China: The Next Space Superpower

the_newsbeagle writes "'As 2014 dawns, China has the most active and ambitious space program in the world,' says this article. While it's true that the Chinese space agency is just now reaching milestones that the U.S. and Russia reached 40 years ago (its first lunar rover landed in December), the Chinese government's strong support for space exploration means that it's catching up fast. On the agenda for the next decade: A space station to rival the ISS, a new spaceport, new heavy-lift rockets, a global satellite navigation system to rival GPS, and China's first space science satellites."

Comments

China will rule the Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

It is unavoidable. Hopefully the U.S.A. can tone down their aggressiveness and be content to defend their own borders, otherwise we have an inescapable course to WWIII and the world will pay a heavy price.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[durrr]

The US will have spy satellites riding piggyback on all satellites and peeking into the windows of space stations.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Anonyme Connard]

China has no direct access to the Pacific.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

China has no direct access to the Pacific.

Back when you were in school, you got your lunch money taken a lot didn't you?

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Joce640k]

And the Chinese will have even bigger satellites watching those satellites...

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Anonyme Connard]

http://rhk111smilitaryandarmspage.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/unrestricted-access-to-the-pacific-ocean-what-china-wants-part-one/

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[hey!]

Now that's a scary thought. The Empire of Japan's spurious belief it needed to militarily secure access to Southeast Asia to be a viable economic power led them to attack Pearl Harbor. Once they dug themselves out from the hole they'd dug themselves into, that belief was proved spectacularly wrong.

The Chinese regime has shown some of the same worrying signs of jingoistic paranoia.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Penguinisto]

Well, with one small twist: China has (at least for millennia) been quite content to consider themselves the center-point between Heaven and Earth (culturally, that's how they'd considered themselves all this time.) With I think like one or two exceptions (one of which involved a Mongol leader wanting a piece of Japan), they've never really done much in the way of projecting power out beyond their own rather well-defined region.

It'll be damned hard to break that kind of ingrained culture - not saying it'll never happen, just that it'll take a lot to overcome the cultural inertia.

Now Space may whet their appetites a bit for it, but I think it'll be just to move out in that direction, which honestly I'm completely okay with - so long as they don't keep anyone else from migrating skyward...

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[the gnat]

they've never really done much in the way of projecting power out beyond their own rather well-defined region.

Yes, but within that region - which is certainly not exclusively populated by Han Chinese - they've never been shy about aggressively claiming territories that were once independent, or are held by other nations. And under the Manchus, at least, any nation wishing to do business with China had to essentially pay tribute to the emperor, which resulted in basically every European colonial power being officially considered a vassal state. China's current brand of imperialism is a big reason why the Vietnamese, who have every reason to hate us, are on surprisingly good terms with the US right now.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[ShanghaiBill]

Hopefully the U.S.A. can tone down their aggressiveness

All the current disputes with China (Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Parcel Islands, Spratley Islands, Scarborough shoals, Socotra Rock, etc) are a result of Chinese, not American, aggressiveness.

and be content to defend their own borders

If America withdrew from the Pacific then Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would all develop nuclear weapons within six months. Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines would follow as soon as they were able.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but within that region - which is certainly not exclusively populated by Han Chinese - they've never been shy about aggressively claiming territories that were once independent, or are held by other nations.

No different than many other ethnic majorities in other countries. That's not what leads to empires and super powers though. Empires are driven by the belief that a minority should rule over the rest.

Considering that 1 in 5 people in the WORLD are Han Chinese (source: wiki), the almost inevitable spread and rise of Chinese influence isn't because of malevolent empire building by a few power hungry individuals, but simply democracy and dare I say free market and will of the (Chinese) people.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[bob_super]

Will it be satellites all the way up?

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Teancum]

The Pacific Ocean is the private pond of the USA from Guam to California, and Alaska to Samoa. Anything which happens inside of that rough box including up to the Kármán line and down to the mantle of the Earth is justifiably seen as a direct threat to the United States of America and would be seen clearly as casus belli. The U.S. Navy still rules supreme in that part of the world. China can certainly "practice war games" and do other crap in "international waters", but that part of the Pacific Ocean will never be under Chinese influence except in the most transitory fashion.

BTW, this part of the Pacific would clearly be considered "defending their own borders" on the part of the USA as well. That China might carve out a smaller niche part of the Pacific from the North Korean border south to Thailand is no doubt something they would equally consider important, but that is about as far in the Pacific that China will ever really control as a part of the Pacific. China certainly isn't going to do something dumbass like invading the Philippines, or for that matter even Taiwan or South Korea without sparking another world war.

China will certainly not "rule the Pacific" as you are asserting.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Teancum]

I have serious doubts that Japan lacks nuclear weapons capability of their own. They certainly have both the scientists, the nuclear reactors, and the financial assets capable of being able to make them. The only thing that really keeps Japan from building their own nukes is mainly a domestic political situation that would result in a near total collapse of their current government if even a whiff showed up that the Japanese Self-Defense Force had nuclear warheads of any kind.

It still shocks me though how much money Japan is spending on their military in spite of the fact that they are technically under the direct protection of the USA for their defense needs. While China may be spending more than Japan on military equipment, Japan isn't too far behind and the Japanese military spending is definitely much higher per member of the military (aka per soldier or sailor). Japanese soldiers and sailors have lots of gadgets to play with if they ever actually went to war.

South Korea is almost ditto to the above although I think South Korean citizens might be more open to the idea (compared to Japanese citizens) and what mainly keeps South Korea from openly admitting they have nukes is mainly the political powder keg they have in that part of the world. Then again, with North Korea openly using nukes, it is just a matter of time for them as well.

Taiwan is strange as they technically had an alliance with South Africa and Israel where it was suggested they got a couple of Jericho warheads as a part of the deal. It is worth looking into, but the problem is that any such mention of such an alliance is mainly rumors and the realm of conspiracy theories like Area 51 and other such nonsense, so take it with a grain of salt. Of the countries you have mentioned, I would suggest Taiwan is the most likely to actually have them although admittedly they do not publicly acknowledge that they possess nukes.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[VortexCortex]

like Area 51 and other such nonsense

Yep, plausible as those UFO nutters' conspiracies. As if the government would keep successful aircraft secret. Bet those imbeciles think the government is spying on every communication too.

No way in hell a grand conspiracy could be rooted in a lesser more plausible tales, they're not urbanized Legends, FFS. I feel sorry for the damn fools, I mean, yeah, I get greeted nearly every damn morning by aliens, demons, and other such monstrosities walking around my room, and am physically immobilized until they disappear by some strange mechanism. Doesn't mean I believe everything I see.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Ralph Wiggam]

All the current disputes with China (Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Parcel Islands, Spratley Islands, Scarborough shoals, Socotra Rock, etc) are a result of Chinese, not American, aggressiveness

Your basic grasp of the facts has no place in this anti-America circlejerk.

I've read that Japan already has nuclear bomb cores and nuclear bomb casings, but since they have never put the cores inside the bombs they are technically not a nuclear power. But if need be, they could have working bombs in just a few days.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

>It still shocks me though how much money Japan is spending on their military in spite of the fact that they are technically under the direct protection of the USA for their defense needs.

Ha. They know full well that that protection could end at any time. America is embroiled in its own domestic problems.

Re:China will rule the Pacific

[shutdown -p now]

I don't think they really intend to, at least not in the way Japanese were planning it. They seem to be very assertive in territorial claims close to their borders, especially for various lands that were historically part of their empire one way or the other, even if it was very briefly and/or centuries ago. But elsewhere, they are setting up for economic and cultural domination, not military one. And it's working surprisingly well - and isn't something that can be countered by a carrier strike group...

another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many satellite navigation systems does a planet need? Can't we trust each other enough to share? (Obviously not.)

Re:another GPS?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Redundancy is good. What's more, the US-controlled GPS system can be crippled at will by the US military - and was for the longest time, until fairly recently. Do you trust the US to provide service with full accuracy to the entire world forever? Do you trust the US to have the capacity to replace failing GPS satellites? Heck, the US isn't even capable of keeping enough essential weather satellites up there anymore...

The United States is going more and more decrepit. I for one am glad there's Russian, European and Chinese alternatives to fall back onto if the GPS system becomes useless for one reason or another.

Re:another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many satellite navigation systems does a planet need?

Either 14 or 15

Re:another GPS?

[camperdave]

What's more, the US-controlled GPS system can be crippled at will by the US military - and was for the longest time, until fairly recently.

Although Selective Availability was turned off (in reality, the random offset was set to zero), don't believe for a moment that the US military has given up that capability, or that they don't have similar backdoor capabilities on other satnav systems.

Re:another GPS?

[cyfer2000]

US, Russia, China, Europe, France, Japan, India... roughly that's all.

Re:another GPS?

[egcagrac0]

More importantly, since there are multiple satellite constellations, why aren't there more multi-system receivers available?

Re:another GPS?

[Salgat]

The beauty of using the U.S., Russian, and Chinese GPS systems simultaneously is that your accuracy increases quite a bit. Imagine GPS being accurate to a few centimeters.

Re:another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean? iPhone 4s and newer models supports GLONASS and GPS. Galileo or the Chinese one are not fully functional yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smartphones_using_GLONASS_Navigation

Re:another GPS?

[doublebackslash]

Quite a few already do! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smartphones_using_GLONASS_Navigation That is just phones, but that is how a huge chunk of the population gets their sat-nav these days

Re:another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Block IIF GPS satellites do not have Selective Availability capability, mostly to calm the EU and take some of the wind out of Galileos sails. In practical terms, SA is no longer an option for GPS. The US can locally jam GPS signals, and has on a few occasions. GPS's civilian service was blacked out or severely degraded around Georgia during the South Ossetia war, for instance. Exactly how that's accomplished isn't clear, but the assumption is that the US's military access would be unimpeded.

Re:another GPS?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

The United States is going more and more decrepit. I for one am glad there's Russian, European and Chinese alternatives to fall back onto if the GPS system becomes useless for one reason or another.

Yes because we all know that neither the Russians nor the Chinese would ever under any circumstances manipulate such alternatives that they controlled if it suited their whims to do so and only the "evil" US would ever do such a terrible thing. Right....

Re:another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until recently only GPS was globally active. GLONASS recently achieved world wide coverage, Galileo is god knows how long from that and Compass is probably 10 years or so, realistically.

You can buy GPS/GLONASS receivers.Most new smartphones, for example, already use both. The Iphone 4s and since, anything with a recent Qualcomm chip, a lot of the recent Nokias. GLONASS doesn't add a whole lot of accuracy in practical use in the US, aided GPS is already extraordinarily precise, but it does improve coverage in cities and in extreme north/south latitudes.

Re:another GPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the point you may be 40 years ahead mow But its been 40 years of mostly treading water and scaling back on your ambitions.

Also as you americans all ways accuse them of stealing your tech it will only take 10 years for them to catch up

Re:another GPS?

