Japenase Aerospace Exploration Agency – Picture from the moon

This is a very nice high resolution picture. Not sure if you see what I see on there, but It seems to contain trails/roads in between the craters.
The image if from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

China says there’s no space race in Asia

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – Over a few short months, Japan, China, and India will all have lunar probes orbiting the moon, sparking talk of a new space race in Asia. China, for one, takes exception at that characterization.

On Thursday, a top official in its secretive military-backed lunar explorer program defended the probe launched last week as an innovation that is part of a future wave of cooperation, not competition, in outer space.

“It’s all peaceful,” said Pei Zhaoyu, assistant director of the Lunar Exploration Program Center, when asked whether a space race was on. “The countries involved in lunar exploration are developing an understanding. They’re evolving a mechanism for cooperation.”

China’s launch of the Chang’e 1 satellite put in motion an ambitious space exploration plan, and came just weeks after rival Japan launched its own moon probe. India plans to send its own lunar probe into space in April.

The three missions represent a new wave of lunar exploration following those begun in the Cold War by the United States and former Soviet Union, and another bout in the 1990s that saw Japan and Western Europe joining the club.

James Oberg, a space consultant in Houston, said the current glut of lunar missions is less of a space race and more a matter of those countries developing new technologies at similar rates. All three have lately developed more powerful booster rockets, along with experience with payloads gleaned from launching commercial satellites, said Oberg, a veteran of 22 years at NASA Mission Control.

However, he added that such missions do offer tangible benefits for a country’s business and reputation.

“Doing ‘moon probes’ advertises a country’s technological level and that’s good for high-tech exports, and for validating the threat-level of its high-tech weapons,” Oberg said in recent comments to The Associated Press.

Oberg likened the Chinese probe, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon Similar, to the orbiting U.S. moon explorers “Clementine” and “Prospector” launched in the 1990s.

In Beijing, Pei told reporters all was well with the satellite, which is due to move into lunar capture orbit Monday, when it will allow itself to be caught by the moon’s gravity.

“All the systems on board are currently in excellent condition and the spacecraft is on the expected trajectory,” said Pei, who is also spokesman for the China National Space Administration — China’s version of NASA.

The lunar mission adds depth to a Chinese space program that has sent astronauts orbiting around the Earth twice in the past four years and is a source of great national pride.

Pei dwelt extensively on the technical aspects of the lunar mission at a news conference that illustrated a growing openness within the space program.

Foreign observers were present at the satellite’s Oct. 24 launch from the Xichang site in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Pei said. He said data gathered during the yearlong mission would be shared with scientists from other nations.

China sent its first satellite into Earth orbit in the 1970s, but the space program only seriously took off in the 1980s, growing apace with the country’s booming economy.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to put its own astronauts into space.

But China also alarmed the international community in January when it blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile.

Pei dodged a question about the anti-satellite weapon, but gave the budget for the engineering stage of the lunar program as $187 million.

“China has always adhered to the principle of peaceful use of outer space,” he said. “All goals, including engineering goals, and scientific goals, are without military purposes.”

Carried into space by a Long March 3A rocket, the Chang’e 1 satellite is expected to transmit its first photo back to China in late November.

It will survey the lunar surface using stereo radar and other tools as a precursor to a planned landing on the moon’s surface in 2012 and a recoverable mission by 2020.

Pei said China was being careful not to travel territory already covered by the space programs of Russia, the U.S., Japan and the European Space Agency.

He said that by launching the probe, China was playing to its science and technology strengths, while laying the groundwork for future innovations and benefiting the country’s economic and social development — a reference to the Communist Party’s use of the space program to drum up patriotism and loyalty.

“China’s lunar program got off to a relatively late start, but we hope to … try to do something that no one has done before,” Pei said.

“We’re fully confident that alongside the progress in our science and technology, our lunar and deep space exploration programs will advance rapidly from strength to strength,” he said.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com)

China says there’s no space race in Asia

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – Over a few short months, Japan, China, and India will all have lunar probes orbiting the moon, sparking talk of a new space race in Asia. China, for one, takes exception at that characterization.

