The reason you seek to explore what you don't know is because you don't know what you don't know.

In general I don't think people really appreciate how ridiculously little we know about everything outside of our planet. Like for instance it was only in 2013 (!!!) that it was discovered that Mars' soil is relatively 'moist', about 2% water by mass. And that's just the topsoil layer - it's suggestive that below the surface it could well be even more moist.

But the Moon's much closer, so we must know more, right? Well water ice on the Moon was only confirmed in 2018!! [1] So actually starting to get surface samples, and explore more of the Moon, ideally with a rapid return to humans on it is so exciting because who knows what we'll find out next? The unknown is precisely what makes exploring the unknown so enticing, rewarding, and fun!

[1] - https://www.space.com/41554-water-ice-moon-surface-confirmed...

> Well water ice on the Moon was only confirmed in 2018

Thats for surface water, we confirmed a while longer the moon has water underground.

Let's not bring sinophobia and geopolitics into a scientific mission to the moon.

No, but can we bring realism into it? The explorers may be exploring for the sake of it, but the people paying for it definitely aren't. Many - perhaps even most - of the people at NASA would have probably done the job for free if they were able, but the people allocating NASA's budget in the 50s and 60s were doing so for geopolitical reasons first and foremost.

So if it's "us" it's good, and if it's "them", it's bad?

At the end of the day? Yes. No, the world ain't fair.

Whoever makes a permanent presence on the Moon first gets to decide what everyone else can do there.

Feel free to quote from my comment where I said anything that could be construed that way.

Personally I don't care much who sponsors scientific missions. I wish we would all collectively spent more on science. If China is going to help science, I'm happy to cheer for them.

> The reason you seek to explore what you don't know is because you don't know what you don't know.

In theory yes, in practice it's never the case, you have to justify hard why you want to do the experience and what you expect. Especially with multi million dollar experiences like these

No idea what they’re expecting, but I would expect some interesting differences based on our current understanding of the geological differences between the two sides. Apparently the near side was warmed by Earth early in the Moon’s history which meant the far side cooled more quickly and developed a thicker crust.

They hope to test their hypothesis that volcanoes on that side became inactive 4 billion years ago. Great question frankly, this article goes into it in much more detail (I just selected a likely looking blurb, there are other elements of the theory)

https://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c10523137/...

you won't expect rock samples from New England and middle east are the same, right? The current theory is that samples collected by Chang'e 6 could be the oldest sample we ever saw from Moon. It would be worth to study and prove that.

Leaving aside all the geopolitics and bragging rights, I would imagine that one scientifc reason for trying is that since the far side gets more meteor hits, there may be more material from elsewhere in the solar system. (Having said that I know nothing about this mission and am just guessing.)

I mentioned Gold on my comment before I read yours. Yes that makes perfect sense. Why ruin your reputation (hehe) with children mining rare metals, when you can have known and unknown rare metals flown in..

It is costly though to bring in a ton of <insert element> from the moon.

> What are they expecting to be different about samples from the moon's far side to those previously collected?

Different bragging rights.

It would be a good sci-fi plot to find a moon base hiding back there. Populated by aliens/your current enemy/tech billionaire mad scientist/high IQ octopi

It could also be an abandoned base.

Or your ancestors

Already exists, but it's Nazis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX2cS8wvQHI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky

The plot would be every similar to Apple TV's "For All Mankind" show, I won't spoil who all populates the moon though.

I was thinking about "what have they found there?". I remember reading that the Central Bank of China was feversly buying Gold, and a few weeks ago they stopped all buying. Then this came to focus, and it made me think... did they find 100 tons of Gold up there, and they know that if they start bringing this in (on Earth) they price will plummet, and expect a massive sell-off in the next few weeks???

But then I do read and watch too much sci-fi!!

I think it is very expensive way to acquire 100t of gold. It is cheaper to just buy or mine them from our planet.

No, absolutely not. I can't say future space mining isn't a consideration (a moonshot if you will) but the challenges are astronomical. First you have to setup a mining and refining operation in an incredibly hostile environment and then you need to ship it back. We just aren't there yet.

In that case, this destination should be Venus, 'cos it's Chinese name is Gold Planet, if translated back to English literally.

In the book Super Volcanoes, I read about how complex the moon is geologically and how little of it we've examined and how poor our understanding of the geological history is. Apparently we can't yet explain how it was geologically active so recently. Imagine if the only rock samples we had from Earth were from a couple random spots on the surface, from wildly different time periods, and trying to develop together a theory of how its geology changed over time from that.

I wonder if not being shielded by the Earth's magnetic field during full day would lead to a different balance of isotopes deposited by the solar wind.

Checkout this paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512...

Takeaway: The samples indeed are very different.

I just learned it on the radio on my way to work this morning.

The last sample reveals something about the surface of the moon.

The sample this time is from a big, deep hole created by a heavy hit which penetrated into the core of the moon, thus reveals the internals of the moon.