I watched this launch about 4 or 5 hours ago and was very impressed with the video coverage and the rocket. The 4 kerosene boosters where really neat. I mused about them being reusable and landing after they where jettisoned. I believe China is working towards that kind of reusability. The center core being fueled by clean hydrogen was very refreshing, shade of Spaceshuttle and SLS. It is interesting that they are flying a similar flight profile that the Apollo missions flew. I hope we get many live upxes of this mission and live transmissions from the moon. Seems like with Apollo there are lots of dangers along the way, technically very ambitious. That makes it all the more exciting! :-) We are headed back to the moon folks. A small scale apollo mission.

P.S. I'm disappointed not to see more comments here yet. This is exciting stuff!

四五个小时之前我观看了这次发射，视频报道和火箭给我留下了深刻的印象。4个煤油助推器真好用。我琢磨这些东西可重复使用，从主舰体脱离后会着陆在某些地方。我相信中国正在朝这种可重复利用的方向努力。核心级的燃料是清洁的氢气，这让人精神为之一振，有点宇宙飞船和太空发射系统的影子。有趣的是，他们的飞行剖面和阿波罗任务相似。我希望能看到更多关于这次任务的实时更新以及从月球传来的实时信息。阿波罗计划一路上碰到了很多危险，技术上很有雄心。所以这次航信更加令人兴奋!伙计们，我们要重返月球了。小规模的阿波罗任务。

附注:我很失望没有看到更多评论。这次发射确实令人兴奋!

 

savuporo ReSpaceAge

Chang'e program has been a stellar success so far - exactly the kind of incremental engineering complexity build-up as it should be. Hoping this mission continues the trend, and really wish they had more resources to throw at it and go a lot of faster with follow-ups.

Note that they still have Chang'e-3 active on surface - that's pretty impressive, 7 years in.

到目前为止，嫦娥计划已经取得了巨大的成功——这正是递增的工程复杂性所应该达到的程度。希望这次任务能继续保持这一趋势，真心希望中国能投入更多的资源，并在加速后续的任务。

值得注意的是，中国在月球表面的嫦娥三号仍然在活动，要知道嫦娥三号到达月球还是七年前的事，这给人的印象相当深刻。

 

John ReSpaceAge

The boosters are essentially 3.35 meter LM-7 first stages. Given that they have only 2 kerolox engines they really can't throttle down enough to successfully land. The LM-8 rocket that China is working on making reusable is something of an odd duck version of the LM-7. In order to propulsively land it is planned to have it carry two solid rocket boosters through the entire flight, these boosters are retained during landing in order to provide sufficient ballast for the two YF-100 engines to conduct a propulsive landing. Seems very inefficient compared with the 9 engine octaweb that SpaceX developed for the F9 which can throttle down to about 5% of max thrust on its single main engine to conduct a landing. Unless China develops a new booster with much smaller engines you'll never see the LM-5 boosters reused and its hard to see how the LM-8 will ever be anything more than a demonstrator.

长征七号第一级助推器的实际长度是3.35米。考虑到只有两个kerolox引擎，根本没有办法减慢速度来实现成功着陆。中国正在研制的可重复使用的长征八号火箭有点像长征七号的奇怪版。为了实现推进着陆，长征八号计划在飞行过程中携带两个固体火箭助推器，为了给两台YF-100发动机提供足够的压舱物来实现推进着陆，在着陆期间这些助推器会被保留。与SpaceX为F9开发的9个octaweb引擎相比，看起来效率非常低，octaweb引擎可以将单个主引擎的最大推力降低到5%左右，从而实现着陆。除非中国开发一种携带比现在的引擎小得多的助推器，否则永远都看不到长征5号助推器的重复使用，也很难想象长征8号将会成为验证者。

 

That said China's proposed moon rocket which they recently revealed is a 5 meter rocket with two strap on stages and multiple kerolox engines similar to the SpaceX Falcon Heavy. So this rocket could be a useful reusable rocket similar to Falcon Heavy but there is no date for a first flight or even an official name yet. Whenever it is introduced it will likely replace the LM-5 with a single stick kerolox booster and the three booster heavy version used for lunar missions.

