The Final Frontier

Its nice to see that finally a country that is not the US is taking serious interest in space.

I think it is shameful what the US is doing to its space program, We cant afford things that will benefit all of mankind, but we can afford bombs to bomb third world nations with oil.

I think if the US keeps this up, we will lose superpower status.

Its nice to see that finally a country that is not the US is taking serious interest in space.

I think it is shameful what the US is doing to its space program, We cant afford things that will benefit all of mankind, but we can afford bombs to bomb third world nations with oil.

I think if the US keeps this up, we will lose superpower status.

I don't know if shameful is the right word, but the guys in the 60's and 70's were progressing a lot faster than we are now. If NASA had been smart enough to use the Mars Direct plan we could've already had manned habitations on Mars. Instead, they gave George Bush Sr. a $450 billion Mars ticket that consisted of orbital construction facilities, moon refueling stations, orbital drydock staions, and massive spacecraft that carried all of its provisions.

When they did that the Mars plan was banished to a netherworld of political and economic impossibility (It's pretty sad though that we're willing to spend $700 billion a year on the "defense" budget and not $450 billion for a Mars landing)

If anyone is interested about the "live off the land" approach that Mars Direct takes, you should read the book "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin. That plan only costs $50 billion, for comparison the Apollo program cost about $170 billion in today's money.

Its nice to see that finally a country that is not the US is taking serious interest in space.

I think it is shameful what the US is doing to its space program, We cant afford things that will benefit all of mankind, but we can afford bombs to bomb third world nations with oil.

I think if the US keeps this up, we will lose superpower status.

Do you honestly think China is funding a space programme for the benefit of all mankind? They're doing it to posture, the same reason as the US did it, and the funding will dry up whenever it's no longer convenient, same as US.

Its nice to see that finally a country that is not the US is taking serious interest in space.

I think it is shameful what the US is doing to its space program, We cant afford things that will benefit all of mankind, but we can afford bombs to bomb third world nations with oil.

I think if the US keeps this up, we will lose superpower status.

see. USSR/Russia.

Do you honestly think China is funding a space programme for the benefit of all mankind? They're doing it to posture, the same reason as the US did it, and the funding will dry up whenever it's no longer convenient, same as US.

It may be posturing, but at least a lot of good comes from it.

Yuri, I'm also a big fan of Mars Direct. Though it would probably need a somewhat larger rocket than Zubrin's Ares because the ERV as described in TCfM would barely be bigger than Apollo.

As for the space station... I doubt China is doing this for the betterment of mankind. But I agree that some good will come out of this. Hopefully it'll push the U.S. to step up our game.

Will the U.S. fall behind? I think NASA will fall behind if the current path continues. But American companies are going to be dominating the new corporate space race. Space is finally becoming a viable business. NASA needs to focus on research and outward exploration. I don't see why they can't do that using corporate vehicles. Heck, most launch vehicles and crew capsules have always been corporate-made. Even the in-house designs like Saturn V were made mostly by contractors. I think it's great that the Boing/Lockheed dual monopoly is being broken up by companies like SpaceX and Orbital.

-Bama

see. USSR/Russia.

The Russian space program is only a shadow of the USSR one....

And Also, I do not think China does this for the general benefit of Humanity, but still, some good will come out of it for the rest of mankind even if the Government does it for entirely different reasons.

Hopefully this will show NASA that the world will not wait for us to take the next big step in space. Other countries will be progressing along and not only do they have some ambitious plans, they also have the political commitment to get it done.

The politicians here seem to think that there's no point in going back to the moon and we should just dither in LEO. I fear that we will one day get a rude awakening when we see a chinese flag being planted on the moon.

The politicians here, that includes President Obama, need to grow a backbone and do something ambitious in space. Constellation was bold and had a vision. And now it seems like we will be staying in LEO for a while, until 2025 when they will hopefully land on an asteroid (but no doubt there will be considerable debate and squabling when it comes time to work on that)

If we could go to the moon in the 60's, right after the dawn of the space age, who's to say we can't go back there today? Or even go to Mars and beyond? There's a lot out there, and I expect to see a second space race between NASA and CNSA. RoskoCosmos will probably not do as much as either of those two, but will probably help NASA, same goes for the ESA. It looks like JAXA also has plans of their own to build a robotic moon base by 2020.

I think our best chance right now is the private space agency. They won't be going past LEO but they will definitely cause more interest in space, which is what we need to get the government to do bold things again.