[HiThere]

There has frequently been good evidence that the US innovations were copied. Occasionally it has been shown that this was done using actual copies of some of the technical information.

OTOH, those who make that claim usually forget how the US got it's start: copying technology from Great Britain (then leading the industrial revolution). This was also often done using copied actual technology. (At that time technical documentation was less important than the actual mechanisms being available to study, and the theoretical work being available.)

Still, even give all the copying, at a certain stage in history it is common for many people in separate cultures to make the same invention independently. E.g., three or four people have equally good claims to have independently invented the telephone. IIRC two were US citizens and one was Russian or Swiss. I have only vague memories of there being a fourth. And several people have good claims to haveing invented powered flight independently. The Wright brothers won in court, but I'm afraid that I don't consider that much in the way of proving that the others didn't invent it independently, or even first.

Re:another GPS?

[HiThere]

You listed the countries that currently (or soon) could put one up. You didn't justify them as necessary.

Personally I think it should be three or four, but five would probably be safer. That way you could always trust SOMEONE to be providing service. Hopefully they'd all use similar (i.e., easily switchable) protocols. The reason for five is that someone is likely to come up with a was to "lock-in" the users, and you want to be able to avoid them.

Re:another GPS?

[Your.Master]

Sure they can, but unless Russia, China, and the US all coordinate to do this bullshit at the same time in the same places, then it doesn't matter.

That's literally what redundancy means.

Re:another GPS?

[cyfer2000]

I hope you realized the main purpose of Global Position System was sadly military related. These 7 entities are those who need/want to have their own GPS system for the military advantage.

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, will the James Bond script writers use this for inspiration for some Sean Conery era type of Bond films?

shWhat? The shChinese have a shspace shtation?

Ah, the good old days of Bond films!

Re:Yes!

[man_the_king]

The shChinese have a shspace shtation?

Er, that would be "Chai-neezh" :D

Firefly..

[xtal]

Didn't everyone speak Chinese? :)

Re:Firefly..

[ciderbrew]

Zhèngquè

Re:Firefly..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly. There weren't any Asian characters and they only used Chinese swear words because the frelling smegheads were too lazy to make up some fake swear words.

Re:Firefly..

[CastrTroy]

How does it make any difference what language the swear words are in when they are said on network TV? Obviously, for a language as widespread as Chinese there will be quite a large number of people who understand exactly what is being said. Would it be OK if all the swears were in Spanish? Because there would probably be quite a few people in the US (depending on which state) where a large number of people understand exactly what is being said. What about shows like Battlestar Galactica, where they just made up a word and continually said "frack". Personally, I found it kind of annoying, as that's the only word that changed in the whole English language, and hearing it jarred my brain, and snapped me out of the immersion of watching the show. The sentiment and meaning was exactly the same, so why not use the real word. That's why I really liked House Of Cards. Because they don't actually show it on TV, they can put whatever they want in the show. Use whatever words they want, show whatever body parts they want, and make the episodes exactly as long as they need to be, without having to worry about what anybody thinks of it except whether or not their desired viewers will like it.

Re:Firefly..

[Anonymous Coward]

"and hearing it jarred my brain, and snapped me out of the immersion of watching the show." Heh, first world problems.

Re:Firefly..

[Penguinisto]

Sorta... sometimes they'd toss in Chinese phrases, have ideograms on some of the crates and boxes, and suchlike, but just enough to add a hint of backstory - that is, that the Chinese and indeterminate-but-we-think-Americans worked together to evacuate their populations off the original dying Earth. Only problem is, the utter deficit of Chinese/Asian folks on the show led one to believe that somehow the language made it there, but the Chinese didn't.

Re:Firefly..

[Teancum]

Sorta... sometimes they'd toss in Chinese phrases, have ideograms on some of the crates and boxes, and suchlike, but just enough to add a hint of backstory - that is, that the Chinese and indeterminate-but-we-think-Americans worked together to evacuate their populations off the original dying Earth. Only problem is, the utter deficit of Chinese/Asian folks on the show led one to believe that somehow the language made it there, but the Chinese didn't.

As a fan, I sort of presumed that the Firefly universe was rather vast, and that Mal and his crew mainly cruised around the parts that were descendents of the Anglosphere of peoples (mainly North America, but also could include Australian & the UK/Europe to some extent). My understand was that there was a whole other part of the collection of star systems of the Alliance which were descended from the Chinese as well, but sort of had their own planets.

It is hard to tell as it was only one half of a season that ever was filmed, so there is no real way to say if other significantly different cultures made the trip into space. A planet full of Tongans & other South Pacific Islanders would have been interesting to say the least.

Re:Firefly..

[shutdown -p now]

Apart from the show, there was also the Complete and Official Map of the Verse and other supporting materials, which lay this out rather explicitly. In particular, it identifies two main planets, Londinium and Sihnon (both in the same system), originally populated primarily by European and Asian colonists, respectively. The names of various other planets also seem to show either Anglophone or Sinophone bias.

It's a per-planet split, though, not a per-system split, at least going by the planet names. However, there are smaller clusters there also, as it's not just planets that are settled, but also gas giant moons.

world dominance agenda?

[ishwon]

Well ... That does sound like a world dominance agenda. International trade is already at the mercy of China in some ways. Space exploration just adds to this.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, just laziness and complacency from the rest of the world.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

China > USA

At least there is no chinese-NSA.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[dpilot]

No, there's no Chinese Edward Snowden.

Before the whole NSA thing blew open, we were worried about the Chinese government working with Chinese companies to make sure their backdoors were inserted in all of the networked equipment they sold to us.

Just because the NSA fiasco currently overshadows that doesn't mean that the Chinese haven't been and aren't still doing it.

The second-worst thing about the NSA fiasco is that it has taken everyone's eyes off of the other balls.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

China > USA

At least there is no chinese-NSA.

What the fuck... seriously?

Half of their government is designed to spy on their own population. Who did you think the NSA uses as a template?

Re:world dominance agenda?

[SteveFoerster]

Who did you think the NSA uses as a template?

According to Angela Merkel, the Stasi. And having grown up under them, she would know.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch!!1!!

haha

Re:world dominance agenda?

[HiThere]

I don't see any reason to believe there's no chinese-NSA...except that they are mainly intrested in internal matters, and don't consider the rest of the world as to be taken seriously. Since internal matters covers more than half of humanity, they may have a point.

So. The Chinese don't have an NSA. This is because they don't have a rule against the government spying on the citizenry. (Note that the fiction is that the NSA only spies on foreigners.)

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and we still don't know what happened to the guy who stood in front of the tank.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Don't worry China's population implossion and trend towards a gay society --thanks to China's one child policy and Chinese parent's preference for boys, will take care of any plans they have for world domination.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[shutdown -p now]

The thing about Chinese is that they seem to be pretty happy to assimilate other nations by basically saying that they're also Chinese (and forcing them to agree, if necessary) - see Tibet for an example. If they keep going that way, they will very quickly become a civic nation, perhaps even surpassing the degree to which it is true for US.

Re:world dominance agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese traitors are hunted down and quietly liquidated. Only in America do you have stupid people celebrating turncoats like Snowden as he hands America's enemies state secrets on a silver platter. It is no coincidence that Snowden dropped his first load of secrets in China and then continued on to Russia

Death Star

[Anonymous Coward]

http://static.prisonplanet.com/p/images/december2013/181213nuke.jpg

Europe, who did you piss off?!

Re:Death Star

[mordjah]

maybe thats the tokamak's containment failing.. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

When they surpass us as the global

[Anonymous Coward]

Superpower in might and size and economy. Republicanism will be the blame.

Re:When they surpass us as the global

[Ralph Wiggam]

China is going to have the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression. They are building things that nobody wants or needs in order to keep their GDP growth on target. Vice's visit to one of the many "ghost cities" is shocking.

Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the USSR and America, China has not had the benefit of of German rocket scientists to develop and run their space programme.

They may have a few stolen blue prints, and without doubt the calculations and knowledge that the USSR still knows and America is fast forgetting, but they have also walked a long distance on their own feet, and they have done this in quite a short time.

Sure, you Americans can trumpet "Pppthhhffff the Moon, been there, done that" but I do need to ask: When China and India have bases on the moon and men on Mars. More importantly, when you as a nation have lost the ability to launch your own rockets, and you can only rent payload from communist states -

Whatever did happen to your once great ambitions?
Have you, America as a nation, let your hunger for war and hegemony override your once great ideals for the betterment of mankind?

Just where did you go wrong?

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I'm supposed to evaluate all the black governed nations of the world and .. what? Disagree with this? I bet nobody who mods you down or gets upset with you would EVER voluntarily move to any ghetto or any place like Haiti or Rwanda or Ethiopia.

If the blacks were a prosperous peaceful people known for their success and technical contributions you would never know what the word "racism" means. And don't give me that "history of oppression" bullshit. EVERYONE has ancestors who were slaves. No exceptions, look into it yourself. The Jews were horribly oppressed and remain prosperous today. How many counterexamples does it take for an otherwise scientific minded crowd to reject a false idea? Oh if you really like the idea you cling to it anyway just like anybody you'd scoff at in any other context, huh.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

American Idol, NFL, NBA, etc.. When we decided it was more fun to watch others than to do it ourselves. Lazy fuckers.

Re:Germany

[amalcolm]

Two or more stupid wars?

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

We got the shitheads who don't want anything except the US to return to having its government be a police force for businesses, and no more.

Look at how every time there was a NASA post, someone bitched how it was ruining the US budget, and that it was against the Constitution. That is the prevailing attitude in the US now. Little interest in space, more into letting businesses have no regulation.

Re:Germany

[aliquis]

They lowered taxes ;D

On the other hand what if private companies do all that no matter from where on the planet?

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

America ... once great ideals for the betterment of mankind?

Tincture of poppycock.
Unadulterated balderdash.
Concentrated fiction.
Specious nonsense.
Purest fantasy.
Revisionist propaganda.
Delusional malarky.

Re:Germany

[peragrin]

Nope the USA let capitalism get in the way. unrestricted capitalism. Just look at health insurance. it isn't based on good facts, but on the companies we work for providing information.

besides lastly the USA is doing something else. trying to commercialize space travel. to push the cost of launching onto people who have an interest in lowering said costs greatly.

Not only that but the USA also realizes that space is a pain in the ass. The few resources present are useful but hardly justify the short term let alone long term costs. In space you have to take everything with you. including water and oxygen. normally you can find those on earth just about anywhere you need to go. Even nuclear subs have it easy compared to space travel. while oxygen in gaseous form is hard to find under water, it can easily be made, from the abundance of water.

The moon, mars, only have small quantities of frozen water. therefore if you want a colony of any decent size you literally have to ship those locations water on a continuous basis. water that can only come from earth.

Water is very hard to ship, and with a cost of thousands of dollars a pound very expensive to ship into space.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the USSR and America, China has not had the benefit of of German rocket scientists to develop and run their space programme.

