[HN Gopher] Japan launches rocket carrying lunar lander and X-ra...
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Japan launches rocket carrying lunar lander and X-ray telescope
Author : wglb
Score : 236 points
Date : 2023-09-11 03:00 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| throwawayy2o93 wrote:
| [flagged]
| sylware wrote:
| Cut it.
|
| It is not against China or north korea, but Asian democraties
| must have their own nukes or the US&|NATO must guarantee we will
| die with them if they are attacked, namely provide a "nuclear
| umbrella" via a treaty.
|
| Rockets is only the first step for nuke delivery.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think it's also acceptable for the country to just be
| advanced enough that everyone knows they could build nukes very
| quickly if it came down to it.
|
| Japan has the American nuclear umbrella, but it's also obvious
| to most people interested in the topic that if faced with an
| existential threat and if for some reason the US didn't fulfill
| its treaty obligations, Japan could build its own bombs within
| a year or two.
| sylware wrote:
| Which official treaty does give US nuclear umbrella to Japan
| and South Korea?
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Two individual ones. USA has individual bilateral security
| agreements with both.
|
| "Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the
| United States and Japan" or just the US-Japan Security
| treaty [0]
|
| "Mutual Defense Treaty (United States-South Korea)" [1]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Mutual_Cooperation_
| a....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Defense_Treaty_(United
| _...
| sylware wrote:
| Thank you. Unlike some posters here (chatgpt?), I don't
| understand why my google is not giving me any meaningful
| results, not even on wikipedia.
|
| I would not be surprised to see a Tawainese elite exodus
| towards those countries.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I'm not sure of the exact treaty, but every result on
| Google says that Japan is under the US nuclear umbrella.
| sylware wrote:
| Not sure exact treaty for something which should be clear
| cut?
|
| Really?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Well, since someone else was able to clarify, let's see
| if you keep up with this approach of asking questions
| without ever making a meaningful point.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"if for some reason the US didn't fulfill its treaty
| obligations, Japan could build its own bombs within a year or
| two."
|
| If attacked by nukes they will not be able to build shit.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Typically nukes don't start flying out of nowhere. There's
| a chain of escalations that leads up to their first strike
| use.
| sylware wrote:
| and of course the attacker would not know that and would
| give time to japan or south korea for them to acquire
| nuke tech?
|
| Really?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| What? Are you saying that a potential attacker would
| preemptively nuke Japan before tensions escalate if Japan
| started developing nukes? Because if so, what ridiculous
| world do you live in? That'd be like Russia flat out
| nuking Ukraine last year instead of bothering with an
| invasion.
| sylware wrote:
| What does make you believe all attackers would behave
| like putin? Do you realize how _lucky_ has been Ukraine
| in this abomination of war?
|
| I am not sure I am the delusional guy here.
| FpUser wrote:
| Typically we do not know shit about it. If / when it
| starts we will.
| robviren wrote:
| I am uncertain that more nuclear weapons in the hands of more
| groups will ultimately lead to more safety. While I understand
| the desire for self defense and MAD, it only takes the
| dissolving of one nation into a radical group with a truly
| unhinged leader to then have the power to wipe millions of the
| face of the earth. Rolling more dice seems like it makes
| nuclear apocalypse more likely.
| zirgs wrote:
| You people already tried this in 1994. Ukraine gave up their
| nukes and got invaded anyway. Good luck convincing any other
| country to give up their nukes.
|
| If NK has nukes then why can't SK and Japan have some too?
| simion314 wrote:
| >I am uncertain that more nuclear weapons in the hands of
| more groups will ultimately lead to more safety.
|
| Try to tell Ukraine this, if they had nukes then a lot of
| people would be alive. But I understand your point if your
| country already has nukes or it does not have
| imperialist/aggressive countries as neighbors.
|
| But to get protected from the insane empire neighbor IMo this
| days you do not longer need super complex rockets, a ton of
| small drones with dirty bombs in it wold also do a good job
| preventing an invasion, you need to first prove the world how
| effective it is.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| The 'palm-sized mini rover' fascinates me. A novel solution space
| for a difficult problem!
