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Chinese, European Space Agencies In Talks To Build a Moon Base (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the takes-two-to-tango dept.

ESA's Pal Hvistendahl has confirmed via Bloomberg that Chinese and European space agencies are talking with one another about plans to build a base on the moon. The discussions "involve working together to build a human-occupied 'moon village' from which both agencies can potentially launch Mars missions, conduct research, and possibly explore commercial mining and tourism projects," reports TechCrunch. From the report: China's upcoming projects in space include a mission to collect samples from the moon via an uncrewed craft by the end of this year, and to also launch an exploratory mission to the far side of the moon next year, with the similar aim of returning samples for study. The ESA's collaboration with China thus far include participating in the study of those returned samples, and potentially sending a European astronaut to the Chinese space station (which is currently unoccupied) at some future date.

3 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Tough talk, but not unwarranted. by greygoblin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is true. The US has burned some bridges with it's foreign policy regarding China. But, before we lament what that means for future opportunities, it's worth recalling why; from the outright theft of IP, to humanitarian concerns regarding political prisoners, religious persecution, Tibet, freedom of navigation in the Global Commons that is the South China Sea, and including their tolerance for the North Korean situation. China may become a player in space exploration, that's unavoidable at this point, but that doesn't mean the US should regret the hard lines it's taken over the years.

    1. Re:Tough talk, but not unwarranted. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure, but how about some whataboutism for you?
      US courts doesn't give a flying fuck about foreign IP so there is outright theft of IP going that way too.
      The US tortures political prisoners too.
      Religious persecution is being ramped up in the US at the moment with Trumps hate against Muslims.
      It is also not very hard to find plenty of countries both in South America and in the Middle East where the US have acted pretty bad.

      Now of course this is all just the Government that did it. If you look at average Joe in either country they are all pretty much the same.
      What sets the Chinese government aside is that while they aren't exactly democratic and use very strong handed methods to prevent political opposition, unlike other non-democratic countries, they appear to want to make things better for their people.
      The same can't be said for the current US government.

  2. Re:China is now the world leader by yodleboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    i'm not impressed with Trump, but come on. In less than 100 days he's responsible for NASA not having a vision or funding and not doing manned missions outside of LEO since Apollo? Other countries have goals in space, they've come to the realization that meeting those goals no longer HAS to involve NASA expertise. That's not a situation of Trump's making. I think you can find plenty to pin on him, but not this.