They may have a few stolen blue prints, and without doubt the calculations and knowledge that the USSR still knows and America is fast forgetting, but they have also walked a long distance on their own feet, and they have done this in quite a short time.

You really underestimate how much technology and knowledge has flowed into china legally or illegally.

I think it's great that they are running an advanced space program. But so far there is nothing really new being done. America stopped going to the moon because there was nothing more to accomplish there. The unmanned programs are much less costly and more effective then the manned ones, albeit less sexy. What is the point of an expensive base on the moon or mars, other than to say you did it? The real advances in manned space exploration will not happen until science can overcome the problems of long-distance travel.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Just where did you go wrong?

The answer is easy. They went wrong just after WW2 when the US decided that they didn't need to transition to a peacetime economy. The whole military industrial complex is a result of that thinking. Mind you, the US military resources are many times more than needed to defend the country. Eisenhower was the first to recognise the dangers of the military industrial complex over 6 decades ago, and it seems nobody listened. The US is a country perpetually at war, when there isn't one they create one, either outside their borders or inside. Gotta continue to feed those "defense" consultant companies.

Everything else is window dressing. The patriotism, the american exceptionalism, the american dream all vaporware. The military has ruled the US since the end of WW2. And it continues to do so.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Well put.

There is too much of this "moon, been there done that" nonsense.

How much did the German government spend on the technology before it was "acquired" by the US?

Its easy to take something which was around 80% complete and then brag about it.

Re:Germany

[CrimsonAvenger]

but they have also walked a long distance on their own feet, and they have done this in quite a short time.

Short time? It's taken them 43 years to go from first satellite launched to a lunar lander. Which is about 35 years more than either the US or USSR took to do the same thing. Hell, the US managed a MARS rover in only 36 years, much less a Lunar rover.

I'm not trying to denigrate the Chinese effort. It's making steady progress in a difficult field. But it's NOT making this progress in "quite a short time"....

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

If China can't steal, they can buy.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Water is very hard to ship

They cracked the problem. The solution can be seen in any supermarket of your choice. If you're interested, you should visit one near you some day. Ask for "bottled water".

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Water is very hard to ship

They cracked the problem. The solution can be seen in any supermarket of your choice. If you're interested, you should visit one near you some day. Ask for "bottled water".

So you buy all of the water you need for the day for $1 a liter at the supermarket?

idiot.

Re:Germany

[Penguinisto]

Nope the USA let capitalism get in the way..

...and we're such utter assholes for doing it, too. /sarcasm

Re:Germany

[demachina]

The father of the Chinese space program was one of the founders of JPL, Jet Propulsion == rockets. The U.S. government hounded him so much for being Chinese, and possibly a spy, he eventually returned home to China and built a space program there.

The rest of your thesis is deeply flawed and NOT insightful. The U.S. space program is alive and well at JPL, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital Sciences and a number of other private companies.

The only thing that went wrong was letting a series of U.S. Presidents, Congress and NASA completely screw it up for a few decades. Space programs need to be run by visionaries with a plan, laser focus, sufficient resources and the capacity to stick with it even when its hard, so they acheive their goals. Von Braun was the visionary who made Apollo happen. Musk is the most likely visionary to get the U.S. to Mars first.

The space program as run by the U.S. government and NASA is doomed, if for no other reason than they completely change the strategy every 4 to 8 years, and their strategic decisions are based on how many jobs will be created in the districts of powerful Congressmen, not sound or rational engineering or whether a project is worth doing. As a result NASA seldom ever finishes anything (outside of JPL and observatories).

NASA is also never held accountable for failure to finish anything, partially because politcians always cancel the programs half way through right before they actually have to build and do something. NASA's staff need to propose projects that are well engineered and worth doing, tell Congress to fund them at a sufficient and sustained level to finish them, and if Congress and President wont they need to threaten to mass resign. If NASA can't do programs like that they should all mass resign, shutter the failed parts of the organization and put the money directly in to places like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences.

Re:Germany

[pooh666]

Indeed, I am making remarkable progress in electronics using my Arduino :) Been there done that, matters a lot. I am looking fwd to the extra will this will provide EU and US both public and private. God knows we could use another space race and some actual good old fashion nationalism.. Otherwise we loose, we loose just on pure numbers and corp greed.

Re:Germany

[tomhath]

More importantly, when you as a nation have lost the ability to launch your own rockets, and you can only rent payload from communist states -

Take a look here and try to count how many of the little flags represent the United States.

As far as scientific missions...What about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Rovers? Don't they count?

Re:Germany

[inhuman_4]

Unlike the USSR and America, China has not had the benefit of of German rocket scientists to develop and run their space programme.

No they had the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance through which the USSR gave China several R-2 rockets which were improved versions of the R-1 (the soviet copy of the V-2). They also provided the blueprints, training to Chinese engineers for almost a decade.

Since the colapse of the USSR China continued to recieve assistance from Russia. Both in the form of training by sending Chinese cosmonauts to Star City, and technology transfer. For example, the first Chinese spacewalk was done in a Haiying spacesuit, but they had a man in a Russian Orlan-M spacesuit on standby as backup.

Re:Germany

[HiThere]

He should have said heavy. Which is correct. But he forgot that the system can recycle the water that is shipped, so that's a one-time cost, not a recurring one. And it's going to NEED to recycle even the air in order to be practical. And THAT'S the big problem which everyone has been ignoring (unless it's been marked SECRET). The private attempts at closed ecosystem have been failures, and with the budgets they had they couldn't just correct the mistakes and try again, which would have been the correct approach. That's the problem with trying to tackle a problem on a shoestring. You need to expect to fail, because you don't have enough money to correct your mistakes.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

> Unlike the USSR and America, China has not had the benefit of of German rocket scientists to develop and run their space programme.

What a load of rubbish. The US got most of the scientists that worked for Germany. The USSR got at least some of the rockets from Germany and took some of the solutions (most scientists preferred to surrender to the US). So the main guys in the NASA's space and moon program were the same scientists that worked for Germany. Soviets had their own people. But that's not the point of my message. The point is, what you said is irrelevant when you compare the epochs (it's much easier to make and design stuff (and cooperate with the world) now than it was before), and most importantly the fact that Chinese bought the complete Soyuz package (rocket design, space suits, spacecraft, even space training) from Yeltsin's Russia in 1994. And you talk about some ancient German V-2 rocket designs.

Thanks to Yeltsin, the US also got the designs for the rocket engines that were used in Energia rocket (RD-180 for Energia-Buran project). They are using these engines in their Atlas V rocket, and I heard made a better engine that was built on the ideas of this RD-180 engine (as I said before, they had access to the schematics).

Re:Germany

[HiThere]

No. We stopped going to the moon because it stopped being politically profitable. The US appears to be incapable of running a long-term project, and by long term I mean 10 years. (Longer than one president's term of office.) We only got to the moon because it was seen as a sporting event, but by doing it that way we lost almost all the advantages of doing it, and only gained political points. Any science or engineering was incidental.

There is much that could be done on the moon, but there are engineering problems that need to be solved before this is practical. For that matter, I think a radio-telescope on the dark side of the moon would be an excellent idea...though it would currently need to be totally automated. It could be more sensitive than ANY on earth, and it could also be linked to earth-based radiotelescopes to give a much larger baseline for resolution. Now start considering the engineering problems that need to be solved/ They aren't minor. So they need to be solved in the context of other similar project to make them worthwhile. And this won't happen when the doing of it requires approval of a short-term president.

I think, perhaps, the governmental structure of the US is incompatible with successful exploration and development of space. Perhaps China is more capable. Perhaps some corporation will be capable. (Corporations can keep their focus over longer periods of time, but they tend to have limited budgets while they are new, and the third generation of management usually devolves into bean-counters, at which point all development ceases, and the corporation usually fades. [They've also cause social problems, but then so does government.])

In the long term, we've GOT to either get off the planet in a surviable manner, or die as a species. How to get from here to there, however, is not clear.

Re:Germany

[HiThere]

Getting there first isn't the task. Getting there survibably is the task. (Fortunately, I believe that Musk understands this...I'm not sure he understands just how much of a problem a recycling closed environment is.)

No, the US space program is not well. It's been severly ill, and has suffered extensive memory and capabilites loss. SpaceX, etc. are trying to re-invent many techniques that were previously solved problems. They may come up with better solutions, but if they do it will because they HAD to. And they may also come up with inferior solutions, because the basic knowledge has been lost. (OTOH, much has changed in the interim, and materials science is now more advanced, so one can hope that the new answers will be better.)

Re:Germany

[man_the_king]

In my opinion, the best post I've read on this subject, on this thread.

Wish I had mod-points.

Re:Germany

[VortexCortex]

Have you, America as a nation, let your hunger for war and hegemony override your once great ideals for the betterment of mankind?

No, but our cronies find it a far faster return on investment to manufacture consent for war through scaremongering. Don't forget, we went to space in a race to outdo other nations first. We're still dominant in that regard. I do seriously wish Europe, Asia and Indonesia the best of luck. We're all in this together. Here in Houston astronauts from all over the world train for EVA and re-entry. Off the coast of Florida they train for life in space habitats under the water in SEATEST. In Canada they learn to use the Canada Arm of the ISS, among many other things. The European Space Agency is currently helping China relay its moon rover data back to them. My main wish besides more funding is that NASA would get a prime-time TV show to inspire kids and young adults like JAXA has in Space Brothers. (an anime with the first ever voice-actor performance from space - JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide from the ISS). Hell, the live action adaptation thereof has astronaut Buzz Aldrin playing himself. We just got that Gravity movie, and Curiosity's Twitter feed is great, but I do agree we could be doing far better in the space media department. Mars One is sort of forcing NASA's hand to commit to at least get some astronauts to loop around Mars and back (like we did with the moon before landing). Competition is good for space, bring it on!

In the press Russia and the US rattle sabers while in space we say, "Thanks for the supplies, comrade!" That divisionism drivel you're spouting is nice to goad statists into funding space programs, but to anyone in the know it makes you seem a bit foolish.

Re:Germany

[Ralph Wiggam]

No. Apparently the giant rover that NASA recently landed on Mars doesn't count because it doesn't fit the "America is lazy and stupid" narrative.

Re:Germany

[shutdown -p now]

Capitalism moderated by societal control (implemented by a democratically elected government with a system of checks and balances).

It worked great for US and Europe from WW2 and roughly until the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Since then, with no commie boogieman, those in power have decided that their hands are untied to squeeze as much as they can from the economy, and to hell with the rest.

Re:Germany

[AmiMoJo]

They took a break where they weren't doing much in the middle. Once they made it a priority progress was rapid. It's also been quite safe, which is commendable.

We should work with them. Of the US wasn't being a dick about cooperating on the ISS they would have been expanding it by now. I wish the ESA would do more with them.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Apparently the giant rover that NASA recently landed on Mars 100% over-budget and years behind schedule

FTFY.