|
| https://www.space.com/japan-transformable-moon-robot-ispace-...
| riffraff wrote:
| The trajectory of this missions is really cool [0], basically it
| will use both the earth _and_ the moon to slingshot itself and
| then approach the moon in a sort of tangential path.
|
| As I understand it this means the mission will take quite a bit
| more time than "usual" but save a lot of power.
|
| [0] I'm on mobile, but this looks like a decent representation
| https://twitter.com/TitaniumSV5/status/1695724234339954779?t...
| delphico wrote:
| ISRO missions to Moon and Mars leveraged Sling-shotting (saves
| on Fuel and weight of the same to be carried). The Russian
| probe took a more direct approach landing to the moon.
| zertrin wrote:
| One could say it was somewhat too direct :)
| midoridensha wrote:
| It was a highly successful special lunar operation.
| goku12 wrote:
| Of all the recent failures of moon landers, Luna 25 is the
| most intriguing one. It failed simply because the retro-
| burn continued too long. It was a simple timed operation,
| unlike all the complex logic that goes into landing. Makes
| me wonder about the state of the Russian space programme.
| verzali wrote:
| The Russian space program is a real mess and a shadow of
| what it once was.
| nkoren wrote:
| This wouldn't be the first time that they've lost a major
| mission due to a similarly simple root cause:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| The most recent former head of the agency has apparently
| expressed skepticism about the US moon landings in 1969
| and also has a degree in economics. Allegedly the program
| has been hollowed out by corruption. Perhaps someone more
| qualified to comment could shed some light on this?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| If you mean Dmitry Rogozin, then yeah, he was a total
| dick (a part of which he has allegedly lost recently in
| Ukraine) who peddled all sorts of lies and oversaw the
| decline of Russian space capabilities.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if he expressed doubt over the
| Moon landings considering that he was also the one to
| push the absurd claim that the hole that had been drilled
| into a Soyuz was sabotage done by a space-crazed American
| female astronaut.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| [flagged]
| f6v wrote:
| Any kind of nationalism is annoying when it comes to
| science.
| chimp_brain wrote:
| I don't think space fanboyism hurt anyone, if at all
| someone feels proud let them be as long as it's in good
| spirits. Comparison of SpaceX to ISRO or even other
| organisation seems a bit unfair, SpaceX have access to
| ecosystem of sensors, components that are restricted by US.
| Develop something as simple as reaction wheel takes
| decades. While I don't appreciate fanboyism in general, I
| also believe there is a world beyond writing a few lines of
| codes...
| farhanhubble wrote:
| [flagged]
| bouvin wrote:
| Heaven forbid that all conversations should not be about
| the USA.
| lnenad wrote:
| He just mad Russia landed on Venus 50 years ago and the
| USA didn't.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > The constant ISRO fanboyism is annoying
|
| Maybe. But why you complain in response to comment without
| any of it?
|
| Also, why being excited about lunar mission is supposed to
| be a problem? People can be excited about things smaller
| than some large achievement.
|
| And human landings were not so useful anyway.
| goku12 wrote:
| ISRO missions leveraged Hohmann transfers to gradually raise
| the orbit. It does save on fuel using the Oberth effect. It
| also has somewhat less uncertainty. However, they were not
| gravitational slingshots. Have a look at the tweet linked by
| the other commenter - the probe approaches moon twice. The
| first approach causes a rather drastic change in velocity and
| trajectory. It's unlikely that such a change comes from the
| probe's thrusters alone. I assume that the second approach
| and capture is somewhat mild (tangential as the other
| commenter put it).
|
| In comparison, the Chandrayaan and Mars orbiter missions
| approached their target only once. And the insertion was also
| somewhat drastic, with a long retro-burn.
| emadehsan wrote:
| Slingshot analogy animation:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-3#/media/File:An...
| riffraff wrote:
| yeah but notice the JAXA one is different, since it
| approaches the moon _twice_.
|
| It starts sort of the same way, but then it uses the moon's
| own attraction to project itself much further out and then
| come back approaching the moon in a different way.