据称，中国最近公布的探月火箭是的高度5米，有两个捆绑级和多个kerolox发动机，类似于SpaceX的猎鹰重型火箭。这枚火箭可能是类似猎鹰重型火箭的可重复使用火箭，但目前为止中国还没提供该型号火箭首飞的日期，甚至还没有官方的名称。无论何时推出，该型号火箭都有可能用单个kerolox助推器和用于月球任务的重型三助推器来取代长征五号火箭。

 

gunsandrockets John

The CAST CZ-6X RLV supposed to fly in 2021. The 1st stage of CZ-6X would have potential application as reusable boosters for the CZ-5 and CZ-5B.

Compared to the single-engined CZ-6, the CZ-6X has two YF-100 engines like the CZ-7. CAST gets around the problem of the YF-100 engines being too powerful for vertical landing by adding a small pair of parallel YF-115 engines.

长征6X RLV火箭预计将于2021年首飞。长征6X号火箭第一级可能会采用长征五号或者长征5B火箭的可重复使用助推器。

与单发动机的长征六号火箭比，长征6X和长征七号一样有两台YF-100发动机。长征6X通过增加一对并行的YF-115引擎，解决了YF-100引擎对于垂直降落过于强大的问题。

 

Nathaniel Torbjörn Larsson

I think the Moon is far more interesting if one takes the perspective that space should be part of our economic sphere, instead of a zone primarily for exploration and scientific research. Exploration for its own sake is not that interesting to me.

我认为，如果人们认为太空应该成为我们经济领域的一部分，而不是主要探索和科学研究的区域，那么月球就会有趣得多。探险本身对我来说并不是那么有趣。

 

nakedChimp Nathaniel

Which resources of the moon do we have demand for within the next 2 decades and which we can't get anywhere else cheaper?

I can only come up with real estate (telescopes, etc.) and tourism (it's THE moon).

What do I miss?

在接下来的20年里，我们对月球上的哪些资源有需求，哪些资源是我们在其他任何地方都找不到的?

我只能想到房地产(望远镜等)和旅游(这是月球)。

还有什么我们遗漏的吗?

 

Vladislaw Torbjörn Larsson

"And it will never be a resource"

Incorrect. It will be a resource but you first have to go there and pick up a rock BEFORE you can claim ownership rights. That is why it was so important that President Obama signed that bill.

Having the ability to OWN a crater where a snowball crashed is going to be very important as a move forward. Where Richard and I disagree is in how we define exploration. We still do massive amounts of exploration right here on terra firma but the exploration is for resource extraction.

It will be same on Luna once there is mineral rights established on Luna and you can enter it into the account books as an asset.

“月球永远不会成为资源”

不对。月球会成为一种资源，但是在你声称对月球拥有所有权之前，你必须有能力到达月球并在上面捡起一块石头。这就是为什么奥巴马总统签署这项法案如此重要的原因。

有能力拥有像雪球一样滚落的陨石坑是非常重要的。理查德和我的分歧在于如何定义探索。我们仍然在陆地上进行大量的勘探但是这些勘探是为了开采资源。

一旦在月球上建立了矿业权，就可以将月球作为资产记入账簿。

 

I am from North Dakota and there is mineral rights for coal deposits that have been bought and sold for over a century. They simply sit in account books as an asset and not an ounce of coal has ever been mined from them. It will be the same for Luna as these rights slowly get codified into law.

Who cares about bringing back the gold as long as you have the mineral rights to the gold field and can put it in the ledger as an asset. Even once it is mined you will not have to bring it home. We will do what we did in California when those gold fields suffered the same problem of no transportation. They simply locked the gold into a steel box and hung a sign outside

我来自北达科他州，那里的煤矿采矿权已经被买卖了一个多世纪。采矿权只是作为一种资产出现在会计账簿上，可是却从来没有开采过一盎司煤炭。当这些权利慢慢被编纂成法律时，月球将会面临同样的情况。

只要你拥有金矿开采权，并能把它作为一项资产计入账簿，谁还会关心能不能把黄金带回来。即使开采了黄金，也不不用非得带回地球。到时候如果没有运输，这些金矿就会和我们在加州金矿遇到的情况一样。把金子锁在一个钢盒子里，然后在外面挂个牌子

 

BANK

We will do the same and do electronic banking and who owns how much when. Gold is used as a reserve and just sits in vaults and the only thing that changes is who owns how much.