NASA has a $17b budget, the DoD space budget is slightly higher. China's space budget is about $2b, with about half of that going to the civilian agency.

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the USSR and America, China has not had the benefit of of German rocket scientists to develop and run their space programme.

They may have a few stolen blue prints, and without doubt the calculations and knowledge that the USSR still knows and America is fast forgetting, but they have also walked a long distance on their own feet, and they have done this in quite a short time.

Sure, you Americans can trumpet "Pppthhhffff the Moon, been there, done that" but I do need to ask: When China and India have bases on the moon and men on Mars. More importantly, when you as a nation have lost the ability to launch your own rockets, and you can only rent payload from communist states -

Whatever did happen to your once great ambitions?
Have you, America as a nation, let your hunger for war and hegemony override your once great ideals for the betterment of mankind?

Just where did you go wrong?

Tell all that to Space X and the other private space companies. China can copy but cannot innovate

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, I am making remarkable progress in electronics using my Arduino :) Been there done that, matters a lot. I am looking fwd to the extra will this will provide EU and US both public and private. God knows we could use another space race and some actual good old fashion nationalism.. Otherwise we loose, we loose just on pure numbers and corp greed.

Here,here ! ! !

Re:Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

China has the benefit of trillions of dollars of stolen IP. Don't act so naive. NASA is working on next Gen propulsion, not lunar landers

Re:Germany

[volmtech]

Who built your computer? That's where we went wrong.

I always suspected

[rmdingler]

A totalitarian regime would have an easier time developing manned spaced flights and perhaps colonies off the blue marble.

Re:I always suspected

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, and a corporate-feudal one would most certainly lag.

Re:I always suspected

[Megane]

Yep, and it really worked great for the Russians! You can't point a telescope anywhere in the sky these days without spotting a Russian space colony!

Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Gothmolly]

Until someone blows up a satellite, there's no "power" in space. You can launch from essentially anywhere, there's no way to monopolize the field.

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[oodaloop]

China blew up one of their own satellites 7 years ago.

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? I take it you've never heard of shark satellites with lasers in space?

Re: Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

China did that five years ago. Kind of a pita now http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/orbital-debris-from-chinese-satellite-tops-3000-pieces.htm

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That was not impressive in the least. They ended up creating a massive field of debris that damaged other satellites and threatened the ISS.

Meanwhile, we destroyed USA-193 using a plain old SM-3 missile off a moving ship. Quite a difference.

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't launch from anywhere without taking certain factors into consideration. The Florida coast is used by the US due to it's position near the equator, where you're fighting against the rotation of the Earth less. In terms of escape velocity, the rotation(which may be an oversimplified way of referring to the kinds of forces impeding a successful launch) of the Earth makes optimum conditions for achieving escape velocity take an elliptical rather than spherical shape.

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[HiThere]

I think you need to reread the reports on what we did. Granted, we didn't create the problem the Chinese did, but what we did wasn't anything spectacular, more a PR response. (Judging by how you remembered it, it seems to have worked.)

Re:Space Superpower isn't a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

You can launch from anywhere, but it's best to launch from the equator because it maximizes the Earth's tangential velocity which in turn gives the spacecraft a boost.

Damn, that time traveler was right

[OzPeter]

That time traveler in the documentary "Looper" was right .. I should learn Chinese.

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[JaredOfEuropa]

They said the same 15 years ago about learning Japanese. My guess? We'll stick with English. Chinese apparently is a very difficult language to learn to speak and write (Japanese writing is hard but learning to speak it is relatively easy). In contrast, English is easy to pick up, and already very widely spoken by non-native speakers.

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[ixidor]

maybe to speak... still to many euphemisms for foreigners to grasp right away. so their you are rite on your own. what, two many mus-spellings for you'll einstiens?

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[Anonymous Coward]

>Chinese apparently is a very difficult language to learn to speak and write (Japanese writing is hard but learning to speak it is relatively easy).

Being able to speak both somewhat, I would say that Chinese grammar is about the same or slightly simpler than Japanese.

>In contrast, English is easy to pick up, and already very widely spoken by non-native speakers.
>English is easy to pick up

You're American, aren't you? It's okay, some of my best friends are Americans.

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[Roachie]

The worlds second largest economy in 1880 was .... China.

Protip: Dont take life-altering advice from movies.

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[HiThere]

There *is* a dialect of English that's easy for foreigners to learn. It's a development of Pidgin (i.e., business) English. To most US people it would be a foreign language. OTOH, a decade ago it was reported to be the fastest growing dialect of English, accounting for most of it's growth worldwide. (Was the report correct? Is it still? I don't know...and I'm not asserting either.)

Re:Damn, that time traveler was right

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'm Dutch, thanks for asking. Tried my hand at learning both Chinese and Japanese.

Meanwhile in the U.S.

[RogueWarrior65]

We're building the world's largest bureaucracy and collection of Ship B people.

Re:Meanwhile in the U.S.

[ixidor]

its funny cause its true.. no its so sad ...

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

America still has people literally shitting in the streets. It's a super-shithole super-power, but that doesn't stop Americans from shitting on the rest of the world too.

Best news I've heard in a while

[Maquis196]

Nothing seems to get goverments spending money on space like any kind of race. Just a shame China don't just say "Mars would look great in China Red", that would soon get the budgets for NASA and to a smaller extent ESA raised a bit.

Rather co-operation on this, I know there is some. A Chinese moon base? Like America would let that stand!

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[rmdingler]

Indeed.

Competition amongst earth's nation-states will have to do as motivation until cooperation is plausible.

Hopefully we don't have to wait for that until we have a common off-planet enemy.

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars has always been red. As for cooperation, why do you think they have to do everything by themselves? Hint... another power actively blocks them from participation in the ISS and other collaborative projects. Can you guess who?

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[SteveFoerster]

A Chinese moon base? Like America would let that stand!

What are they going to do, nuke it?

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[Anonymous Coward]

An astronaut is sent to topple one leg at the eastern corner of the Chinese moon base with a kung fu swoop. He fails and flies away.

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[rtaylor]

If China builds a moon base with the primary purpose of mining rare-earth metals; it will be defended.

Re:Best news I've heard in a while

[antdude]

Just be patient. Let them go to space gradually. They got to the moon. Let them land on it with humans. Then, further out!

Destroying satellites

[sjbe]

Until someone blows up a satellite, there's no "power" in space.

Both the US and China have blown up satellites in space from the ground within the past few years using missiles. I'm quite sure Russia could manage the trick as well if they felt like it.

Re:Destroying satellites

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite sure Russia could manage the trick as well if they felt like it.

You think Russia wants Pierce Brosnan on their case again?

nothing new here

[nimbius]

China's space program differs from those of other nations in part because of the nation's political structure: A single-party government with a bevy of strong state-owned enterprises can get a lot done.

if we're talking 'superpowers' then no its not. Russia, sent the first man into orbit and the first robot to the moon through state owned enterprise.

the United States operates in much the same way. lockheed martin and northrup grumman would cease to exist if not for US taxpayer subsidy in the pursuit of our space program. their product is defined largely by US policy, and their sales controlled by it as well. theyre 'free enterprise' only in so far as it privatizes its profits.

Re:nothing new here

[camperdave]

It's not the US space program that keeps Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in business. It is the US military.

Disturbingly, the stock price of the top five US defense contractors have experienced a distinct and steady rise since the beginning of 2013.

How about postal addresses?

[selectspec]

This is typical authoritarian bravado. China invests heavily in a field that generates PR for nationalistic pride (with a dual military purpose.) Meanwhile, they don't even have a postal address system. Don't be fooled by the hype. Yes, their economy will be the largest, simply due to their numbers. (If the Chinese simply earned per capita one third of the US average income, they'd be a larger economy than the US.)

Re:How about postal addresses?

[tgd]

This is typical authoritarian bravado. China invests heavily in a field that generates PR for nationalistic pride (with a dual military purpose.) Meanwhile, they don't even have a postal address system. Don't be fooled by the hype. Yes, their economy will be the largest, simply due to their numbers. (If the Chinese simply earned per capita one third of the US average income, they'd be a larger economy than the US.)

I'm not sure if that's just racism or lack of knowledge... but China has more people living in a US-level middle class than the US has people.

And, strangely, I've never had an issue mailing something to China. You don't just scribble a name on it, and someone walks along an asks 1.2 billion people if that happens to be them, after all.

Re:How about postal addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words it was taken directly from the US playbook?

I mean every rocket (missile?) has a very large US flag and often was targeted to bring up "nationalist pride".
I guess you can always demonstrate how sending a school teacher to space provided real scientific value (I'm referring to the "Teachers in space" program) and not "PR"?

Re:How about postal addresses?

[JWW]

I'm not sure if that's just racism or lack of knowledge... but China has more people living in a US-level middle class than the US has people.

Both what you said and what the GP post said are true.

China may have more middle class, but they have a huge amount of population in poverty as well.

On a per capita basis, if they matched the US, their economy would be about 3 times larger than ours. The do not have that yet.

Re:How about postal addresses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation on "dont even have a postal address system" or were you just to lazy to even look it up?

You mean like the US Zip, or enhanced zip+4 system?
Seems they use a similar system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postal_codes_in_China

PSS :

The postal service in China can be dated back to the Shang Dynasty ( 1766 BC to 1122 BC)

Seems they may have addressed their "postal address system" in that time.

I miss the Cold War

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's have another one with China versus Europe, and America is the Third World this time around.

Yeah

[aliquis]

... because what the world is ANOTHER FREAKING SET OF NAVIGATIONAL SATELLITES!

I'll launch my own too, can't trust any government. Maybe we should found a set for each of us together through Kickstarter?

More junk in the nearby space place!

Re:Yeah

[Megane]

I'll just wait for Elon Musk to launch NavX.

Re:Yeah

[aliquis]

+ need.
s/found/fund/
s/place/please/

I was tired. :D

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Falcon/Merlin/Raptor. SpaceX has a bird-of-prey theme. So more like "Aquila" or "Gyr" than NavX.

They should catch up fast ...

[tgd]

And pass both the US and Russia quickly.

Why? Technology is 40 years newer. Materials science has changed, automation, manufacturing techniques and a slew of other core technologies important for space flight have changed as much in the last 40 years as computing technology has. They're going to be able to do more with less the same as other up-starts like SpaceX can do -- but they're going to invest national levels of resources into it, with SpaceX levels of innovation and dramatically less of a "defense contractor welfare" bloat that drags down NASA.

And good for them. For the sake of every living thing that's fought entropy for the last three billion years on Earth, it doesn't matter who is working towards getting life off this rock, it just matters that someone is.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[CrimsonAvenger]

And pass both the US and Russia quickly.

And yet they're taking decades for milestones that both the USA and Russia accomplished in years.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[akirapill]

dramatically less of a "defense contractor welfare" bloat that drags down NASA.