| goku12 wrote:
| Gravity assist or gravitational slingshot [1] is a specific
| type of maneuver that's different from the Hohmann transfer
| that Chandrayaan-3 is seen taking in your video.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist
| numpad0 wrote:
| Landing mechanism is cool too. The lander has deformable
| metallic sponge balls on the legs, hits the soil at its "heel"
| and tip forward[1].
|
| Official reasons given is it allows reduction of structural
| margins, physical interferences and tipover risks on inclined
| surfaces, which seem to make sense. Maybe it's just me that it
| looks a bit like someone had to have a spacecraft that lands
| like the Space Shuttle with engines pointing back.
|
| 1:
| https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/feature/forefront/files/201912_1.jp...
| Aachen wrote:
| https://nitter.net/TitaniumSV5/status/1695724234339954779?t=...
| fidotron wrote:
| The one to watch here is the X ray telescope. JAXA previously
| lost Hitomi, which was a very promising mission, so hopefully
| this time they get to use the actual payload.
| Aachen wrote:
| Hadn't heard of x-ray space telescopes before so this sounded
| like a cool new thing to avoid atmospheric interference and do
| better measurements, perhaps even in the moon's shadow to avoid
| earth-originating noise, but then I looked up whether there
| have been others and there's a whole host of them:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-ray_space_telescop...
|
| What would we do with yet another one?
|
| Clicking through to the article about this telescope:
|
| > As the only international X-ray observatory project of its
| period, XRISM will function as a next generation space
| telescope in the X-ray astronomy field, similar to how the
| James Webb Space Telescope, Fermi Space Telescope, and the
| Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory are placed in
| their respective fields. The mission is a stopgap for avoiding
| a potential observation period gap between X-ray telescopes of
| the present (Chandra, XMM-Newton) and those of the future
| (Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics (ATHENA)).
| Without XRISM, a blank period in X-ray astronomy may arise in
| the early 2020s due to the loss of Hitomi.
|
| -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_Imaging_and_Spectrosco..
| .
|
| You also made me curious why Hitomi got "lost" (launch failure?
| Micrometeorite? Hard-/software failure?)
|
| From its article at
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitomi_(satellite)
|
| > [Problems] began with its inertial reference unit (IRU)
| reporting a rotation of 21.7deg per hour at 19:10 UTC on 25
| March 2016, though the vehicle was actually stable. The
| attitude control system attempted to [correct that nonexistent
| spin, spun it faster and faster, and that broke it up]
|
| What caused this glitch or what was known on the ground at the
| time (did they know it wasn't spinning but couldn't tell it to
| stop?) is not mentioned
|
| Edit: oh but it did science in the 36 days that it operated!
|
| > Measurements by Hitomi have allowed scientists to track the
| motion of X-ray-emitting gas at the heart of the Perseus
| cluster of galaxies for the first time. Using the Soft X-ray
| Spectrometer, astronomers have mapped the motion of X-ray-
| emitting gas in a cluster of galaxies and shown it moves at
| cosmically modest speeds. [...] [So now we know] turbulence is
| responsible for only about 4 percent of the total gas pressure.
| goku12 wrote:
| The attention is all on the lander. But X-ray telescopes are
| impressive all by themselves. It isn't as easy to manipulate
| X-rays as light can be using optics. Wishing good luck for both
| missions.
| what-no-tests wrote:
| Hey off-topic maybe but why do photos from space always look so
| fake?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, but, mostly,
| photos from space are taken differently from photos we're used
| to taking, like with our cell phones. For example, the Webb
| Telescope works partly on the spectrum outside of light visible
| to us, so color has to be added to represent these parts. Other
| times, we might be seeing a composite image with overlapping
| parts.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Objects in space are illuminated by a single light source, and
| are not surrounded by atmosphere. This is similar to the most
| fundamentally basic raytraced scenes.
|
| To contrast, objects on Earth are often illuminated by many
| light sources, by the light reflected off of other nearby
| objects, and even by the light reflected/refracted through the
| atmosphere the surrounds them. This is very challenging to
| reproduce in a raytraced scene; so what we are used to is
| something on the spectrum between realistic and oversimplified.
