But public interest in lunar exploration has always been lukewarm.
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Our lunar exploration is a mixed pursuit of technological conquest...
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That's why a group of scientists with the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, or LEAG, which advises NASA on lunar exploration, wrote a letter to Bridenstine, urging him to reverse the decision on Resource Prospector.
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Freshwater asked Bezos why Blue Origin is focused on lunar exploration.
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Go deeper: Israeli moon landing to mark milestone in lunar exploration
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"A dream would have to be a lunar exploration mission," he said.
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In time, he developed what were, essentially, navigational charts for lunar exploration.
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China's new probe is the latest step in its lunar exploration program.
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There are numerous "lunar exploration architectures," or ways to return to the Moon.
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"We're committed to lunar exploration," said Jim Bridenstein, NASA's recently sworn-in administrator.
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The European Union, Russia, China, Japan and India all harbor lunar exploration ambitions.
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China's Tencent Holdings has invested in Moon Express, a commercial lunar exploration company.
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China's ambitions for space and lunar exploration aren't limited to the current mission.
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In addition to the Mars mission, China has been actively pursuing lunar exploration.
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The Google Lunar X Prize is intended to spur commercial development of lunar exploration.
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The Shackleton crater has often been considered an attractive landing site for future lunar exploration.
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The exception occurred during the flight of Apollo 22019, when 53 percent favored lunar exploration.
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"It'd be a great way to kick off the next generation of lunar exploration," says Thornton.
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Chang'e 4's successful landing concludes the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP).
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The two orders mesh with NASA's plan to restart lunar exploration with commercial and international partners.
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"It really built a infrastructure that didn't exist," said Marshall Smith, NASA's director of human lunar exploration.
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After returning humans to the moon in 2024, NASA plans to establish sustainable lunar exploration by 2028.
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This next decade, however, is set to see a wave of lunar exploration like we've never experienced.
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With a variety of pioneering companies competing to launch humans into space, lunar exploration is taking off.
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It also underscores how lunar exploration is open to new players, not just the US and Russia.
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He served on lunar exploration committees for both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush.
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The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program released photos of its first moon landing to the public late last month.
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The United States and China are contesting every domain, from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration.
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What sounded like a knuckleheaded idea actually captured the spirit of the age of lunar exploration: man, machine, limitless ambition.
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Because of the timing of the lunar exploration, by Neil A. Armstrong, the civilian commander of Apollo 20063, and Col.
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However, if today's announcement is about the next step in lunar exploration, the picture that Blue Origin shared is somewhat foreboding.
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That mission was a precursor to more advanced lunar exploration for NASA, and paved the way for the first lunar landing.
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The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) also released two new pictures that Chang'e 4 and Yutu 2 snapped of each other.
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"It's an important milestone for China's space exploration," Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar exploration program, said, according to Xinhua.
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Navy pilot and astronaut Bean took up a brush and decided to paint scenes from the first age of lunar exploration.
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The mission is part of China's heavy investment in lunar exploration and growing capabilities in space through the China National Space Administration.
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Finding a battery that can withstand extreme temperature swings and still efficiently store energy could be a big boon for lunar exploration.
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If extended to lunar exploration, it would permit U.S. private operators to extract, utilize and/or sell resources found on the moon.
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"Perhaps it is because America has been there and done that, in terms of lunar exploration, with the Apollo program," Berger wrote.
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But a decade earlier, in 1959, it was the Soviet space program that held the definitive edge over NASA in lunar exploration.
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Dealing with this grime will be a big hassle for future lunar exploration missions — especially if we want to put habitats up there.
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The architect of China's lunar exploration program, Wu Weiren, said in March that the Chinese government would launch a Mars probe in 2020.
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The next two years could see big progress in China's two highest-profile civil programmes in space: lunar exploration and building a space station.
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If you have an AR-capable mobile device, there are a few different ways for you to interact with landmarks of lunar exploration history.
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NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine answered by saying the agency will meet the White House's directive, which represents an acceleration of NASA's existing lunar exploration timeline.
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The hopeful companies advancing into the 2017 home stretch have wildly different lunar exploration strategies and goals, plus they hail from all around the world.