Genuinely curious why you think this? It's been my understanding that there are strong ties between the government and the defense contractors, and the defense industry there is fairly shrouded in secrecy, making corruption easy to pull off. Do you think the Chinese government is more capable of taking an 'agile' approach to a space program than the US?

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbest thing I will read today.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"getting life off this rock"

Are you from Iraq?
Miami is a beauty man... I like it here.

Captcha: neighbor

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[tgd]

Genuinely curious why you think this? It's been my understanding that there are strong ties between the government and the defense contractors, and the defense industry there is fairly shrouded in secrecy, making corruption easy to pull off. Do you think the Chinese government is more capable of taking an 'agile' approach to a space program than the US?

Corruption in China tends to be far and away an issue with regional and local programs, and lately there's been a serious crackdown on it. But mostly, they lack an entity like Congress that sets budgets and buys/sells votes to get projects broken up and put into lots of different districts. A big part of why SpaceX is so efficient is that everything is made in the same factory... not 50 different companies in 300 locations. Something needs to get done, it gets done. I'm not passing judgment on that, good or bad, but if there's one thing China is good at doing, its getting things done.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious as well. Any reply?

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're more of an idiot if you think you fought entropy and won.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[akirapill]

Thanks, this makes a lot of sense wrt to congressional pork. It may take $1m to bribe an politician, but $1b if you have to bribe their constituency as well.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And being the land of the free, they are free to just buy space-x if and when they need to.

You merkins are fuckwitted enough to sell it to them as well.

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[bob_super]

They don't seem to be stopping after a few PR stunts.
Not waging proxy wars all over the place does give them the resources to keep going, and going, and...

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[CrimsonAvenger]

They don't seem to be stopping after a few PR stunts.

Neither did we. Or do you count the Mars Rovers as "PR stunts"? Note that we put the Mars rovers down on Mars 36 years after our first satellite launch. Which is seven years less time than China took from first satellite to lunar rover.

Not waging proxy wars all over the place does give them the resources to keep going, and going, and...

We spent more on Afghanistan & Iraq in the last ten years than we did on NASA. And we still managed the latest Mars Rover, a Pluto mission (still in transit), an orbiter around Jupiter, plus earth satellites in the same time span.

The planned moon base, alas, was canceled by Obama. Not that I'd believe in a moon base till NASA signed contracts with SpaceX to deliver the pieces to the moon (if we get men to the moon anytime soon, it'll be on SpaceX's hardware, since NASA's new crew capsule is still a LONG way out, and Dragon has some of its man-rating tests scheduled for this year (escape sequence, groundside, this quarter, escape sequence, inflight, later in the year.)

Re:They should catch up fast ...

[HiThere]

There's a lot of good in things like SpaceX, but don't be deceived. Corporations also have failure modes, and some of them are pretty bad. One that often happens with technical companies is, the first generation of management are technical visionaries, the second generation are competent engineers, the thrid generation are bookkeepers. There usually isn't a fourth generation. (OTOH, note that this is just a "usually". IBM is a good counterexample. But then HP is an excellent example.)

All isms are totalitarian

[Anonymous Coward]

A totalitarian regime would have an easier time developing manned spaced flights and perhaps colonies off the blue marble.

You do realize that the US is a totalitarian regime, I hope? In a capitalist system, the totalitarian dictators are the banks.

The banks may not kill and torture you physically, but they'll take all your possessions and leave you destitute -- certainly a form of torture. And if you understand Fractional Reserve Banking, you already know that they operate everyone in society as labor slaves in a perpetual system of debt that by design cannot be paid off.

You're right about totalitarian regimes being efficient, and ours certainly is. A democratic one would be far less so, but admittedly a nicer place to live.

Re:China?

[tgd]

Wake me up when one of these budding super powers no longer has people shitting in the streets. China and India are third world shit holes who waste money like this, when they should really be working to help their people.

It may not be obvious to people who haven't spent any time traveling the world ... but the rich in China make the rich in the US look poor ... the middle class in China is living as well as the US, and is 6x the size ... and the poor in China don't live in anywhere near the squalor that the poor in the American Southeast live in. Visit rural China and rural West Virginia ... your eyes may be opened a bit.

But we have health care

[hessian]

USA has shifted spending from external (being a superpower, space conquest, invention) to the internal (entitlements, welfare and health insurance).

We may accomplish nothing but we're good people. Look at all the parasites we're funding.

Re:But we have health care

[dunkelfalke]

To be honest, I fail to see how invading two countries is internal spending.

Re:But we have health care

[Anonymous Coward]

USA has shifted spending from external (being a superpower, space conquest, invention) to the internal (entitlements, welfare and health insurance).

We may accomplish nothing but we're good people. Look at all the parasites we're funding.

YOU STUPID GODDAMN FUCK. Social Security Retirement Income is the only "entitlement program" of consequence in the U.S. Budget and the people who receive benefits ALREADY PAID FOR THEM. Are you smart enough to read your pay stub ? You're still paying them. The money you pay as goes into the Social Security Trust Fund which in and of itself would be solvent but the GOD DAMNED government decided to spend the fund in the form of IOU's so they could pay of the likes of AIG and Goldman Sachs or start wars for the benefit of Halliburton or Brown & Root with your money. It's money I have paid too. Do I feel entitled to it ? YOUR GODDAMNED RIGHT I do.

Re:But we have health care

[Alomex]

You've been paying too much attention to Mitt Romney and not enough to the facts. The war in Iraq alone would have been enough to put men on Mars ten times over.If that didn't suffice tax breaks to millionaires and corporations alone would too.

Yet, your proposal to put men on Mars is to remove health insurance from the sick. Boy has his country ever lost its way!

Re:But we have health care

[CrimsonAvenger]

To be honest, I fail to see how invading two countries is internal spending.

Money spent invading two countries: ~$1T over ten years.

Money spent on SSA/Medicare/Medicaid in the same period: ~$16T. At the Federal level. Medicaid is partly funded by the States, so the total would be slightly higher

Does tend to look like our internal spending is considerably greater than the cost of those two wars, doesn't it?

Re:But we have health care

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with putting men on mars is: why? Why go there? Why spend $1T to send a few guys to their deaths on Mars (no way to recover them)?

We went to the moon to show we were more technologically advanced than the Russians. The technology developed had dual use in ballistic missile technology. Without the Cold War, the space race and the walks on the moon would never have happened. You can make arguments regarding "the science of it" and "progress", but at the end of the day it was always about the geo-political realities the US faced.

We don't have that situation now, so why go?

I'd love to see us go to Mars, but i'm also a realist. No one's going to spend that kind of money unless there's an economic, political, or military reason to go.

Re:But we have health care

[Anonymous Coward]

Useful things the US tax payers got for that ~$$T over ten years?

Re:But we have health care

[TangoMargarine]

Extinction-Level Event. We might want to survive as a species *when* Earth gets toasted.

Re:But we have health care

[Anonymous Coward]

US Military budget: $552 billion

Overseas Contingency Operations: $80.7 billion

Veterans Administration: $63.5 billion

Homeland Security: $37.4 billion

National Nuclear Security Administration: $17.8 billion

Miscellaneous defense related projects: $1 billion

Total: $752.4 billion

Medicare and Social Security are fully funded by your taxes once you account for the money borrowed from the account. So that leaves Medicaid at $304 billion which actually improves the lives of everyone be reducing communicable diseases and freeing up EMS resources.

Re:But we have health care

[HiThere]

It's a decent answer, but I'm not really sure that a planet is the right answer. Asteroids have a lot going for them if you can beat the "closed ecosystem" problem, and if you can't, then you can't live on Mars. (Granted, Mars is probably a slightly easier version of the problem, but that's not sure.) Asteroids let you distribute the risk, and don't impose much penalty when you want to ship stuff home. (Well, around half as much of a acceleration penalty, but you can apply it slowly, which makes things like ion rockets and solar sails practical. They'll never get you off a planet, but they can let you land cargo on one without reaction mass.)

Re:But we have health care

[FatLittleMonkey]

The problem with putting men on mars is: why? Why go there? Why spend $1T to send a few guys to their deaths on Mars

Something people wondered about the war in Iraq too.

Re:But we have health care

[FatLittleMonkey]

The problem is that Mars makes a terrible lifeboat. It will absorb all resources from other HSF (as Mars research is increasingly doing to planetary exploration at NASA). And it can provide no resources back to other settlement or exploration. And it'd be a century or more of dependence on Earth, at minimum, before it could survive the loss of Earth.

OTOH, by "colonising" asteroids (and moons) and associated space-stations, you scatter your people around the entire solar system. Each step outwards provides resources for further exploration. (Even for later Mars settlement.) In the beginning, providing say air/water/fuel, expanding into raw materials for construction, eventually entire settlements. Meaning that they can be profit centres; and, once established, expansion becomes largely commercially driven rather than entirely funded and resourced by governments.

Each asteroid "settlement" is too small to survive, but collectively they create sufficient resilience to survive losses (eventually including the loss of Earth), require less funding to establish, and will expand more organically. A thousand small self-funding caches, rather than one big expensive cache.

from the article

[argStyopa]

TFA says it perfectly: "...Johnson-Freese put it more bluntly: âoeIn terms of technology, are the Chinese at a peer level or more advanced than us? No, absolutely not. What they have that we donâ(TM)t is political will.â"

Simply, Western governments have decided that space is no longer important. Certainly, not more important than handing out subsidies to industries, banks, and the underclass of easily-bought voters.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

Simply, Western governments have decided that space is no longer important. Certainly, not more important than handing out subsidies to industries, banks, and the underclass of easily-bought voters.

Except that the biggest recipients of government largesse are Red States (look it up). So much for your "easily-bought" assumptiony.

I also have the expectation of the government spending my tax dollars in things that benefit the general population instead of tax breaks to Mitt Romney so he can stash his $100 million retirement fund in a tax heaven in the Bahamas (again look it up).

Re:from the article

[Drethon]

The Apollo program is certainly not at a peer level or more advanced than our current capabilities. I don't think the technical level is going to be the major issue.

Re:from the article

[litehacksaur111]

That is too bad because a space race is the only thing at this point that can pull the US out of this downward spiral where all resources are being allocated for financial services instead of actual investment in infrastructure and new technology. I mean looking back at history, the reason that technology progressed so rapidly in the 50's and 60's was because of the space race. In fact NASA and the DOD were buying 90% of all transistors made from that time period.

Re:from the article

[Anonymous Coward]

See subsidies to industries above.

Re:from the article

[HiThere]

I'll accept that for the 1960's, but not for the 1950's. During the 1950's the US just about ignored space. That's why we were so surprised when the 1950's ended with Sputnik. (The Russians hadn't been keeping it secret...they'd just been ignored.) For the 1950's you need to find some other mechanism.