我们也会这么做，做电子银行，谁什么时间，拥有多少钱。黄金被用作储备，存放在金库中，唯一改变的是谁拥有多少黄金。

 

newpapyrus

The Chang’e-5 will be lading in a region that's rich in thorium. Someday lunar thorium will compete with uranium extracted from the Earth's oceans to supply fuel for nuclear reactors powering colonies on Mars.

嫦娥五号将在富含钍元素的地区采样。有朝一日，月球上的钍将与从地球海洋中提取的铀竞争，成为到火星建设殖民地提供核反应堆燃料。

 

Richard Seaton newpapyrus

And there is the dead giveaway that nobody is ever going to live on Mars. Due to no air and radiation it would be an underground existence. Due to not enough solar energy to power closed loop life support systems these tunnel communities would depend on nuclear power plants. What products will they "sell" to pay for their necessities? It is a joke. Not to mention that Martians would likely never be able to return to Earth after a certain number of years- or if they were born on Mars.

而且有确凿的证据表明没有人会住在火星上。没有空气，而且辐射比较强，就算是居住在火星上也只能居住在地下。由于没有足够的太阳能为闭环生命维持系统供电，这些隧道社区的生存将依赖核电站。他们会“卖”什么产品来购买必需品?这是个笑话。更不用说如果他们出生在火星上，这些火星人在一定年限后可能永远无法返回地球。

 

Space colonies, on the other hand, would have 1 gravity and travel to other artificial moons and nearby Earth would be commonplace, eventually with hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of city sized habitats. The economic engine to start space colonization was envisioned by Gerard K. O'Neill: Space Solar Power. Which also happens to be the only solution to providing the energy for a western standard of living to the population of Earth carbon-free and thus solving climate change.

另一方面，太空殖民地将拥有1个重力，飞往其他人造卫星和地球附近将是司空见惯的事，最终将拥有数百、数千或数万个城市大小的栖息地。启动太空殖民的经济引擎是由杰瑞德·K·欧尼尔设想的:太空太阳能。这碰巧也是唯一的解决方案，为地球上的人口提供西方生活标准的能源，从而解决气候变化问题。

 

A Space Solar Power cislunar infrastructure would eventually enable beam-propelled single stage to orbit space-liners to begin decreasing Earth's population as more and more miles-in-diameter habitats are mass-produced. Until in a few centuries Earth is a sparsely populated pristine "adventure" destination and tens of billions live in space.

太空太阳能地月空间基础设施将最终使光束推动的单级太空飞船进入轨道，随着越来越多直径数英里的栖息地大量产生，地球人口将开始减少。直到几个世纪后，地球才成为人烟稀少的原始探险目的地，几百亿人生活在太空中。

 

newpapyrus Richard Seaton

I suspect that adults will be fine living on the Moon and Mars-- as long as they do the appropriate amount of exercise. But I'm not so sure if it would be healthy for children to grow up in a hypogravity environment. Fortunately, developing into an adult comprises less than 20% of our average lifespan.

Both Mars habitats and O'Neill colonies are going to require appropriate radiation shielding. Three meters of water covering a transparent biosphere should be enough to protect humans from excess levels of cosmic radiation on the surface of Mars.

Marcel

我觉得只要做适当的锻炼成年人可以在月球和火星上生活得很好。但我不确定孩子们在低重力环境下成长是否健康。幸运的是，成长为成年人只占我们平均寿命的不到20%。

火星栖息地和欧尼尔殖民地都需要适当的辐射防护。覆盖着透明生物圈的3米深的水应该足以保护人类免受火星表面过量宇宙辐射的伤害。

 

DigDug Richard Seaton

Both Mars and Venus could be Terraformed if we put our minds to it.

Two more planets we can overpopulate and ruin.

如果用心去做，火星和金星都可以被改造成地球。

我们又可以再祸祸两个星球了。

 

newpapyrus DigDug

Why would you want to destroy the environments of these natural wonders. Mars is beautiful. And you could live in the skies of Venus, well above its toxic clouds.

Marcel

你为什么要破坏这些自然奇观的环境呢?火星很美丽。你可以生活在金星的天空中，在有毒云层之上。