November 10, 2010
Chinese Moon
What impresses me most about the new photos of the moon taken by the Chinese Chang’e-2 orbiter is not their beauty (although they are pretty) nor their sharpness (NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter returns higher resolution images). It’s the fact that they were unveiled by Premier Wen Jiabao (left).
I can’t think of an occasion where a U.S. head of state showed that much interest in a purely scientific (unmanned) space mission. The closest thing I could find after a quick search is this 1965 shot of Lyndon Johnson being shown photos from the Mariner 4 Mars probe, two weeks after the flyby.
More Chang’e-2 photos are at this Chinese-language page at the China National Space Administration. Here’s a nice one:
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