[njharman]

My biggest shock was "Why haven't I heard about this lunar rover before!?"

I'm not news hound, but I do spend too much time on tech sites (HN/Reddit) that would report this. I remember years ago mention of China (and India) moon missions. But, really first man mad object to land in 37 years should have been blasted over most news sources.

After shock... "Kick ass, we're (finally) getting back on the moon!"

[AceJohnny2]

It was definitely on the front page of all techie sites, including HN and Reddit.

Many comments thereof lamented the lack of coverage by the mainstream media.

[bane]

It even made the Daily Show with Patrick Stewart hilariously dressed up as the rover, slowly dying.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-4-2014/who-fr...

[cygwin98]

Not surprised. He has been bashing China for a while, which is the trending topic in the mainstream media anyway. Though I do wish some of the media agencies strike out of the group-thinking, and examine what NASA has been up to for the past decade, and what needs to be improved in terms of space exploration.

[trekky1700]

I haven't seen any trend of bashing China, unless of course reporting honestly is bashing.

NASA, despite its huge budget cuts, in the last decade has operated three rovers on Mars, landed one new one (via spectacular jet crane awesomeness). They've built new types of rockets, taken pictures of the universe, continued to do valuable research in science and space. Continued to be a major contributor to the ISS. And much much more.

I think the real question here is, where have you been for the last decade?

[cygwin98]

I haven't seen any trend of bashing China, unless of course reporting honestly is bashing.

Well, this is a bit subjective, in my book selective reporting that focuses on negativity is bashing.

I am all for more budgets for NASA. Quite frankly, I don't follow NASA's missions very often. For the past decade I did hear from time to time that NASA sent rovers to some planets. Meanwhile, I kept hearing the flip-flop stories about the water on Mars. It gave me impression that NASA either went hugely under-budget on their Mars' missions or they spread themselves too thin. That was my point (admittedly I may need to soften my tone in my comment). Not sure if NASA had a vision problem, in my opinion, it may have made more impact and (hopefully) got more funding if they narrowed down their scope of missions and obtained more decisive results.

[aaronblohowiak]

The flip-flop comes from mainstream media interpretation of the science, usually not from the people that are part of the missions. Even the "science journalists" that are attached to bigger missions frequently dramatize findings in order to "make it a compelling story" (source: one of my exes was such a journalist.)

> either went hugely under-budget on their Mars' missions or they spread themselves too thin

I think that is a misread of the situation; the lack of a consistent narrative and publicity across NASA and its missions has more to do with the organizational structure of the PR and public education/outreach within NASA than the science or the mission management itself.

[beachstartup]

the US, english-speaking media tends to only point out extremely good, and extreme bad things about china.

this paints a really extreme (go figure) picture of china. some people think it's the most amazing place on earth and some people think it's some kind of post apocalyptic hellscape.

as always, the truth can be found by actually going there, something most people with very strong opinions about china have never done and probably never will do, in all likelihood

[sliverstorm]

He is a comedian, whose "bit" is being critical. He takes jabs at just about everything he covers.

[lafar6502]

this episode was really stupid

[nether]

A moon rover is a bit substantial for what constitutes "tech" these days. OTOH, you've probably read multiple stories on Flappy Bird.

[swatkat]

There were some discussion earlier, on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904717

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7128978

Yes, ISRO (India's space agency) sent an orbiter and impactor to Moon called Chandrayaan-1, back in 2008. NASA and ISRO's instruments on-board Chandrayaan-1 had detected water on Moon.

It's good to see rekindled interest in science missions to satellites and planets. I'm eagerly waiting for ISRO's next Moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, which will have a soft lander and a rover. Probably in 2016 :)

[grogenaut]

it was a top story on NPR for 4 days straight. by top story I mean it was what was on when I drove into work