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China Plans To Reach Mars by 2020 and Eventually Build a Moon Base (techinsider.io)
Rebecca Harrington, writing for Tech Insider: China has plans to orbit the moon, land people on it, and eventually settle a moon colony. But that's just part of the nation's vision for space exploration: China intends to get a spacecraft to Mars by 2020. "Our long-term goal is to explore, land, and settle [on the moon]," Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's moon and Mars missions, told the BBC. "We want a manned lunar landing to stay for longer periods and establish a research base." Weiren didn't specify when the country plans to accomplish these goals, but he did say they will "check out" the far side of the moon before attempting to land astronauts there. This mission already has concrete plans. He also said China wants to reach Mars by 2020, and implied that the country has finally settled on a mission to send a rover to the Red Planet. "We will orbit Mars, land and deploy a rover -- all in one mission," Weiren told the BBC.
They have't started shit. So far, they're just TALKING shit.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Seriously, the causal racism on Slashdot these days is getting way out of hand and really really old (as you probably are)
Sadly, the loss of life we have suffered did not used to terrify us, and I don't think it terrifies most people in the USA today either. It's those people who are always looking for some sort of outrage or some sort of event to make themselves seem important or to grab a headline. And then the damage control starts and the politicians run away so that they don't end up on the Evening News.
I don't think America as a nation has run away from a space program or space exploration, but I do think our *government* considers it either a joke or a pork barrel. And that is why I hope commercial exploration keeps moving forward.
If they succeed, which I think they are quite capable of, China will prove that we are held back less by the difficulty of the task of the Moon, or a Moon base, or going to Mars, but rather by the difficulty of getting our politicians to pull their heads out of their asses to commit to it.
Honestly, it's my personal opinion that the US needs someone else to beat us to a major milestone in space. We've fallen into a bit of a winners dilemma. We've beaten everyone else, why do we need to keep trying? I think if China beats the US to Mars, you'll see the political will materialize around the space program again.