's very
| appropriate to focus on the contribution of the people
| involved.
|
| The CCP propaganda also emphasize the sacrifice and ingenuity
| of the engineers and scientists.
|
| Somehow a rando guy online insists to call out CCP. Are you
| sure people actually likes CCP because of this? I mean, they
| hate CCP because of CCP's wrong doings, not because CCP is not
| interested in space exploration, right?
| monocasa wrote:
| So? Viking I entered Mars orbit in July 1976 for the
| bicentennial. Of course a country spending literally billions
| is going to time it well with local goals if it makes sense.
|
| IMO, if anything you get bonus points for achieving goals like
| this on a a timetable you set, being an additional constraint.
| Vaslo wrote:
| The head reminds me of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit for anyone
| that remembers back that far.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Immediately what I thought of when I saw it flexing it's
| wheels!
| koheripbal wrote:
| Same here. "Number 5 is A L I V E" echoes now on Mars
| pseudolus wrote:
| Who could forget Fisher Steven's "brownface" portrayal of an
| Indian scientist?
| pengaru wrote:
| I am standing here beside myself
| nickpinkston wrote:
| Whoa - I never knew that!
| northwest65 wrote:
| The Indians were not impressed, banned him from the country
| IIRC.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Can anyone explain the sound in the clip? So Mars atmosphere is
| different, making sound travel different? But the weird echo and
| metallic muffle, what explains that - why would the machine be
| particular noisy?
| Vinnl wrote:
| A Dutch article about this [1] said:
|
| > According to the Chinese space agency CNSA, the sounds are
| caused by the interaction of different metal parts.
|
| In the video, they also quote the person leading the Mars
| programme:
|
| > The sound is made by wheels rotating on the surface of the
| Mars rover. Basically, the sound of different metal objects
| bumping into each other.
|
| [1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2386872-chinese-marsrover-stuurt-
| nieu...
| pixelpoet wrote:
| Hmmm, I've heard plenty of metal things bumping into each
| other, this sounds more like 0.1 bits/s sloshy MPEG audio.
|
| What I'd like to know is, is this actually how it sounded
| there, or are we mostly hearing compression artifacts?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I thought it sounded like flanging.
| tacticalmook wrote:
| It should indeed sound distant and muffled with the
| composition and temperature of Mar's atmosphere. Saw a neat
| pseudo-documentary on this not too long ago:
| https://youtu.be/OeYnV9zp7Dk?t=551
| exporectomy wrote:
| Kind of ridiculous to demonstrate what things sound like
| while playing eerie random background music over it.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Why would it be compression artifacts when they are also
| sending hires video signal?
|
| This page has some simulations:
|
| https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/sounds/
| seaorg wrote:
| Would you say Dutch news is more objective than American
| news?
| Vinnl wrote:
| No, it's just the news I happen to follow because I am
| Dutch, and it contained the info they were asking after.
| imglorp wrote:
| I'm curious about the use of a wireless camera to photograph the
| lander and the rover. It seems like extra weight and complexity
| for purely PR reasons.
|
| Yes, you need to inspect each vehicle, but the rover can clearly
| examine the lander and move around it, while the lander needs
| only one camera, possibly an existing descent one, to inspect the
| rover.
|
| Is Earth in an ideology war again?
| luma wrote:
| Possibly a technology test? I don't think it's any more or less
| silly than a helicopter that also doesn't actually do any
| science other than testing out the concept for future missions.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| That's pretty close to the definition of science... form a
| hypothesis and test it then report your results. Not every
| test has to be microbiological or geological in origin to be
| considered "science". They're also getting to test the
| resiliency of consumer grade computers and electronics in the
| Martian atmosphere and probably many many other experimental
| ideas that aren't public knowledge.
| alpha_squared wrote:
| > ...a helicopter that also doesn't actually do any science
| other than testing out the concept for future missions.
|
| Isn't that scientific? Testing out the hypothesis of aerial
| maneuverability in Martian airpsace?
| aga98mtl wrote:
| Space exploration is a prestige game among world powers since
| the very beginning. China needs good PR pictures to show they
| can do just as well as NASA. If we are lucky they will try to
| one up each other for decades to come.