P.S.: Spending for political spectaculars doesn't do that much to advance Science and Engineering, even when they are the purported beneficiaries. I think Kennedy actually had a vision of developing space, but Johnson was interested in politics and pork. So that's mainly what we ended up with. (OTOH, it's questionable whether we would have survived much longer with Kennedy. He tended to walk too close to the edge of nuclear war.)

Re:from the article

[blindseer]

Why is Mitt Romney putting money in the Bahamas? Because that is where he gets a better return on his investment. I don't fault Romney for doing that, I'd do the same. I fault our government for making the Bahamas a better choice than keeping that money in the USA.

Re:from the article

[khallow]

Except that the biggest recipients of government largesse are Red States (look it up).

Does the money stay in red states? Last I checked, if West Virginia gets money for a network, that money ends up with someone like Cisco a California (blue state) business. And similarly, if the funding goes to a financial service (say like debit cards for unemployee insurance payouts), then it's probably more likely to end up in New York (a blue state) rather than in Wyoming (a red state).

Re:from the article

[khallow]

I mean looking back at history, the reason that technology progressed so rapidly in the 50's and 60's was because of the space race. In fact NASA and the DOD were buying 90% of all transistors made from that time period.

DOD was the big buyer here. They weren't heavily into space except as another region in which to compete militarily.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

He moved $100 million in IRA money (i.e. government subsidized funds who are supposed to fund your retirement) to a tax haven.
Did he rally against such ridiculous subsidy when he was a candidate? of course not. Instead he complained about the unemployed freshly fired worked for collecting food stamps so that his family won't starve.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

You are grasping at straws when confronted with a reality contrary to your beliefs. And yes most of the money stays in the Red States which is why the supposedly "small government" republicans fight tooth and nail to keep the money flowing.

Re:from the article

[blindseer]

I'm not sure what you wrote makes sense. I'm tired. If you mean what I think you mean then you are saying that Romney didn't like the Democrat version of trickle down economics but preferred the Reagan trickle down economics.

Democrats believe that by handing out food stamps these poor people will use them to buy food, therefore boosting the economy. "Reaganomics" says by letting not taxing the rich into poverty they will create jobs for the poor so they won't need food stamps.

If Democrat trickle down works then at some point we'd have everyone on food stamps but no "fat cats" to pay the taxes needed to support it. Even in theory it sounds bad. "Reaganomics" means that if you don't work you die. That's over simplifying it since there is still charities and government assistance would not be abolished by even the meanest and cruelest Republican.

Problem is that as much as the Democrats may deny it that is how the world works. At some point you run out of other people's money. Then if you don't work, you die.

When the rich man sells the poor man a bowl of porridge then who gets wealthier? They both do. The poor man gets to eat and the rich man has more liquid assets for trade. Nobody trades down, everyone trades up. If the government took the porridge from the rich man and gave it to the poor man who gets wealthy off that? The government. The rich man lost his porridge, the poor man still has no job, and the government got it's cut.

Yes, Romney is sooooo evil. He wants to keep the government from taking it's cut. He also wants to end the cycle of Democrat vote buying with your money and mine.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

What I'm saying is very clear: Romney loves tax breaks when they help him and loathes them when they help the poor. And contrary to your assertion, economic theory and practice has proven that aid to the unwillingly unemployed boosts the economy while Reaganomics doesn't.

Here's something that will shock you: the economy grew faster during the Carter years than during the Reaganomics years.

Re:from the article

[khallow]

You are grasping at straws when confronted with a reality contrary to your beliefs.

No, I'm pointing out something that should be fairly obvious.

And yes most of the money stays in the Red States which is why the supposedly "small government" republicans fight tooth and nail to keep the money flowing.

How much is "most"? Your vague generalities indicate you don't know any more than I do.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

So let's see: I give you facts contrary to your beliefs, you then make up some alternate explanation for which you have no evidence and then conclude "you don't know any more than I do".

Carry on with your made up beliefs.

Re:from the article

[blindseer]

I can make assertions without citations to back it up too.

By what metric are we measuring the growth of the economy? There's lots of ways to do that, if you torture the data you can get it to admit anything.

Also, what we have now it well beyond anything that Carter had. The government is taxing and spending much more money. I'm sure that people on food stamps, unemployment, welfare, and other government assistance is much higher. This cannot continue, therefore it will not.

The hammer of reality WILL fall.
https://www.billwhittle.com/afterburner/hammer-reality

As certain as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of wisdom and virtue with terror and slaughter return.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx9--zQDfog

Re:from the article

[khallow]

I give you facts contrary to your beliefs, you then make up some alternate explanation for which you have no evidence and then conclude "you don't know any more than I do".

That's the crux here. You gave me facts not evidence. Evidence can distinguish between alternate hypotheses. And as I note, just because funding was allocated to a state doesn't mean that it stayed there.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

I can make assertions without citations to back it up too.

Here you go. From the Bureau of Economic Analysis in Percent Change in Real GDP. The rates of return per term for Presidents are:

Carter 12.0%
Reagan 1st Term 11.2%
Reagan 2nd Term 14.7%
GHWB 7.8%
Clinton 1st Term 13.8%
Clinton 2nd Term 17.3%
GWB 1st Term 9.9%
GWB 2nd Term 4.8%

Reagan Both Terms 28.8%
Clinton Both Terms 34.4%
GWB Both Terms 16.3%

Note that Carter's rate of return per term was better than every Republican except Reagan's second term.

By what metric are we measuring the growth of the economy?

Real GDP growth. No weird measures here. Also notice how growth was much larger in the higher taxes years of Clinton than in the low taxes years of Reagan.

The government is taxing and spending much more money.

US Total Government expenditures as percentage GDP in 2013 are the same as they were in 1991.

I'm sure that people on food stamps, unemployment, welfare, and other government assistance is much higher.

No shit Sherlock. We are in the middle of a recession. The number of people on welfare, food stamps and government assistance goes up during recessions. That is what they are there for.

This cannot continue, therefore it will not.

First, it can continue since expenditure in all of those items is negligible in terms of GDP. Second, don't worry. It won't continue since we will at some point pull out of this recession and the number of claimants will drop rapidly. In fact they already started to do so.

The hammer of reality WILL fall.

Careful dude, you are now entering tin foil hat territory.

Re:from the article

[Alomex]

And as I note, just because funding was allocated to a state doesn't mean that it stayed there.

You might as well argue that it was secretly burned in piles at night after being allocated.

Let's review this discussion. First you had incorrectly assumed that blue states receive more money per capita than red states It is a fact that this is not the case.

Do you pause and say "gee, maybe I should inform myself more about this?" or do you make up any possible explanation that could possibly make your unsupported, incorrect opinion true? Why of course the second, which is the textbook definition of grasping at straws:

To guess randomly at or pursue any apparent option, as due to lack of options or information.

Re:from the article

[khallow]

First you had incorrectly assumed that blue states receive more money per capita than red states It is a fact that this is not the case.

No, I haven't. So here, we already have one fact which isn't.

Do you pause and say "gee, maybe I should inform myself more about this?" or do you make up any possible explanation that could possibly make your unsupported, incorrect opinion true? Why of course the second, which is the textbook definition of grasping at straws:

Do you pause and say, "gee, maybe khallow has a point and I should inform myself more about this?" No you immediate go into amateur psychology hour.

Re:from the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you pause and say, "gee, maybe khallow has a point and I should inform myself more about this?"

All the time, in fact when I first heard about red states being the biggest beneficiaries I was surprised and did some research on my own to confirm it.

I'm going from memory here, but large number of military bases was one (money which is spent locally), larger number of welfare recipients was another (yes, those 'hard working" red states are poorer and hence have larger welfare payrolls).

Re:from the article

[volmtech]

Does Mr. Whittle think it was a good thing for millions NOT to have medical care? If you say they could always get mandated care then why should everyone be paying 40% more now? Where is the extra money going? The web site worked for me, my wife and son got coverage for $20 a month. WMMV.

Re:from the article

[khallow]

I'm going from memory here, but large number of military bases was one (money which is spent locally), larger number of welfare recipients was another (yes, those 'hard working" red states are poorer and hence have larger welfare payrolls).

While you have a point about military bases, it remains that there are multinational military contractors who handle a lot of those basic services and whom provide a channel for moving federal money spent on one place to another place.

As to welfare, it appears that there is a big shift towards federal spending in red states versus blue states on such programs (eg, federal SNAP versus state funded cash-based welfare).

But with these anecdotes, I can come up with contrary ones. For example, spending on emergency coordination infrastructure (such as command centers and telecommunication and radio gear) favors blue state businesses even when such projects are constructed in the middle of a red state. Domestic networking gear is heavily California-based, for example.

And the funding of municipal bonds (which often happens in conjunction with federal level funding) would favor financial businesses out of New York.

Re:from the article

[argStyopa]

Except:
1) you apparently entirely missed my point about subsidies to industries and banks, no? Or were you just too busy getting all offended?
2) I've seen your "Red states are the biggest recipients of government largesse"...
a) it's only true if you're talking about FEDERAL funding (most social funding is funneled through the states)
b) it's not anywhere near true on an INDIVIDUAL level; last time I checked, states didn't vote for candidates, individuals do. So the fact that Wyoming gets a buttload of federal money for Yellowstone doesn't mean Yellowstone is getting to vote.

When you look at the statistics carefully, and look at where actual, individual subsidies and assistance programs are going, it then is the non-surprising poor underclass that largely vote Democrat.

Re:Medicare

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't vote Republican either, we need to eliminate the tax cuts for everyone with the money to pay. Get the debt situation under control.

Re:Medicare

[Maquis196]

really? turning a discussion about Chinese space efforts into a rant about Obamacare? Guess being that I'm British I dont have to worry about such things. UK space program is barely worth calling a program :)

Re:Medicare

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has spent all its money, and all the money it will ever get already. They voted on hand outs instead of improvements, and the hand outs have won.

Medicare is $100 Trillion in the hole, and I did not mistype that. Obamacare is a desperate attempt to hide the failure of Medicare without admitting to it, but that won't work. Until Medicare and hand outs are reigned in, the US will not do manned space exploration again on its own.

If you don't like these facts, stop voting in the liberals that tell you if only the rich pay a little more all will be good. The rich can't cover a $100 Trillion deficit.

The US is a great country with one little defect. The military-surveillance-industrial complex that devours a good portion of the nation's resources. You think doing wars halfway around the world comes cheap ? If the american citizens had to pay for the wars in afghanistan and irak you'd have had a revolution in washington 10 years ago.

Current Space Superpower

[dbIII]

They've got something on the moon and can get people into orbit this year. The US is years away from being able to put anyone in orbit without buying a ticket on a Russian rocket.

Re:Current Space Superpower

[blackanvil]

They've got something on the moon and can get people into orbit this year. The US is years away from being able to put anyone in orbit without buying a ticket on a Russian rocket.

