Rover Not Roving

From your "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-

25908527"

"Referring to a Chinese folktale about a rabbit on the Moon, another microblog user wrote: "Whatever happens, we must thank Jade Rabbit. When our generation tells stories to our children, we can confidently say: 'There really is a Jade Rabbit on the moon!'"

Unfortunately, it was Made in China and only worked for a couple of weeks.

with all the cut backs everywhere spying just isn't what it used to be, better info stolen from Northrup and Boeing would have made for a more reliable rabbit

It's a damn harsh environment. At least it was not a failure of miscalculated use of SAE and metric resulting in a mars crash (Mars Climate Orbiter), or an optic mirror grinding mistake (Hubble), or a loss of flight crew (Apollo 1).

They learned something from this, and they moved forward, no different then any technical 'experiment'.

or the wrong application of a seal on a rocket booster (Challenger)

I agree that they copy stuff without regard for patent or copyright. But think of how you would think if your language was based on symbols, that you memorize and copy, and are required to copy them as part of your learning brain wash.

We will have to see what the treasonous Snowden's current allegations of the NSA spying on technical data information is about. Whats new here, everyone steals technical information, that's how you make better bombs.

I see that they are better capitalists then anyone else. To the point that making money (greed, there's good and bad) may come at the expense of killing people (same goes for India). But I like their legal solution, you punish them with a death, after a trial.

They still are recovering from their Cultural Revolution (1966). Killing the smartest people in the country that would oppose Mao, was long term stupid. But they are recovering.

That launch NEVER should have gone on that day. It was too damn cold! The application was not at fault, if the launch had been within the materials well known performance window.

But, due to pressure from the White House to launch so that the president could brag about having a teacher in space during his State of The Union address that day, it went off (No pun intended( as scheduled.

Unfortunately, Morton Thiokol managers overruled their engineers who warned of disaster if they launched in unacceptably cold weather.

The fact that the White House pressured NASA to launch was quickly hushed/covered up.

no question they pushed an aggressive launch schedule well beyond the safe limits they had information about. the seal design they used was a fine one in other applications but was never intended for such cold weather. I recall seeing photos from the launch pad with visible ice on the booster joints. if I recall correctly the lower threshold rating on that seal was something like 60 degrees F, I think at launch the temp was in the teens, rare in Florida but overnight the vehicle just froze and they proceeded to meet their schedule. several moments into flight you can see a plume right at the joint that basically was a blow torch onto one of the tanks, the outcome couldn't be avoided at that point, those people were strapped to a bomb.

I can't find the document that Richard Feynman wrote on his take of NASA's failure of many aspects of safety for the shuttle (it was circulated around work back in the late 80s). He wrote about the oxygen pumps, that every 4th flight developed cracks, and were replaced at that interval. His complaint was why 4 flights was a magic number, based on what science it could not happen on the pump's initial use. He had many examples of bad statistical safety analysis they used. He faulted the whole chain of NASA management for more then just the O-ring debacle. Don't forget his famous demonstration of a sample of the o-ring, with a small C-clamp and ice water. Ronny just had to have the launch. And then they lost another one to ignorance of insulation foam coming off at Mach 25, and they knew about it from a safety hazard.

In my avionics world, you had to show by analysis, that any systems failure (critical to safe flight and landing) had a 1 in billion hours of operation minimum that could result in a catastrophic event. It's not possible to do this with rocketry, but you can't just go the other way, and allow loss of airframes and crew with a 1 in 25 probability per flight (I don't know what NASA uses, but it works out to be about that probability).

the bad design

Hind sight can't see what's ahead.

Engineers would have scrubbed the launch that day.

The requirement of re-usability may have dictated some compromises, but I'm not willing to pass judgement on another engineer's design.

Then again we never would have outlawed the safe asbestos fiber that the originally designed seal had, that would have eliminated the threat to begin with.....

This reminds me of the Secret Service guy who lifted his weapon and accidentally shot JFK in the back of the head back in Novemer of 1963. That was hushed up rather quickly as well, but now there is considerable circumstantial and photographic evidence to support this claim, and ballistics match with the round being at a low angle from behind, and the fragments in JFK's brain also match up with frangible ammunition being employed on the day.

Basically, it was a bad deal all the way around, and I remember how astonished I was to see the video in real time of the Challenger disaster. We are gaining something every time space vehicles evolve from one class to the next, but when will the next class come forth, and will it really be private, or military?

All salient points

You are right, All salient points.

But I think you Americans are being too hard on NASA.

Who has done as much as they have?

Not even the Russians and they started it all AND have had many more "accidents", most of which were "covered up".........

The Chinese are the new kids on the block, no one knows how many accidents have already been covered up!!!

They are beginners and will make mistakes, only they are in a society with none of the "openness" of the USA......

What we need is a Chinese "Snowden" equivalent.....then we would see books about the Chinese Space Program named something like:-

"Hu Flung Dung" written by"Hi Fli Pong" ....

Do remember the old German saying "Those who saw wood make shavings!" (I hope the gist is obvious!).

No accidents if you never do anything......

It's why they call it rocket science.

Oftentimes success or failure hinges upon very subtle, but critically important details. The transfer of technologies have many opportunities to 'miss' some of these details.

"transfer of technology" is that what they call it these days??

You caught my euphemism.