On May 3, 2024, the Wenchang launch base in Hainan was cloudy and rainy. At this time, it was the May Day holiday, and many people rushed to the opposite side of the launch base just to witness the exciting moment.
Although there are many people at this time, many people are waiting in the rain, just to witness an important moment. Everyone waiting is uncertain, under such bad weather, can Chang'e-6, located on the launch tower, be launched as scheduled?
The time came to 17:27, which was the first time for Chang'e-6 to go to the moon, and a huge roar resounded through the heavens and the earth, and Chang'e-6 pierced the sky like a sharp sword.
After 2,000 seconds of flight, Chang'e-6 entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit as scheduled, which means that Chang'e-6 was successfully launched, and it also means that Chang'e-6 officially flew out of the earth and started a 53-day lunar exploration journey.
After announcing the time taken by the Chang'e-6 mission, many people found it hard to believe why it took so long to travel 380,000 kilometers between the Earth and the Moon.
Not to mention the 8 days of Apollo 11's moon landing, this time cannot even be compared with the 23 days of Chang'e 5. According to information released by the China Space Center, Chang'e-6 is used as a backup to Chang'e-5 and functions similarly to Chang'e-5. However, according to Chang'e-6, some optimizations have also been made. It should be said that the time is shorter.
So why did Chang'e-6 take 53 days? Before 1969, it took only eight days for the United States to land on the moon, so is the technology of the mainland today not as good as that of the United States 55 years ago?
The background of Apollo 11's lunar exploration determines its short time
Back in 1962, seven years before the Apollo 11 moon landing, then U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave a famous speech at Rice University on the theme "We Decided to Go to the Moon."
At this point, the manned lunar landing project was officially determined. At the moment of Kennedy's speech, many people would not have thought that this was true, because it was only one year ago, in 1961, that mankind completed the first space journey by Gagarin.
This is like India's announcement that it will carry out a lunar landing program in seven years after completing the manned space flight. Doesn't it sound crazy and unbelievable? Yes, and for most people in the world at the time, it was hard to believe.
In recent years, China has developed rapidly in the aerospace field and has made achievements that have attracted worldwide attention, and many people, including foreigners, believe that China's aerospace field is developing rapidly.
However, the time between China's first manned space mission in 2003 and China's decision to land on the moon in 2030 is 27 years, while the United States took only seven years, and 55 years ago. I have to say that the original Apollo moon landing project was a miracle in human history.
To get back to the point, after Kennedy's speech, the tone was set for the Apollo moon landing, which was a U.S. government-led moon landing program that would mobilize the entire nation to accomplish the task.
The reason why the United States has to accomplish this task at such a huge cost is actually not because of the need for scientific research, but because of a demonstration of scientific and technological strength.
At that time, in the white-hot period of the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to suppress the local side. When both sides understand that they cannot start a war and avoid starting a war, then the competition of scientific and technological strength is the best place for the two to fight.
Both then and now. The place that can best reflect a country's scientific and technological strength is undoubtedly the field of space exploration, which not only requires a lot of money, but also has higher requirements for scientific and technological strength, and the country must have a large number of talent reserves, even today, few countries can afford to play in this field.
Therefore, space exploration best represents the comprehensive strength of a country. For this reason, both sides have set their sights on "space". It has opened a competition of space strength, which has become a unique space race in human history.
From the current point of view, although the United States and the Soviet Union invested huge manpower and material resources in the space race at that time, they played a positive role in the progress of human civilization.
At the beginning of the space race, the Soviet Union could be said to be one step ahead, step by step, not to mention other countries, even the United States was lagging behind step by step.
In those years, it created a feeling for the whole world that the United States was inferior to the Soviet Union in space exploration. This was unbearable for the United States, and finally decided to make a big move, that is, to start the "manned moon landing" program.
Why did Apollo 11 land on the moon take only 8 days?
From the moment the Apollo manned moon landing program opened, the stage of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union moved from the earth to space, and from space to the moon.
After the official launch of the moon landing program, in the seven years since, the United States, the state apparatus, has been officially launched, and it has also demonstrated its strength in that difficult and terrifying situation. In order to support the entire lunar landing program, $25 billion was spent.
This was $25 billion 55 years ago, when the dollar was not called the dollar, it was called the dollar, and its value was directly linked to gold. The current value should be multiplied by at least 10 or more.
In addition to spending a huge amount of money, the United States also mobilized more than 20,000 enterprises, more than 200 universities and more than 80 scientific research institutions, with a total of more than 300,000 people participating in the Apollo moon landing program.
On the bright side, we see two astronauts, Armstrong and Aldrin on Apollo 11, landing on the moon, in fact, with more than 300,000 people behind them, carrying them to the moon.
Judging from the information released by NASA afterwards, Apollo 11 was able to successfully land on the moon, and there was a lot of luck in it, and its success rate was about 50%.
The journey from the Earth to the Moon was smooth for Apollo 11, but after reaching the Moon, there were several accidents. If it weren't for luck, Armstrong and Aldrin might have stayed on Earth forever, and Collins, who was in the orbital module, would have had to return to Earth alone in the re-entry module.
The Apollo 11 lander, at a distance of 1,800 meters from the lunar surface, suddenly issued two false alarms, after this situation, Armstrong, as the commander, reacted quickly and took over the operation of the lander, and finally flew 4 seconds longer than planned, and landed on the surface of the moon before running out of fuel, about 6 kilometers away from the original plan.