Only because our political class has decided it's not worth the risk. After two space shuttle failures, the writing was on the wall, and Congress collectively decided "Hell, if we're going to get the blame every time a rocket fails and someone dies, let's outsource that." The Soyuz and Atlas lines in their current incarnations are roughly equivalent in capacity (5,500 vs 5,900kg to LEO respectively), if we really wanted to all it would take is some extra QA (last Atlas failure was in 2007, and even so the payload made orbit, just lower than desired), a life-support capsule and re-entry system (old hat, we've had designs for those since the 60s) and the will to accept responsibility for any failure. There's also the systems currently launching cargo (Dragon, Cygnus/Antares) that are known to be able to make it up there, just not certified to carry humans yet. If we had a sudden need, say relationships with Russia go south, I believe we would pick the most reliable, certify it safe enough for human travel, and go for it.

That said, why would our government want to go that route unless it had to? So long as they can outsource, currently to the Russians, probably eventually to private companies such as SpaceX, they don't want the responsibility, the blame when things go wrong, or the negative feedback that luddites always throw at the space programs as it is.

Re:Current Space Superpower

[dbIII]

"Going for it" would take several years due to the expertise having gone. Maybe some laid off ex-NASA and associated industries, plus a few Russians could be brought in to train another generation but there's still going to be a lot of holes and it would still take a lot of time. Who is still around to redo the Apollo parachutes for instance - there are so many things there that are not on the blueprints, such as the parachute folding technique (or so I've heard).
Either way my point stands. The Chinese are already doing what the USA can't at this point, but was doing in the days of Apollo, so they are currently one of the three "Space Superpowers"

Re:Current Space Superpower

[notsoanonymouscoward]

Utter nonsense. A US company (spaceX) could do it this week if it were truly required. Pull the Thaicom-6 off the falcon 9, put on a dragon with a seat (or seats), some oxygen candles and a CO2 scrubber, and press the button. Do not mistake the hampering of bureaucratic red tape and with lack of capability.

Fantastic accomplishment...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for a country that cries about being poor when it comes to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions.

The old paradigm of "developing" and "developed" countries is being challenged, to say the least, by China and India. This is an issue and source of growing friction we'll have to deal with for many decades, and not just in the thorny area of climate change.

Re:Fantastic accomplishment...

[HiThere]

Nobody is willing to do anything serious about greenhouse gas emissions...well, maybe Germany. The US drop is solely due to fracking, and that was an economic decision, not an environmental one. (On environmental grounds it may be worse, but nobody is tracking methane leaks very well, so they can pretend that they're doing better. Maybe they are, but it's quite dubious, as they are assuming an unrealistically low level of leaks.)

Currently only two groups are seriously reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Those who are using nukes, and those who are using solar. (Wind is relatively minor.) And each of those alternatives has serious unsolved problems. (Either cycling generation or waste disposal.)

Re:Fantastic accomplishment...

[HornWumpus]

The N America, Asia and Europe are all basically doing the sensible thing. Funding basic research (ITER, Z-Pinch, fast breeders, better 'batteries', better solar) and not crashing our economies with drastic action. Developing areas as well (e.g. Brazil runs on ethanol). Flat on their face areas...what can you say.

There simply isn't a good technical solution yet. Thank god we didn't wast all our resources building 1980s era solar panels and windmills.

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, your passport (if you own one) lacks a stamp from China?

As I often ask, who's roads are in worse condition the US or China?

The Important thing:

[Hartree]

The US can still beat them in Eve Online, can't we?

How many times did I hear from tech pundits that the New Virtual Economy made the brick and mortar world less important? Isn't this the same?

Oh wait. There was that little thing called the dot com crash. Guess the real world capabilities still matter.

No big deal. Guess I'll just get a beer and go back to playing Kerbal Space Program, then. It's what made America great. ;)

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who normally tries to counterbalance the inaccuracies regarding China i think you might be mistaken.

I was in china a few years ago and went out of my way to visit Rural areas and they are literally "dirt poor". Granted i have never been in the southeast but its hard to imagine anyone still living like that in north america.

Next time you are in China drive a few hours out of any city and stop by to visit the locals in the area.

and all the equipment says

[Anonymous Coward]

"made in china"

so... good luck with that.

Re:and all the equipment says

[Anonymous Coward]

Because all the best stuff is made where? Actually, scratch that is anything not made there these days?

Re:and all the equipment says

[shutdown -p now]

"Made in China" can be quality stuff, as good as anything you get in US. It just costs more than the usual junk. Given how the switch was driven by cost in the first place, it makes sense that most of "Made in China" is junk that is 20x cheaper, not decent goods that are 5x cheaper.

Compare National Space Budgets

[thrich81]

From Wikipedia:
USA NASA annual budget: $17.7 billion, and that is just the NASA budget, the US Air Force Space budget is another $8 billion.
China CNSA annual budget: $1.3 billion.
Total pending by all national space agencies: $40.6 billion.
So the NASA budget is over 10 times that of CNSA and almost as much as all the other nations' programs put together. Considering that the US GDP is only about twice that of China's, then the NASA budget is a far larger percentage of the US GDP than the proportion that CNSA is of China's.

Re:Compare National Space Budgets

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually those news about China is not how it is now, but how it will be in 20-30 years if we extrapolate growth forever. I.e. "it might not look like much now, but wait when their spending grows x100 in 30 years". Me, I have a bit of a "contrarian" hunch - precisely because everyone has started taking Chinese growth as axiomatic, well, maybe it will hit a crises soon. The exuberance was highest at the cusp of the Great Depression.

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the poor in China don't live in anywhere near the squalor that the poor in the American Southeast live in"

You have no idea what you're talking about.

time for US to cooperate with China

[peter303]

The US banned NASA from cooperating with Chinese space program, especially the ISS, due to China's tendency to steal technology. Much space technology has military applications. There was an embarassing incident this year when Chinese scientists were temprarily banned from a US exoplanet conference because NASA was involved.
But its time to do joint government science projects now. Two groups together can accomplish more together than separately.

Re:time for US to cooperate with China

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not going to happen. Geo-politics trumps science every day. We partner with the Russians because their missile and rocket technology is as good as ours; there's little to lose by partnering with them and we won't advance their program very much through partnership. That is not the case with China; partnering with them will advance their program substantially and increase their military technology as well.

Re:time for US to cooperate with China

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as they open their mission control to western journalists. It is hard to get excited about a Orwellian-nightmare state using stolen technology (stolen from NASA/JPL) being covered by a controlled media.

Oh jeeze..another Chineese ship...

[mordjah]

Hope their space ship works better than their ice breaker ship.. Did we not already learn that chineese laborors don't particularly care about quality? *sigh* I sure hope the astronauts are not volentold as well..

Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as they ran the olympics it looked nice at the time. After visiting China when they were over, China is still a dump and will always be a dump. For example we stayed at a 5-star hotel with giant cracks in the wall though the outside of the hotel looked nice. Reminded me of Doctor Who. And yes they were that big. So all in all, I think they have a lot of bark but their quality is just not there and will never be.

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rich in China do make the rich in the US look poor. But there's two reasons for that: they've gotten where they are by exploiting the weak. Today's rich Chinese should be compared to the Rockafellers and Carnegies of the 1900s. Those men were so fabulously wealthy in comparison to their peers--and they got there by paying men $1 a day for 14 hours of backbreaking labor that led to life expectancies under 60. Today's Chinese moguls are doing exactly the same thing.

The cost of food and other daily supplies is low in China. When you're rich, you have money to blow on status symbols, like Louis Vuitton bags and Bentleys. Plus, the concept of "saving for retirement" or setting aside money for a child's college funds are nonexistent in China. When you get to spend all the money you make, you'd be amazed what you can buy.

and the poor in China don't live in anywhere near the squalor that the poor in the American Southeast live in. Visit rural China and rural West Virginia ... your eyes may be opened a bit.

I don't know what part of China you visited, but I've never seen a place in the US without running water and electricity. I've seen some really awful conditions on Indian Reservations in the US SE...the rural areas of China are from another century. Indoor plumbing, law, electricity...those are not items every Chinese has yet.

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceX has the most ambitious space program in the world. Musk has a bet to get a person to mars by 2025.

SpaceX

[RudyHartmann]

I've seen the thousands of people used to monitor space launches run by government programs. Like all government programs, they become public works projects. My son works for SpaceX in Torrance California. Their last successful launch of the Falcon 9 had 39 guys monitoring the launch. 39! I am doubtful China can match SpaceX. I can't wait till the manned Dragon capsule launch.I hope SpaceX eats everybody else's lunch. I confident they will too. :-)

Not all it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

To take an opposing view to 99% of the posts here, China is not as big and scary as it seemed to be. Remember, at the end of the 80's early 90's everyone thought Japan was going to overtake the US, and look where they are now; they haven't recovered yet from their market collapse 20 years ago.

China is in a similar crisis; the Party is good at hiding it but when you look at the signs they are there. Unemployment is rising in China. Profits are dwindling. Layoffs are occasionally happening. None of this should happen in a so called "Communist" state. This is mostly due to the fact that their middle class is getting more wealthy and demanding better rates and better living conditions while at the same time most of what built the Chinese economic model was cheap labor. Most of the cheap labor demand is moving to Southeast Asia and away from China as China is actually getting too expensive. I know several companies that have brought manufacturing back to the US and Mexico because it's cheaper, higher quality, and North America is easier to work with than China.

Why do I say that? Because an active and aggressive space program requires a robust and sturdy economy. The first steps in a space program are a huge money pit to get going, and China's economy is starting to show the cracks in their model. They will struggle to maintain this when other priorities take shape, such as dumping more funding into the economy to maintain employment or shoring up their banks to maintain the shrinking credit market there.

Meanwhile, the US's economy is not built on government agencies like NASA, it's built on entrepreneurship and private enterprise. The private sector historically has been more efficient than the government in almost every respect. The last 50+ years NASA poured money down the drain to get over the initial technical hurdles to get into space, but now that technology is robust. The next step into massive space exploration is not in building the next super advanced rocket that costs billions, which is what NASA is good at, it's in building a cheap reusable rocket that is cheap so we can increase the number of launches by orders of magnitude, historically that's what private enterprise is good at.

I mean, at this stage in space exploration, what's better? An ultra-advanced rocket that costs $100M to launch so you get 10 launches for $1B, or a cheap rocket that costs $1M to launch so you get 1,000 launches for the same money? Doing things like building a space base, a moon base, sending a mission to Mars, etc., are all technically feasible propositions, but they are not economically feasible. The next major hurdle is to make them economically feasible so we can do these things.

That's the transition going on right now in the US economy. NASA is evolving into a guiding force for the several private enterprises that are starting to come online, and the private enterprises are learning how to make launches cheap. China is still trying to get over the technical hurdles and the science stuff first. So right now it may look like China is ahead. In 10/15/20 years, it'll look like a vastly different story.

Re:Not all it seems

[mordjah]

+1 Insightful.