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We should continue supporting ISS first, and if we can afford it, to funding a lunar exploration program that leads to an international Mars program.
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SpaceX's Elon Musk is building a big rocket in Boca Chica, Texas that would serve quite nicely for a lunar exploration effort, when it becomes available.
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China's lunar exploration program plans to launch Chang'e 5, which would be the first sample-return mission to the Moon since in 1976, in late 2019.
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NASA's Lunar Exploration Analysis Group sent a letter to NASA Administrator Jim BridenstineJames (Jim) Frederick BridenstineMaking space exploration cool again In-space refueling vs heavy lift?
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"It's a small step for the rover, but one giant leap for the Chinese nation," Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the Lunar Exploration Project, told CCTV.
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The first soft landing of a spacecraft and the relay of its messages "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration," said a Chinese space agency statement.
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And figuring this out could be crucial to future lunar exploration, as the ice could be mined and turned into drinking water or even fuel for spacecraft.
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And 50 years after man set foot on the moon, Oliver Morton, The Economist's senior editor and author, predicts the future of humans' relationship with lunar exploration.
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Current plans have the new age of lunar exploration starting this year, with robotic landers planned by India, China, and a private group in Israel called SpaceIL.
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"Through the agency's Artemis lunar exploration program, we will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before," the agency added.
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A spacecraft named Chang'e-4 will attempt the mission, said Liu Jizhong, head of China's lunar exploration center, which will be the first of its kind in history.
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" In response to LEAG's letter, Bridenstine reaffirmed NASA's commitment to lunar exploration on Twitter, explaining that "Resource Prospector instruments will go forward in an expanded lunar surface campaign.
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The name "Chang'e" is that of a mythical lunar goddess, and the "4" indicates that this is the fourth robotic mission in China's decade-long lunar exploration program.
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"Through the agency's Artemis lunar exploration program, we will use innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the Moon than ever before," NASA shared on YouTube.
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Bridenstine spoke to Reuters about making the next generation of lunar exploration a "sustainable enterprise," using rockets and other space vehicles that could be used again and again.
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The vehicle is just a concept for now, but Lockheed hopes that it could prove valuable for NASA as it pushes forward with its plans for human lunar exploration.
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Japanese lunar exploration startup ispace welcomed the news, and anticipates possibly being able to contribute in some capacity, specifically via the partnership it announced with Draper earlier this year.
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At the 2019 opening of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on Sunday, the chief designer of China's lunar exploration told of plans to send a rover to Mars.
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"We believe this will be remembered as a turning point for our burgeoning industry," Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of lunar exploration start-up ispace, said in a statement.
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The next phase of China's lunar exploration program, Chang'e 5, aims to collect the nation's first-ever samples of moon dust, called regolith, and bring them back to Earth.
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At a Lunar Exploration Analysis Group meeting last week, SpaceNews reports that James Green of the Planetary Science Division described NASA as taking a "very slow" approach to the problem.
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The Chang'33 lander and Yutu 23 rover are both in "normal working condition," according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
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The rover "will be an important element supporting human lunar exploration, which we envision will take place in the 2030s", JAXA Vice President Koichi Wakata told a symposium in Tokyo.
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The planned landing is just the latest in a program of lunar exploration that China has embarked upon to establish itself as the dominant space power of the 21st century.
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"I am concerned that the bill imposes some significant constraints on our approach to lunar exploration," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in a blog post after the bill was released.
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"Laws that govern outer space are similar to the laws for the high seas," Alain Berinstain, the vice-president of global development at the lunar-exploration company Moon Express , explained.
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A casualty of NASA's redirection of funds toward lunar exploration, however, is its direct support of the International Space Station, which the Trump administration wants to cut funding to in 2024.
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Included in the White House budget is $12.4 billion specifically for lunar exploration that would include landing systems, continued development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion crew module.
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The rocket is part of the Space Launch System (SLS) for NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program, which aims to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 23.
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The Tianhe system is being developed by China's Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a state-owned defense and space firm also involved in lunar exploration and the construction of China's space station.