On Thursday, a top official in its secretive military-backed lunar explorer program defended the probe launched last week as an innovation that is part of a future wave of cooperation, not competition, in outer space.

“It’s all peaceful,” said Pei Zhaoyu, assistant director of the Lunar Exploration Program Center, when asked whether a space race was on. “The countries involved in lunar exploration are developing an understanding. They’re evolving a mechanism for cooperation.”

China’s launch of the Chang’e 1 satellite put in motion an ambitious space exploration plan, and came just weeks after rival Japan launched its own moon probe. India plans to send its own lunar probe into space in April.

The three missions represent a new wave of lunar exploration following those begun in the Cold War by the United States and former Soviet Union, and another bout in the 1990s that saw Japan and Western Europe joining the club.

James Oberg, a space consultant in Houston, said the current glut of lunar missions is less of a space race and more a matter of those countries developing new technologies at similar rates. All three have lately developed more powerful booster rockets, along with experience with payloads gleaned from launching commercial satellites, said Oberg, a veteran of 22 years at NASA Mission Control.

However, he added that such missions do offer tangible benefits for a country’s business and reputation.

“Doing ‘moon probes’ advertises a country’s technological level and that’s good for high-tech exports, and for validating the threat-level of its high-tech weapons,” Oberg said in recent comments to The Associated Press.

Oberg likened the Chinese probe, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon Similar, to the orbiting U.S. moon explorers “Clementine” and “Prospector” launched in the 1990s.

In Beijing, Pei told reporters all was well with the satellite, which is due to move into lunar capture orbit Monday, when it will allow itself to be caught by the moon’s gravity.

“All the systems on board are currently in excellent condition and the spacecraft is on the expected trajectory,” said Pei, who is also spokesman for the China National Space Administration — China’s version of NASA.

The lunar mission adds depth to a Chinese space program that has sent astronauts orbiting around the Earth twice in the past four years and is a source of great national pride.

Pei dwelt extensively on the technical aspects of the lunar mission at a news conference that illustrated a growing openness within the space program.

Foreign observers were present at the satellite’s Oct. 24 launch from the Xichang site in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Pei said. He said data gathered during the yearlong mission would be shared with scientists from other nations.

China sent its first satellite into Earth orbit in the 1970s, but the space program only seriously took off in the 1980s, growing apace with the country’s booming economy.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to put its own astronauts into space.

But China also alarmed the international community in January when it blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile.

Pei dodged a question about the anti-satellite weapon, but gave the budget for the engineering stage of the lunar program as $187 million.

“China has always adhered to the principle of peaceful use of outer space,” he said. “All goals, including engineering goals, and scientific goals, are without military purposes.”

Carried into space by a Long March 3A rocket, the Chang’e 1 satellite is expected to transmit its first photo back to China in late November.

It will survey the lunar surface using stereo radar and other tools as a precursor to a planned landing on the moon’s surface in 2012 and a recoverable mission by 2020.

Pei said China was being careful not to travel territory already covered by the space programs of Russia, the U.S., Japan and the European Space Agency.

He said that by launching the probe, China was playing to its science and technology strengths, while laying the groundwork for future innovations and benefiting the country’s economic and social development — a reference to the Communist Party’s use of the space program to drum up patriotism and loyalty.

“China’s lunar program got off to a relatively late start, but we hope to … try to do something that no one has done before,” Pei said.

“We’re fully confident that alongside the progress in our science and technology, our lunar and deep space exploration programs will advance rapidly from strength to strength,” he said.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com)

Enterprise Mission Press Conference

PRG
Paradigm Research Group

Forwarded Press Release – 10/26/07

Re: Enterprise Mission Press Conference
National Press Club, Zenger Room
Tuesday, October 30, 9 am

Are Classified NASA Lunar Findings Secretly Pressuring the Aging Shuttle Program to Completion by 2010, to Make Way for “Constellation” — and the New “Space Race” to the Moon?

Washington, DC – Japan is currently in lunar orbit with the most sophisticated lunar mission since Apollo. China is about to launch a major unmanned lunar mission, on October 24th. In April, 2008 India will launch its first comprehensive unmanned lunar mission. And, Russia recently announced its own ambitious lunar plans — for not only sending cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025, but establishment of a permanent moon base soon after.