Fortunately, although the position is off, the terrain is still relatively flat, otherwise even if the landing is successful, the "Eagle" landing module may roll over.
Afterwards, someone once reviewed that if it wasn't Armstrong as the commander at the time, but Aldrin, with his slightly irascible personality, he was definitely not so calm, and in the few seconds of reaction time, there was a high risk of lander crashing.
In fact, at the moment when Apollo 11 was launched and took off, the United States prepared two sets of plans, A and B, and Plan A was the successful Apollo 11 moon landing.
And plan B is to do a good job of astronauts have an accident, after the accident, the live broadcast of the moon landing on TV will be cut off, and then a lunar funeral will be held. Seconds before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Plan B came close to execution.
Since the Apollo 11 moon landing itself was not a scientific research purpose, its main purpose was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in scientific and technological strength, since it landed safely, this goal was achieved. The longer you stay, the greater the risk.
The two astronauts who landed on the moon on Apollo 11 only stayed on the surface of the moon for 2 hours before starting the journey back to Earth, but when Aldrin entered the lunar module, he accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that started the engine, causing the engine to fail to ignite.
At this time, the two astronauts came up with the idea of using a ballpoint pen as a connector, and after trying to ignite, they found that this method worked, and the engines of the ascender were really started, and the two flew to orbit to connect with the orbiter, and then returned to Earth.
From the Apollo 11 moon mission, we can see that the moon landing operation is not very well prepared, and there are some adventure elements in it, but if the United States wants to win the space race with the Soviet Union, then it must take this risk, and in the end Lady Luck is on the side of the United States, although the moon landing process is bumpy, but it succeeds.
Therefore, the United States landed on the moon in eight days and returned, which has a lot to do with the nature of the American lunar landing, which is not for scientific research purposes, but mainly for astronauts to land on the moon.
But Chang'e-6 is very different, mainly a scientific research mission, so it will take 53 days to sample and return.
Why did Chang'e-6 take 53 days?
Although I don't want to admit it, I must admit a fact, that is, although the level of science and technology in the United States in 55 years was not as high as it is now, there was a genius rocket designer in the United States at that time - von Braun.
The Saturn V giant rocket designed by it has a carrying capacity of 45 tons in the Earth-Moon transfer orbit. Today, the Chang'e-6 launch vehicle, the Long March 5, has an Earth-Moon carrying capacity of only 8 tons.
This means that Apollo 11 can carry more fuel, its power is more powerful, it only took about 3 days to fly from the earth to the moon, while Chang'e-6 was launched from May 3 and was not captured by the moon's gravity until May 8, that is, it took 5 hours, in terms of time, with the ability of Chang'e-6, it will take 11 days at the earliest.
However, the reason why Chang'e-6 took 53 days is because Chang'e-6 was launched at one time, but it was a multi-task, in addition to its own sampling and excavation tasks, it also carried four international payloads.
So from the perspective of tasks, Chang'e-6 needs to carry out 5 missions. Seven days after Chang'e-6 arrived on the moon, Chang'e-6 has completed the first mission of the trip, that is, to release Pakistan's CubeSat, and now the mission has been completed, becoming the first lunar probe in Pakistan's history, and CubeSat has also taken the first near-moon photo in Pakistan's history.
In addition to the many tasks of Chang'e-6, the difficulty of the mission is also different, mainly the landing site of Chang'e-6 is on the far side of the moon, from the Apollo level plan 6 missions, all choose to land on the front side of the moon, but not choose the far side of the moon, you can see how difficult it is.
If it was not difficult, the United States would have landed manned on the far side of the moon that year. Oh! It is possible that NASA thinks that the far side of the moon is dark and cannot be seen when boarded, so it does not choose to land (although it is not the original words, but the NASA administrator at the hearing, this is what he meant).
In fact, although Chang'e-6 has many missions and it is difficult to land on the moon, it will not take so long, and it will only stay in the lunar orbit for 20 days, on the one hand, to adjust the attitude, and on the other hand, the important reason is to carry out detailed exploration of the moon.
The purpose of meticulous exploration is to prepare for the moon landing in the future. This can be seen from the nature of Chang'e-6's mission, which is mainly to simulate a manned landing on the moon and adopt a complex lunar landing method.
Therefore, it has taken so long not because the technology is inferior to that of the United States 55 years ago, and the nature of the mission is different. In fact, after the successful landing of Chang'e-5, the mainland has the strength to land people on the moon, and the reason why it will not land on the moon until 2030 is mainly to ensure the safety of astronauts.
You must know that the United States has not carried out unmanned missions to the moon before Apollo 11, and has not carried out relevant technical verification, if it is not lucky, then Apollo 11 is very likely to fail.
At present, in addition to the carrying capacity is not as good as Apollo 11, Chang'e-6 can be said to be technically a comprehensive crush of Apollo 11, because it is not a product of the era at all.
The rudimentary landing module of Apollo 11
But the mainland will never let the astronauts take the risk of a 50% success rate like Apollo 11, and the mainland has completed its goal step by step in space exploration.
Finally, I wish Chang'e-6 a successful completion of its mission, more discoveries on the moon, and a solid foundation for the future manned landing on the moon.
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