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In March, the Chinese government said it would open up its lunar exploration program to companies rather than simply relying on the state-owned sector as before, hoping to boost technological breakthroughs.
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"By 2040 (we believe) there will be 1,000 people living and working on the moon and 10,000 annual visitors," said Aaron Sorenson, a spokesman from the Japanese lunar exploration startup ispace, inc.
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Mantis Robot for Lunar Exploration DFKI's LIMES experiment, which stands for Learning Intelligent Motions for Kinematically Complex Robots for Exploration in Space, is a mantis-inspired robot design intended for extraterrestrial exploration.
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Gradually, as they have felt more confident about success, Chinese officials have lifted the veil of secrecy on efforts associated with the Shenzhou human spaceflight program and the Chang'e robotic lunar exploration program.
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Last year the U.S. government made a historic ruling to allow the company to engage in peaceful commercial lunar exploration and discovery following consultations with the FAA, White House, State Department and NASA.
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The drive team decided to stall the trip for a while so that the rover could get a closer look at the "gelatinous" substance, as it was described by China's Lunar Exploration Program.
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Proving that pint-sized rovers can work on the Moon could open up lunar exploration to other groups, as tinier robots are cheaper to build, easier to make, and lighten loads for rockets.
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We can't be 100 percent sure we've actually found lava tubes on the Moon unless we explore the craters ourselves—and lunar exploration has taken a backseat to Mars exploration in recent years.
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According to Richard Vondrak, emeritus scientist for lunar exploration at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the last total solar eclipses visible from our planet's surface will occur some 600 million years from now.
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Senate appropriators recently passed a funding bill that would give NASA $22.75 billion for 2020, but the legislation does not provide the requested levels of funding for human lunar exploration that the administration wanted.
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And, on Tuesday, Japanese start-up ispace announced it raised $90.2 million in a Series A round of funding to launch two lunar exploration missions, backed by investors like Suzuki Motor and Japan Airlines.
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Japanese lunar exploration startup Ispace said it has signed up for launches on Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets in 2020 and 2021, its first step towards offering services such as searching for water on the moon.
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Artist's concept of a lunar outpostImage: NASANASA announced the names of companies who'd be able to bid on contracts for lunar exploration projects as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services at a press conference today.
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Image: CLEP/CNSAThe Yutu 43 rover has now traveled a total of 24 meters (22 feet), according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the CNSA, and as relayed by Chinese state media Xinhua.
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Sivan, who previously told media the "three-in-one" launch would help cut costs, said the agency aimed to complete 30 more missions this year, including India's second lunar exploration program known as the Chandrayaan-2.
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"We welcome this development with great optimism for the future of lunar exploration, as well as the relationship between Japan and the United States," said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, in an emailed statement.
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This post is a fascinating stroll through the history of lunar exploration — a lot of which we've seen many times before, but with the latest news from the far side of the moon, curiosity definitely hasn't waned.
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Ultimately, JAXA's goal is to host a series of uncrewed and human missions under a broader Lunar Exploration Program, with the ultimate aim of establishing a presence for Japanese astronauts in a combined international lunar outpost program.
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese lunar exploration startup Ispace said it has signed up for launches on Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets in 2020 and 2021, its first step towards offering services such as searching for water on the moon.
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"With the improvements to the suits for Artemis missions, astronauts can now open up new possibilities for science and exploration at the Moon," Marshall Smith, NASA's director of the Human Lunar Exploration program, said in a statement.
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"This action is viewed with both incredulity and dismay by our community, especially as the President's Space Policy Directive 1 directs NASA to go to the lunar surface," the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group wrote in the letter.
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Speaking ahead of the opening of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a major political event in Beijing, Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program, said the red planet was the natural next step.
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Our goal is to expand Earth's social and economic sphere to the Moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests.
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China has launched a new round of work focused on lunar exploration, coming about two years after it made the first "soft landing" on the moon since 1976 with the Chang'e-3 craft and its Jade Rabbit rover.
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Mark Sirangelo, named six weeks ago as special assistant to NASA chief Jim Bridenstine, "has opted to pursue other opportunities," Bridenstine said in a statement, after NASA's new lunar exploration plan met a chilly reception on Capitol Hill.