All this on the heels of President George W. Bush’s own “Vision for Space Exploration” (VSE) – his sudden decision to “return Americans to manned lunar exploration” … made inexplicably, in the middle of his war.

Why this abrupt international focus on a 21st Century Moon Program — after over 30 years of the Moon being totally ignored? Did Apollo find “something” of major importance on the Moon, which NASA just forgot to tell the rest of us?

The press conference will be lead be Richard C. Hoagland: former NASA consultant; CBS News Science Advisor during the Apollo lunar missions; co-author of “Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA” (currently #1 on Amazon’s list for “Astronomy,” and “Space Science”); and head of The Enterprise Mission. Ken Johnston, former NASA Manager of the Data and Photo Control Department of NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory at MSC during the Apollo Program, will present supporting NASA documentation.

According to the Enterprise Mission:

This is an era of increasing concern for ever more government secrecy and expanding classification. Hoagland and Johnston will demonstrate that this “less than forthright NASA decision-making” actually began a long time ago.

Citing specifics from the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, Hoagland will present startling evidence that, contrary to assumptions made by politicians, members of the press and public for almost half a century, NASA is NOT a “civilian” space agency, but is in fact “a defense agency of the United States”.

As a tax-supported federal institution, NASA’s 1958 Congressional charter specifically instructs “Sec. 205 … (d) no [NASA] information which has been classified for reasons of national security shall be included in any [NASA] report made under this section [of the Act] …” [Emphasis added].

So, what criteria does NASA apply to classifying its scientific or engineering information? And, what major NASA discoveries have never been reported – either to the Congress, the American people or the press — because of NASA’s legal ability to lie? And why could these now be politically significant …?

Says Hoagland “the evidence that NASA is something other than the ‘benevolent civilian science institution’ it has pretended to be for 50 years, is as overwhelming now as it is disturbing.

It is this ‘dark mission,’ allowing the president to legally classify NASA’s most important scientific and technological findings without even other NASA scientists or engineers, or Congress, the press or the American people becoming aware, which we contend is now impelling this new 21st Century Space Race.

A Race whose outcome – unlike the first US/USSR race for ‘mere’ political prestige 50 years ago — will literally shape the life of every human being now alive on Earth, through the startling technological discoveries we have evidence that NASA made on the Moon during Apollo … brought back to Earth … and then successfully kept secret for more than a generation.”

Supporting Hoagland’s highly controversial data and analysis, Ken Johnston, former LRL manager of NASA’s photographic lunar archive in the early 1970′s, will give a first-hand account of how he was specifically instructed by his NASA managers toward the end of the Apollo Program to destroy unique Apollo records of what the astronauts actually recorded on the Moon, rather than donate them to a university, high school or other public archive.

Hoagland and Johnston – using these 30-year-old original Apollo images that Johnston, in disobeying that direct order, personally preserved – will illustrate exactly what NASA hoped would never become known: the apparent remains of extensive lunar ruins on the Moon, one of the key projected discoveries cited by a pre-Apollo NASA/Brookings study as “capable of destroying civilization.”

Hoagland and Johnston will then compare this 30-year-old data with current Apollo images being posted on official NASA websites around the world – revealing total confirmation of Johnston’s 30-year-old claims – including, an actual astonishing example of the extraordinarily advanced technology the Apollo astronauts may have returned to Earth in the last Mission of Apollo….

Richard C. Hoagland and Ken Johnston will be available for interviews immediately following the briefing which will last from 9:00 to 9:45 AM with a question and answer period following until 11:00 AM.

Google Moon Gets a Big Update

When Google Moon was released last year, it was a bit of a joke. Google Earth, but for the Moon. Zoom in far enough and the familiar lunar craters were replaced with swiss cheese. The time for silliness is over, Google Moon has gotten an update, and they’re making it a serious learning tool this time around. The website incorporates photographs from orbiters and the Apollo missions to let you zoom in and out, exploring the Moon.

(Source: http://www.universetoday.com/2007/09/18/google-moon-gets-a-big-update/)