| [deleted]
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| It's useful for future historians. We're not just exploring
| space, we're leaving something behind for the future of
| humanity.
| CMay wrote:
| Something could go wrong with any of those and cameras can be
| pretty light these days since we put them in doorbells, so I
| doubt they're sweating it when there are multiple potential
| benefits to having it there. :)
|
| Curiosity weighed almost 2000 lbs, so it's not like rovers on
| Mars are afraid to weigh anything which is not to say they
| don't run the numbers.
| marcodiego wrote:
| These missions usually have scientific AND engineering
| objectives. Having a spare camera that the hover put anywhere
| may not be very valuable scientifically, but it validates the
| engineering of all communication, power and mechanical systems
| involved. That will allow more advanced scientific objectives
| in the future.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| It may be scientifically worthless, but the public pays for
| these missions and the public likes pretty pictures. JunoCam on
| NASA's Jupiter orbiter, Juno, was added in order to give the
| public pretty pictures of Jupiter.[1] I personally think that's
| really cool.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JunoCam
| iso1631 wrote:
| > It seems like extra weight and complexity for purely PR
| reasons.
|
| And that's the thing that gets a public supportive of your
| space program and thus the resources keep flowing.
|
| Drop the PR and you drop the funding.
| erdos4d wrote:
| This is a democratic model you are assuming, I don't think
| CCP needs the Chinese people to "support" anything they do,
| it really just boils down to whether the CCP leaders support
| it.
| melling wrote:
| National pride is very important in either model.
| sidlls wrote:
| Yes, but the people with the pride differ. In the
| genocidal dictatorship of China only the pride of the CCP
| matters very much. It can be coerced or ignored in other
| groups.
| shigawire wrote:
| I don't agree. They still need to assert their
| legitimately through successful governance and projects.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological
| tangents. Those lead to highly repetitive discussion, which
| is tedious and usually turns nasty -- therefore not what we
| want here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&so
| r...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&so
| r...
| dr-detroit wrote:
| I dont know any average people who support the western
| system of oppressive wealth consolidation.
| oldgun wrote:
| Great technological advancement. I believe congratulations is in
| order.
| semiconduction wrote:
| Will we see Star Wars like battles in our lifetimes? That would
| be dope.
| rasz wrote:
| Ad Astra has a cool Moon shootout scene.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH9NvOVil-k
|
| how it was made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qWvfxdzRg
| nextaccountic wrote:
| It's unfortunate that those moon cars resembled rovers from
| the 70s (like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle), and not
| something more plausible.
| hulitu wrote:
| Yeah. Like a Tesla with a crash test dummy at its steering
| wheel.
| squarefoot wrote:
| That movie turned out an huge disappointment for me; that
| moon chase could have been the base to develop an interesting
| subplot (if not a much better main plot), but no, it was just
| a self contained albeit technically well made, action scene
| that could give nothing to a terrible movie.
| dekhn wrote:
| agreed, it was on of the better parts of world-building in
| the movie.
| plank_time wrote:
| How did China know how to make their rover without sending a
| bunch of probes onto Mars? Did NASA share its data and info with
| China so that they knew what specs to make the solar panels, etc?
| sinxccc wrote:
| That's why the rover landing happened 3 months after the probe
| reached Mars orbit. They spent that time to do all the
| reconnaissance work to prepare the landing.
|
| Also this is the reason this mission is considered to be a
| great success, it shows their ability to landing on a totally
| unknown planet.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > How did China know how to make their rover without sending a
| bunch of probes onto Mars?
|
| Why would they need probes? The Mars atmospheric composition
| isn't exactly classified information, they know it's a solid
| surface. The rest is just math and some very complex
| engineering.
