# Is China going to force the US back to the moon?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 20, 2002, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954 "2002-05-20T15:44:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2002, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954/61 "2002-05-24T04:17:02Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by The Scrivener \*  
> \*\*And re. astronomical applications – I thought our Hubble Space Telescope was doing just fine. \*\*

The same could have been argued of earth based telescopes. There are quite a few different designs for a next-gen space telescope, with ‘bigger is better’ being the main idea.

The ever clever NASA has decided to call it the “Next Generation Space Telescope”. [http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/](http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/)

If the Chinese were doing space exploration for scientific reasons, rather than publicity, there are a bunch of things that could be better spent on than trying to go to the moon. If, however, this project gets us to increase funding to our space program, I’d be all for it.

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**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2002, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954/62 "2002-05-24T04:44:40Z")

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Hubble is an optical telescope, one of the advantages of a lunar telescope is that you could place a radio telescope on the “dark side” of the Moon, which would then be shielded from all the radio interference from Earth. (Remember, we _are_ the “hottest” radio object in our solar system.)

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**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2002, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954/63 "2002-05-24T05:08:25Z")

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Didnt we already establish that the whole moonlanding thing was a hoax or something…Something about racoons and photoshop or something.  
[sub]  
Sorry…Somebody had to mention it  
[/sub]

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**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2002, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954/64 "2002-05-24T12:21:34Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by bdgr \*  
> \*\*Something about racoons and photoshop or something.  
> \*\*

Of course! They steal software.  
It’s photoshop and pandas, the sneaky bastards!

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**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2002, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-china-going-to-force-the-us-back-to-the-moon/109954/65 "2002-05-24T12:53:50Z")

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I don’t believe it’s possible.

I’ve seen some of Asia’s best productions, and if they think they are going to fake a moon landing like Hollywood, USA can, then I’d like to see them try.

You think our production of the moon landing was cheezey? Wait until the Chinese try to fudge this one.

😉

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