Recently, China launched its latest robotic lunar lander, the Chang’e 6, headed for a sample return mission on the far side of the moon.
Greg Autry, the coauthor of a new space policy book, “Red Moon Rising,” noticed something interesting about the probe’s destination. He pointed out that it would land “in the resource-rich South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin,” aiming for “a crater called ‘Apollo’ which is named in honor of America’s great lunar achievement.”
“Apollo’s interior and adjacent craters are named for Apollo astronauts and memorialize deceased NASA employees including the lost crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia,” Autry noted.
He finds that this is no coincidence. “Chang’e 6 will literally raise a communist Chinese flag there. The Chinese are extremely careful with protocol, any small slight is intentional.”
Leaving aside the slight to the United States, the Chinese lunar effort is going quite well, with three successful landing missions and a fourth on the way.
Chang’e 3 landed in the northern Mare Imbrium area of the nearside of the moon in 2013. It carried a small, Yutu rover. The probe came equipped with cameras, a ground penetrating radar, a visible/near-infrared imaging spectrometer,........