| russli1993 wrote:
| CNSA did acknowledge that they benefited from prior
| explorations to mars done by everyone, including NASA, soviet
| union, ESA and more. They are able to find general scientific
| data on mars, such as atmospheric density, composition,
| potential weather events, general topography in the public
| domain (I mean, wikiepdia has a lot of these information). For
| these, they should and are appreciating scientists going before
| them are sharing these information in the public domain. But I
| am sure NASA and everyone else did not release all super
| detailed data, such as detailed topology maps. And from public
| available info, they also know about general designs of NASA's
| landers and rovers, and the troubles NASA has faced operating
| these crafts on mars. If they learn from NASA's experiences,
| they can avoid a huge amount of unknowns and negative
| encounters. These are significant assistance when you are
| engineering systems. The pioneer is always way more difficult.
| So of course respect is paid and hats off to NASA and other
| pioneers.
|
| But knowing these are not enough for you to build and operate a
| fully successful mission. Even if you had the entire CAD file
| of a NASA lander and rover, you don't know why they are
| designed that way, you will not operate, use and troubleshoot
| issues correctly. You need to build the system from ground up,
| so the people on your teams have full understanding of every
| single "why" and "how". Only then will you have full control
| and ensure the mission is success.
|
| I am sure you had experience taking ownership to a software
| project written by others. You always have go to the original
| designer to ask "why" and "how". The knowledge transfer often
| last months and countless meetings. If you don't fully
| understand, you can't fix issues or build new features. Most
| people would rather build their own then to fix something they
| don't fully understand.
|
| For CNSA, they can access public available data. Then they have
| to simulate, wind tunnel tests, how to land, what shape of
| lander they need, how to balance and control the lander etc.
| They need to build up their understanding of the entire system.
| They actually has been improving their technology and
| understanding of atmospheric and controlled powered landing
| from earth and moon missions. One of things they did
| differently is adding a flap to the lander to stabilize it in
| flight, they said it was to increase the lander's robustness
| when encountering more extreme weather.
|
| For solar panels, knowing the distance to the sun, the
| atmospheric density, pressure, composition, force of gravity on
| mars, you can estimate the theoretical max of the solar energy
| available per unit of area. Then you could say assume only 30%
| is available due to weather. I am sure they have more advanced
| ways to estimate. Interesting fact about the rover, it has a
| solar heat capture and retention system. And they use the heat
| for thermo-control at night instead of electricity captured
| from solar panels, saving electricity use.
|
| For where to land, topology and maps of mars is in public
| domain. You can find a general region where to land but these
| data are not detailed enough to actually land. And mars surface
| could have changed since these were captured. So tianwen-1
| contains a orbiter and the lander. The orbiter has instruments
| such has high resolution imaging. They arrived mars orbit in
| February, and the 3 months since the orbiter was collecting
| data on mars. From these data they finalized their landing
| plans.
|
| This is China's first spacecraft to ever travel this far. They
| also don't have communication network between mars and earth.
| So Tianwen-1's orbiter is also a communication satellite.
|
| The impressive thing is the engineering side, how they
| engineered the system that each component all worked correctly
| in one go. The rocket: the rocket required to launch tianwen-1
| (weighs 5 tons) to mars orbit was only tested successfully in
| dec 2019. China also doesn't have earth mars communication
| satellites and fully operational deep space communication
| system before this mission. This the first time all these
| system are tested live. To fly a spacecraft to mars for the
| first time, have it being captured by mars, and orbit mars
| correctly. Take data on mars. Release the lander. The lander
| going through atmosphere, releasing parachute at super sonic
| speeds, the lander detaches from parachute and uses a rocket
| engine to fly. At height of 100m, optical imaging and laser
| maps out the ground and autonomously navigate the craft to soft
| land on flat ground. Orbiter forms communication link between
| mars rover and earth. Mars rover collects sun light, drives,
| survives the elements of mars (so far).
|
| Overall, they are standing on the shoulders of people who went
| before them. One shouldn't look down on their success, nor
| should they over-hype their success.
|
| CNSA said Zhurong landed 3km away from their designed
| coordinate. For the first 42 mars days, zhurong traveled 236m.
| distribot wrote:
| Why would NASA not release detailed topology maps? Doesn't
| that have a lot of value to al researchers around the world?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Isn't NASA pretty open with their designs? I don't think it's
| hard to find their specs if you do some digging.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Yeah. This sounds like a good place to start:
| https://www.amazon.com/Design-Engineering-Curiosity-
| Performs...
| Clewza313 wrote:
| China has been sending probes to the Moon since 2007:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...
|
| Once you've got that down pat, it's not _that_ different to
| land one on Mars, especially since the Chinese rover was small
| enough not to require the elaborate skyhook approach.
|
| Also, NASA is legally prohibited from cooperating with China on
| anything space-related.