|
| An oversimplified render of a scene on Earth will have sharp
| shadows and lack the color reflected off of surrounding
| objects.
| what-no-tests wrote:
| Interesting - I hadn't considered the single-point-
| illumination aspect.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It also goes both ways: one reason we can have certainty
| that the Apollo moon landings were real is that the
| photographs have sharp parallel shadows that could not have
| been faked using contemporary methods.
| waihtis wrote:
| Is it just Baader-Meinhof at play or are multiple nations running
| lunar missions at an accelerated rate?
| [deleted]
| dmurray wrote:
| Definitely happening now at an accelerated rate.
|
| Wikipedia has a graph by decade: 12 in the 2010s and 19 already
| in the 2020s, with 30+ more planned missions planned and
| already funded.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon
| waihtis wrote:
| Interesting. Very happy to have a reignited space enthusiasm
| across the globe, just curious if something has developed
| which is spiking the interest. As far as I understand landing
| on the moon doesn't contain a whole lot of ROI apart from the
| mission success itself.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Japan is, just like with the ISS partnership, a key member
| of the Artemis accords (IIRC they'll be getting to send
| their own astronauts to the Moon too, just like how they do
| to the ISS right now). Thus the increasing activity towards
| the Moon. I think at this point basically every major
| country with any sort of space-related industry that isn't
| Russia or China aligned has signed on and is working on
| things related to the Moon.
|
| Turns out that the only way to force the US to commit to a
| destination in space instead of switching between the Moon
| and Mars every administration was for NASA to turn it into
| a large international partnership such that it would hurt
| the next administration's standing to cancel the program.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > was for NASA to turn it into a large international
| partnership such that it would hurt the next
| administration's standing to cancel the program.
|
| That's no guarantee. See Jupiter moon exploration - there
| were _two_ proposed NASA/ESA ones, both cancelled when
| NASA pulled out. ESA then did their own one (JUICE) and
| now NASA is doing a couple of its own, too.
| asdff wrote:
| What are some of the overall interests for these recent
| moon missions? In the past it was for manned spy
| satellite and ICBM programs. Is there a similar national
| defense parallel being worked on with these efforts?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think this time the emerging interest is that by
| leading the effort of and controlling most of the
| infrastructure for establishing a long term, potentially
| permanent presence on the Moon, the US can dictate the
| terms of these first realistic international agreements
| on the resource rights on foreign bodies. The next
| closest adversary who is a contender technology-wise for
| establishing a similar presence is China, so you can
| imagine that all the issues with them are involved too.
|
| Plus, to a smaller extent there's the idea behind Artemis
| that all this is a staging ground for our eventual trips
| to Mars (which, due to the mechanics of it, would have to
| be a long term thing), where of course the big interest
| is that it would be another monumental event in human
| history and politicians would very much like for that to
| be associated with their name (hell, part of Artemis'
| motivation was just that they promised to put boots on
| the Moon before the end of Trump's assumed second term,
| allowing him to claim to have been the one to oversee
| America's return to the Moon).
| bozhark wrote:
| mining rights
| chmod775 wrote:
| There is no international treaty giving you mining rights
| for landing on the moon.
| simplicio wrote:
| Rather the opposite. Current international law forbids
| countries from claiming property rights on the Moon.
| goku12 wrote:
| What do you mine on the Moon? Moon's gravity may be 1/6th
| that of Earth's - but that is still a lot to overcome to
| bring back anything substantial. I keep hearing about
| Helium3 fusion. But we don't have any commercially viable
| fusion reactors around. There may be water - but it's
| likely going to take a lot of processing to extract. What
| else is there that we can't get on this planet and is
| worth the cost of lifting from the Moon?
| neom wrote:
| https://www.popsci.com/elements-mine-on-the-moon/
| thombat wrote:
| So nothing of immediate or direct use here on earth, just
| things that may be usable for further off-world
| construction or (in the case of He-3) might be an energy
| source someday.
