China and the Moon

I've been reading some news about the Chinese Space program and difficulties they are having. I found this article about why the Chinese would like to land on the moon. The article mentions resource storage, technology attainment, solar energy, environmental monitoring. 2008 for the Moon Landing may be too soon, but it's an admirable target. The US plans to land in 2020, India also in the near future.

Mining--Tourism and Drama

I've been caving in a number of places around the world and have visited many mines because I find them interesting. The recent collapse of a coal mine tunnel that stranded 6 people in Utah is an example of the terrors one faces in order to travel deep within the Earth and the difficulties to be encountered while they struggle to survive. What's especially praiseworthy is the company and comrades of these men don't give up. I like the technology--sluices, drills, earth moving equipment, the history--the Celts, the Africans, the Egyptians, the beauty--stalactites, stalagmites, crystals and jewels, and willpower needed to get our valuable resources.

Probes--tool for investigating what we don't know

Lisa Chu-ThielbarScience Communications, SETI Institute SPACE.com , wrote an interesting article about Probing Planets: Can You Get There From Here? In this article she mentions a number of difficulties in dealing with the many places where the scientific community would like to probe in order to understand the origin of the universe and how our solar system works.

The top difficulty is expense because items are specialized. What we've learned about manufacturing is that a process that is able to produce an object many times will be less expensive. Most probes are manufactured specifically for an environment that is different from all the others visited before.

A secondary difficulty is using new untested technologies and getting them approved for launch.

She explained that there's an annual conference where issues about probes are discussed.

My thoughts--still gelling in my mind. More later.