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| It's completely different. Let's start with the moon has no
| atmosphere so you do not use parachutes to land on the moon
| like you do on Mars.
|
| Your statement is nonsense.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Of course it's _different_ , but you're still sending a
| probe to a celestial body, so things like building the
| rocket, designing radiation-hardened hardware, space
| communications, launching on a desired trajectory,
| automated landing with retro-propulsion etc are all similar
| and needed for both. Basically, if you're going to practice
| the Moon is the place to do it, and that's why the US,
| Soviet, Chinese and now Indian space programs are all
| following the same basic game plan.
| plank_time wrote:
| Of course it's different. You need to know how to make solar
| panels so that it will work on Mars. It's different than
| those you would need for the moon. It would have to work
| through the dust storms.
|
| The equipment would need to be rated differently. How the
| signal is sent from the rover to the orbiter would be
| different, etc. There's a lot of knowledge that you would
| need to build up about Mars and having probes on Mars and the
| logistics of sending data to and from Earth via orbiter that
| you would need before jumping all the way to sending a large
| expensive rover to Mars.
|
| That's interesting about NASA not being allowed to share
| data. I really wonder how China was able to leap to sending a
| rover without lots of investment in understanding everything
| else about it.
| Teever wrote:
| > You need to know how to make solar panels so that it will
| work on Mars. It's different than those you would need for
| the moon.
|
| Can you elaborate on this?
| unity1001 wrote:
| > I really wonder how China was able to leap to sending a
| rover without lots of investment in understanding
| everything else about it.
|
| Continent-wide public education churning out legions after
| legions of STEM graduates?
| sidlls wrote:
| The proportion of Chinese stem graduates who aren't
| simply copying their way around and are gifted enough to
| run these programs is likely about the same as the
| proportion anywhere else. Chinese people are no more or
| less intelligent than anyone else.
| wiz21c wrote:
| In my country, and I guess otherd in western Europe, we
| often fail to appreciate the sheer power of those "other"
| countries such as Russia or China. Many are still stuck
| in the colonialist vision of things where Europe and US
| were vastly superior. This is not true anymore. And as
| you point out, intelligence is uniformly distributed.
| failuser wrote:
| Days when Russia could send problems to Mars are long
| over, so with regards to Russia reality ironically
| corrected itself to match the US expectations.
| ptr2voidStar wrote:
| Shocking that you have to state this fact. Is this HN or
| YouTube?
|
| SMDH
| blackoil wrote:
| Not supporting OPs assertion, but. Even with same
| proportion they will have huge advantage in absolute nos.
| Also society and government are lot different, changing
| the way and proportion of people persevere for a
| particular career option.
| jjcc wrote:
| let's put ideology aside. It's quite interesting to watch
| different societies, governance, cultures evolving,
| cooperating,competing among each other. Eastern world is
| more likely have low entropy societies while Western have
| high entropy societies.
|
| Both have strength and weakness. Low entropy societies
| are more efficient, extremely good at building physical
| things. But tend to have less varieties. High societies
| are more chaotic, but also more innovative, more
| productive in spiritual domain. Not only in technologies
| but also arts ,etc.
|
| It would be ideal that both societies can cooperate and
| share the benefits leveraging advantages of both worlds.
| But in reality it's quite complex and not going to a good
| direction in short term
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| The best of which promptly move to US and Europe.
| onethought wrote:
| I think you severely underestimate the quantity of top
| scoring STEM graduates.
|
| What you really mean is "the richest/privileged move to
| US and Europe"
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Many of the design outputs of the NASA rover programs are
| public domain. For example, the peak solar panel rating of
| the MER (Opportunity and Spirit) is published, the size of
| the panels are known (or can easily by estimated), the
| power needed to drive the rovers around is published, the
| weight of the rover is published, the size of wheels can be
| easily estimated (or is published).
