It seems that few people in the west are concerned/frightened/excited by China’s new moon robot.
I hear tell that the Chinese internet is buzzing about it, but, like most westerners, I wouldn’t know. This great global brain we are building, that we are all participating in every day, is a bit of a schizophrenic. The western hemisphere lobe doesn’t really know what the eastern hemisphere lobe is doing.
Rabbit on the Moon
btw, I don’t think that works the other way round.
I think it’s a huge deal. It’s name, Yutu, means Jade Rabbit, although I suspect that whoever is making up the names of spacecraft for the Chinese government is aware of the similarities to YouTube and you, too, and figured either connection would play O.K. with a western audience.
It’s a rover, and will be rolling around up there for several months, collecting rocks and doing research and paving the way. Yup, paving the way.
Whereas we have pretty much forgotten about the moon, China has decided to take it seriously, and China is the land of getting things done – huge dams, world’s longest bridge, world’s 2nd longest bridge, high speed trains, super cities, the list goes on. Their human rights record sucks, but as far as technology is concerned, they are moving into the 21st century at high speed.
Yutu will putter around for 3 months, then they’ll send up some worker bots to build prefab homes, an observatory, a few greenhouses, solar power stations covering one whole side of the damned thing, a high speed rail line straight around the equator, a lunar gravity sports complex, and then they will start sending up the colonists.
The crews of Star Fleet may look a lot different than we have imagined them.
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