| hnben wrote:
| isn't metal in orbit much more valuable than metal on
| earth? i.e. you can build plenty cheap satellites with
| it.
| hnbad wrote:
| This assumes you can refine the ores "in orbit" and
| manufacture everything "in orbit". This in turn requires
| a ton of manufacturing on Earth and a lot of launches to
| move all this stuff off Earth. Not to mention all the
| supporting industry and infrastructure manufacturing
| normally has on Earth. Not to mention the R&D costs and
| staff logistics.
|
| This isn't a video game. You can't just click a button
| and have an autonomous satellite factory churning out
| satellites in space. Moving any amount of manufacturing
| or refining into space is a massive logistics undertaking
| we haven't even begun to explore. Just because Bezos has
| a vision of moving the working class off Earth or Musk
| made some off-the-cuff remarks to rile up his yes-men,
| that doesn't mean this is something that will happen
| soon, much less something that will be useful soon.
| goku12 wrote:
| This article doesn't address the nuances - the energy
| requirements, processing of the ore, etc.
| michelb wrote:
| Pretty sure it's a race to land-grab, for future mining
| efforts and jumping-off points. Probably some science
| experiments as well. I guess it's a bit like Antarctica,
| but without the peace and commercial interests.
| dahousecat wrote:
| NASA is planning to build a radio telescope:
| https://youtu.be/qdJ_gJ_kPEI?si=4MVsL8FtWtkZRI7e
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [dead]
| broeng wrote:
| We must not allow a mineshaft^Wmoonbase gap!
| [deleted]
| nness wrote:
| In recent news; China banned seafood imports from Japan after
| raising concern regarding the release of nuclear wastewater from
| Fukushima.
|
| ... but that felt like a red-herring. Perhaps this is related.
| Aachen wrote:
| How in the world do you see a relation between China banning
| Japanese fish and the Japanese space agency continuing to do
| space exploration?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| That was indeed a red-herring as the water was very diluted.
| China's probably just throwing another tantrum about Japan's
| position on Taiwan.
| feitingen wrote:
| Definitely a tantrum. It's diluted tritium. It's almost a
| shame to throw it away.
|
| It's hard to tell what the tantrum is really about.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Meanwhile Chinese nuclear plants are doing the same but in
| significantly larger quantities.
|
| https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230824_36
| aloe_falsa wrote:
| > Only four nations have successfully landed on the moon, the
| U.S., Russia, China and India.
|
| Correction: the U.S., the Soviet Union, China, and India.
| justrealist wrote:
| Yes. Luna 9 was designed by a Ukranian[1] and launched from
| Kazakhstan[2]. Calling it a "Russian" accomplishment is pretty
| silly.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9
| lostmsu wrote:
| To be fair the design wasn't a one man job, and the company
| is located near Moscow, and Baikonur is an enclave
| administered by Russia.
| justrealist wrote:
| I'm not saying Russia was a bit player, just that it's
| wrong to credit the landing _to_ Russia.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| That is such a hardcore burn. Yikes haha
| theultdev wrote:
| Only until recently the Russians were our only ride to the
| ISS. The US didn't even have a shuttle program...
|
| The US itself still doesn't have a working program,
| thankfully SpaceX can do it.
|
| The Russians could probably go to the moon again, but there's
| no real point to.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Russia has tried to go to the moon (Luna 25) like a month
| ago. It failed.
| [deleted]
| modzu wrote:
| in almost a non sequitur, the article reads, "plasmas have the
| potential for healing wounds, making computer chips...". it made
| for a good chuckle wondering if the journalist reporting on this
| was thinking we might harvest some plasma from space
| hinkley wrote:
| Why from space? We have people donating plasma every day! Silly
| scientists.
| goldbeck wrote:
| Came for the space talk, stayed for the LLM artifacts.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Healing wounds? The author wouldn't confuse the 4th state of
| matter with _blood_ plasma... right?
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Cold atmospheric plasma, used for cleaning wounds.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| They sterilize the wound first by putting the object into
| space. Then, apply the plasma they collected during lift
| off.
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(page generated 2023-09-11 22:01 UTC)