|
| The logistics of sending data back can be reasonably
| considered to be a challenge that could be solved on the
| first try. The first space probe that NASA managed to
| actually get to Mars (Mariner) worked. The first landers
| that NASA managed to get to Mars (Viking) worked.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Don't make the mistake thinking that this happened without
| "lots of investment". The Chinese space program is massive
| and has been running for decades.
| sprafa wrote:
| people are sleeping on China. Sure they copy everything now, but
| so did US, japan and everybody in the beggining.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Who is people? There's been lots of people noting this parallel
| for a very long time. In fact, it's exactly China's playbook.
|
| Here's an example from 2007 where NDT is discussing China's
| emergence that people were missing at the time:
| https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/commentary/2007-08-0...
|
| There was another talk (from NDT too IIRC) I recall seeing that
| compared the amount of academic papers China puts out. It's a
| poor metric & there is more low-quality submissions coming out
| of China, but overall they were set to overtake the US. Expect
| university prestige to start migrating east to top Chinese
| universities (assuming they become more friendly for
| immigration).
| nabla9 wrote:
| Samuel Slater ("Father of the American Industrial Revolution")
| is known in the UK as "Slater the Traitor". He stole the
| textile machinery designs from UK as an apprentice, then
| migrated to the US and build his own mills. British law banned
| exporting textile mill designs.
| president wrote:
| Copying is one thing. State-sponsored wholesale transfer of
| trade theft is another. Now, I don't doubt for one second that
| the US/CIA has not done anything shady like that in the past
| but I do not believe it has ever been on the scale of effort
| that China has undertaken. And I say to my own country's
| detriment - more power to them. While the US fumbles with
| domestic politics, social justice endeavors, and enriching
| other countries, China has risen to take its place by taking
| the opposite stance and focusing all its energy on making
| itself the foremost global economic giant.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| What people? Plenty of people are concerned with what they're
| doing. US government is too inept to do anything or they're
| willingly cooperating with them.
| aeternum wrote:
| What can the US do?
|
| China's population is a huge advantage right now, China has
| figured out how to create a mostly participatory economy so
| they have 10x the number of brains engaged vs. the US.
|
| Each US citizen must be 10x more productive just to tie. If the
| US gov were smart, we would make it significantly easier for
| those with skills to immigrate, but unfortunately we seem to be
| set on doing the opposite.
|
| On top of that, China is making smart educational choices like
| making basic comp-sci required. The US educational system is
| using decades old curriculum or just cancelling classes
| altogether.
| bogwog wrote:
| But considering how the Chinese government brutally oppresses
| its own people, those advantages aren't worth much.
|
| When/if the CCP is overthrown and a democratically elected
| government takes its place, then maybe China will become the
| new world leader.
| aeternum wrote:
| That's a narrative that most democratic countries want to
| be true, but that does not necessarily make it true.
|
| A strict autocratic government is quicker at making
| decisions and may actually be ideal assuming it optimizes
| for the long-term best interest of the country and does not
| become corrupt. Only time will tell if the CCP is able to
| do this.
| distribot wrote:
| Demographic collapse, irresponsible extractive industry, and
| in fact many citizens are excluded from the most dynamic
| parts of the country by the Hukou system.
|
| China is a really interesting place that has had an
| incredible meteoric rise, but there are problems.
| jrue wrote:
| Oh no! The U.S. really needs to step up its game if it wants to
| stay competitive. (Honestly I couldn't care less, but if a new
| space race injects further investment into science/space, I'm
| happy to be an instigator.)
| eunos wrote:
| I can't imagine what would happen if some unidentified
| apparitions appeared on the videos.
| someperson wrote:
| Users interesting in this story may also be interested in this
| great 55 minute documentary covering the first few years of
| NASA's Curiosity rover:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaUhLXolGaI (the active rover
| before NASA's more recent Perseverance landing).
| yellow_lead wrote:
| On a non-serious note, it would be entertaining to see the two
| rovers fight on Mars.
| mattkevan wrote:
| Robot Wars, but on Mars. I'd watch that.
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(page generated 2021-06-28 23:01 UTC)