Re:Not all it seems

[Teancum]

The one thing that I use to show how the Chinese Space Agency is hardly something to be worried about is simply their tempo of operation. China may be doing the sort of flags & footprints kind of missions where they do things for political purposes, but they are not really building up any sort of significant experience with their manned spaceflight program in particular. The time between flights is longer than almost any nation which has a manned spaceflight program, and they simply don't have the experience needed to go much further than LEO at the moment. They might actually get their manned space station going eventually, but I don't see them as any significant threat in the medium term.

I also agree with you in regards to private commercial spaceflight too. The real competitor to American commercial spaceflight companies is not India, China, or for that matter Russia (which does at least try to compete none the less), but rather Europe and the ESA. The amount of innovation happening in Europe right now with private commercial spaceflight is something that is breathtaking, but none the less about a decade behind the USA and catching up. The Ariane space launcher is being redesigned to compete with the Falcon 9 on cost, and other signs are in place that Europe is definitely going to be taking an active role in space as well, at least for commercial exploitation of space.

I just don't see a Chinese equivalent of Planetary Resources developing any time soon.

Re:Not all it seems

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I mean, at this stage in space exploration, what's better? An ultra-advanced rocket that costs $100M to launch so you get 10 launches for $1B, or a cheap rocket that costs $1M to launch so you get 1,000 launches for the same money?

A rocket that has a reasonably low price per kg launched, combined with flexibility, and with the ability to launch payload sufficiently heavy to be relevant (for many classes of payload, being able to launch a heavier spacecraft invokes the all-important economies of scale, and we're just not at the phase of building geostationary satellites out of cubesats quite yet).

Re:Not all it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

The private sector historically has been more efficient than the government in almost every respect.

Arguable. The private sector has enormous inefficiencies as well that are rarely talked about. These include advertising/marketing that is largely an arms race to get mindshare where everybody loses except the advertising industry, the massive duplication of effort caused by me-too products where company B unnecessarily produces and markets a duplicate of company A's product to compete, not to mention simple natural monopolies that go rent seeking.

Free enterprise is not particularly efficient, and is frequently less efficient than government instrumentalities. Not surprising when you consider that both private and public enterprise are simply groups people trying to get shit done, with all the human failings that implies. There is also massive interdependencies between the two sectors with the private sector depending on good law and order coming from the public sector and the public sector depending on a host of services from the private sector.

In other words, it isn't as simple as you imply. The Chinese version of the interplay between public sector and the private sector may actually be an okay one long term. They've certainly grown economically pretty quickly so far compared to India which has the "efficient private sector" you like. Time will tell.

Re:Not all it seems

[amaurea]

Remember, at the end of the 80's early 90's everyone thought Japan was going to overtake the US, and look where they are now; they haven't recovered yet from their market collapse 20 years ago.

This graph plots the GDP per capita of the USA, the UK, Japan, India and China. You can see what happened to Japan there: they rose rapidly until they roughly caught up with the USA and UK (and other developed countries) in terms of GDP, and then settled in to grow at the same pace as them. This seems pretty reasonable - it is easier to catch up than to lead, since one can benefit from already existing technology and from being cheaper labor-wise (like you point out). It seems reasonable that the same will happen to China. It is currently rising rapidly, just like Japan did, but I expect it to join the rest of the developed countries in their slower growth once it catches up, in the relatively near future (15 years perhaps?).

But all that is about per capita numbers. If China follows the same pattern as Japan, and slows down once its GDP per capita approaches that of the US, then it will still have a total GDP 2-4 times larger than the US. So I think pointing to Japan when arguing that China's economy won't dwarf that of the USA doesn't really work. To avoid that happening, China has to do much worse than Japan, relatively speaking.

Re:China?

[the gnat]

America still has people literally shitting in the streets.

As a resident of the Bay Area, I can attest to this.

"Being first" mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

These articles are flamebait. A. I'm sure a joint effort was an option between Russia and even the US, but likely pushed aside due to politics... and we end up with the asterisk of Russia and the US doing this 40yrs ago in every article.

Just because you're 1st doesn't mean no one else can do it, should do it, mind that do it "better". Just ask Microsoft and Apple.

^this

[globaljustin]

Wake me up when one of these budding super powers no longer has people shitting in the streets

I was going to type a longer response with links where I mention things that the "fear China" crowd ignores like China has absolutely ruined their environment (have you seen the news reports on the smog?) & human population w/ the 'one child policy'...blah blah blah

parent says it more succinctly...

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

ood and other daily supplies is low in China. When you're rich, you have money to blow on status symbols, like Louis Vuitton bags and Bentleys. Plus, the concept of "saving for retirement" or setting aside money for a child's college funds are nonexistent in China. When you get to spend all the money you make, you'd be amazed what you can buy.

Mostly correct but this statement about savings in China is inaccurate. Chinese are actually quite good savers. China's primary problem is in elderly care and healthcare. Historically China's method of caring for the elderly required one child to become the primary care-person for their parents and the rest would send money to support, which is why having a large family was important; having more kids was akin to putting in 3% vs. 15% in your 401k. Several factors have turned this into a looming crisis for China. The health standard has increased which has doubled the life expectancy in China in the past 60 years or so. On top of that the one-child policy has made for smaller families. Ultimately you end up with a married couple in their 30's today who are both the product of the one-child policy having to feed 6 mouths; their own, the husband's parents, and the wife's parents; that's before adding a 7th mouth if they have a kid, and again they can only have one child. Also, quite often that one child leaves home to move to a city to work as the wages are 5-10x what they can get farming in their village, so no one is there to care for their parents, they just send money home. However it's extremely difficult to save money when 60-75% of your salary goes home to put food on the table for your parents.

It's an interesting but ultimately very serious problem China has to face in the next 2 decades. People in the US groan about the strain on Medicare that the baby boomers will put on our health system; what we have to face is nothing compared to China's elderly care dilemma. Their problem is 10X bigger than ours. A friend of mine works in the business development group of a company that operates retirement homes in the US, and he was surprised to find Chinese businessmen and government officials contacting him about bringing their operations and processes to China as the government in China has also recognized the need to do something about their elderly care problem.

And Americans are happily oblivious to it

[gelfling]

Not that we need another space race but it's tragic that Americans don't even notice that it's something we no longer do.

China may be doing today ...

[Anonymous Coward]

what the US did 40 years ago, but that's also what the US can no longer do at all

Oops

Re:China may be doing today ...

[Teancum]

what the US did 40 years ago, but that's also what the US can no longer do at all

Oops

Really? Like what are you referring to here?

Re:Medicare

[fiannaFailMan]

The US has spent all its money, and all the money it will ever get already. They voted on hand outs instead of improvements, and the hand outs have won.

Medicare is $100 Trillion in the hole, and I did not mistype that. Obamacare is a desperate attempt to hide the failure of Medicare without admitting to it, but that won't work. Until Medicare and hand outs are reigned in, the US will not do manned space exploration again on its own.

If you don't like these facts, stop voting in the liberals that tell you if only the rich pay a little more all will be good. The rich can't cover a $100 Trillion deficit.

Shut the fuck up.

Loose

[Anonymous Coward]

If we get any looser because of corporate greed, we'll be able to fit a watermelon up there...

Re:Loose

[pooh666]

Great, your notable contribution to this discussion will go down in history no doubt.

Wars over science

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. is more interested in wars of profit than saving lives through science.

powered chicken feet

[elsuperjefe]

when i was a kid i loved going to the san diego air & space museum and tasting the dried out ice cream powder. maybe someday soon i can go a similar museum in shanghai and try some powered chicken feet! seems like a win to me.

China: The Next Space Superpower

[danielpauldavis]

Only if the nation doesn't go bankrupt, first. They already are spending beyond their GDP. This moon shot was a PR thing, not a science experiment. The rest is also PR.

Re:China?

[HiThere]

I don't know about in this decade, but a few decades ago there were people in the US living essentially on a non-cash economy. I'll grant that they held possession of their own property...but I can't say they owned it, as I don't believe they ever paid taxes, so they probably couldn't hold a deed. I think they must have got by on, maybe, $500/year. They probably weren't on the census roles. They used someone else's mailbox when they needed to mail (I don't know if they ever did). They lived on garden and chickens. Many of them had a goat for milk. But they didn't consider themselves poor the way people in a city on welfare do.

I suspect that such people have now been forced off "their" land, but I don't know it. The land wasn't that good. It was too hilly to be good for mechanized farming. So maybe nobody wants it yet. Soon, though, they'll be forced out and into real poverty...where they're dependent on strangers for survival and a place to sleep.

Being poor isn't not having money, it's not being able to dependably get food and a place to sleep. If you don't need money, then lacking it doesn't make you poor.

Re:China?

[man_the_king]

The rich in China ...'ve gotten where they are by exploiting the weak

Not being offensive here, but... how do you think the rich in the US have gotten where they are? By sincere and honest hard work?

Re:China?

[cashman73]

Wake me up when one of these budding super powers no longer has people shitting in the streets.

You've apparently never been in a city after their team wins the Superbowl / NBA Finals / World Series / Stanley Cup / etc.

Repressive Regime using stolen technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice rocker boogie on that moon rover; looks like stolen technology from NASA / JPL. It is not optimal (tractor treads or big puffy tires might be better), but it is safer to steal existing technology than invent it ones self; sounds like the decision of a Soviet-style bureaucracy.

And how about opening up Mission Control to the free press? This speaks to a Soviet-level paranoia about the press.

Re:Repressive Regime using stolen technology

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean something like this: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/05/we_were_pirates_too Let me guess, its different because that was the US doing the stealing?

SpaceX vs Everyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

spacex is running circles around everyone.

China, Boeing, Lockheed, Europe, Russia.... They are all 5-10 years behind SpaceX in terms of reaching orbit in a cost effective strategy. If SpaceX can land and reuse a first stage in 2014-2015, then it will be clear to everyone who is WAY out in front.

Re:SpaceX vs Everyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Teancum, why did you switch to post anonymous?
You're not trying to shake your being Elon Musk's bitch persona are you?

What is happening to America

[Taco Cowboy]

Have you, America as a nation, let your hunger for war and hegemony override your once great ideals for the betterment of mankind?

Just where did you go wrong?

American Idol, NFL, NBA, etc.. When we decided it was more fun to watch others than to do it ourselves. Lazy fuckers.

Actually it's more like Halliburton, Chase Manhattan, Mosanto, Walmart, Eli Lily, Microsoft, and the rest of the commercial giants that have dug American in.

Instead of bravely go to where no one has gone before, the Americans have been slaving for whoever sign their paychecks for the past 40 odd years without any clue what their country is heading.

It's the American greediness that has killed the American spirit.

Re:China?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when one of these budding super powers no longer has people shitting in the streets. China and India are third world shit holes who waste money like this, when they should really be working to help their people.

Good point AC.
Although I'm torn between people shitting in the streets or high rates of murders and rapes in the streets as prevalent in America, as to which is less desirable.
Clearly your preference is for high rates of murders and rapes on your streets.