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A new probe, the Chang'e-4, is similar to the Chang'e-3 but can carry a bigger payload, Xinhua quoted Liu Jizhong, head of the science, technology and defense industry administration's lunar exploration center, as saying late on Thursday.
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Mere days after Republican Congressman James Bridenstine was confirmed as the 13th NASA administrator, he was met with "both incredulity and dismay" from the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), according to an letter from this group of lunar scientists.
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"Our selection of these U.S. commercial landing service providers represents America's return to the Moon's surface for the first time in decades, and it's a huge step forward for our Artemis lunar exploration plans," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
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"This actually helps us understand not just about the Moon, but the whole Solar System," Clive Neal, an engineering professor at the University of Notre Dame and emeritus chair of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, or LEAG, tells The Verge.
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Over the long haul, China aims to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface, Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of the China National Space Administration&aposs Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, said at a conference last month, according to Xinhua.
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"Our goal is to expand Earth's social and economic sphere to the moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests," Richards added.
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"CAPSTONE is a rapid, risk-tolerant demonstration that sets out to learn about the unique, seven-day cislunar orbit we are also targeting for Gateway," said Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA in a press release.
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"Whether life ever arose on the Moon, or was transported to it from elsewhere, is of course highly speculative and can only be addressed by an aggressive future program of lunar exploration," they write in the article, published in the journal Astrobiology.
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As a signal that the apparent loss of the Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander will not put a halt to India's lunar exploration program, the Indian government should announce that the mission will be funded and launched at the earliest practical opportunity.
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But then Chazelle is as little interested in that context as he is in the spiritual or philosophical potential of this story (this is a tale of lunar exploration in which a journalist's question about "feeling the presence of God" is played for a laugh).
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Modern China's space agency, with a nod to old myths, named its lunar-exploration program after the centuries-old moon goddess Chang'e, whose Earth-bound lover made offerings of fruit and cake in her honor after she took up eternal residence in the heavens.
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The landing "lifted the mysterious veil" of the far side of the moon and "opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration", the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wide-angle color picture of a crater from the moon's surface.
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"It's really going to come down to when it comes time to contracts for the [landers]... is when the bulk of the money is really going to need to be provided," Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA said during the press conference.
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The launch will involve new challenges for China in sample collection, taking off from the moon and high-speed reentry to the Earth's atmosphere, making it "one of China's most complicated and difficult space missions", Hu Hao, an official from China's Lunar Exploration Programme, told the paper.
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Related: Relax, China Is Not Using the Death Star to Conquer the Moon So, taking all of this into account, the smart money would be on robotic lunar exploration missions, Chang'e 4 (the dark side lander), and Chang'e 5, which will return moon rocks to Earth, happening by 2020.
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"Since the far side of the moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it's an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can 'listen' to the deeper reaches of the cosmos," said Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center for the China National Space Administration.
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"As it rounded the eastern edge of the Moon, Luna 10's transmitter went full on and relayed the bars of [the communist anthem] 'The Internationale'," which was "broadcast live by loudspeaker direct to the party congress over the static of deep space," according to Brian Harvey, author of the spaceflight history Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration.
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But he did give a morale boost to 200 attendees (a record) at NASA's Lunar Exploration Advisory Group, which held its annual meeting this week in Columbia, Md. These scientists hope to piggyback onto any future US moonshot so they can answer questions about the origin of the solar system, as well as test the kind of experiments they hope to run on Mars.
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The United States has turned its attention back toward the moon but finds itself lagging behind thanks to former President Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaBen Shapiro: No prominent GOP figure ever questioned Obama's legitimacy 3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Obama's high school basketball jersey sells for 85033,000 at auction MORE's ill-considered decision to close down lunar exploration in 2010.
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Griffin said teams are taking special care to protect hardware for NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program, including preparing to move the mobile launcher—a nearly 400-foot tall metal structure NASA will use to assemble and launch the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft—from its current position on launchpad 39B into the VAB where it could wait out the storm in relative safety.
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