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Let China go ahead and take Mars. The US has spent billions over the years landing on the moon, circling Earth and other cosmic misadventures with no real benefit. Mars what’s the point?
I’m not sure how the Chinese are going to take Mars, when they’ve got a long way to go to catch up to the US, who by the way has another lander incoming in a few days.
Yeah it's pointless since Mars isn't a diamond planet (such planets exist...according to some...) yet if China come up with say usage of the Casimir effect beyond just "pressure" then we're talking - in fact then any country becomes superpower.
Japan did something more useful when they came up with Icarus btw, the first lightsail in practice.
Let China go ahead and take Mars. The US has spent billions over the years landing on the moon, circling Earth and other cosmic misadventures with no real benefit. Mars what’s the point?
mining
resources
colonization - need a back up incase we nuke ourselves
China is now only planning for a permanent space station, for 2022. So that puts them about two decades behind the joint soviet/US space station ISS. So they have lots of ground to catch up on. A trip to Mars for China is at least two more decades away, maybe shortened depending on how much technology they can steal from the west (as is there habit).
As for the US, yeah I think it's fair to say that with this new administration space exploration will slow down dramatically if even exist at all, sadly. So we will give China those two decades. Sadly because alot of our modern technology we use today is attributed to the space race. It will give China that high tech advantage.
The bad thing? China isn't interested in science, mankind, exploration for the sake of knowledge. They don't care about an article in "National Geographic". They will be there to exploit - extracting minerals, gasses, whatever they can use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by msgsing
Let China go ahead and take Mars. The US has spent billions over the years landing on the moon, circling Earth and other cosmic misadventures with no real benefit. Mars what’s the point?
colonization - need a back up incase we nuke ourselves
So Mars is millions of miles from Earth. Does either the US or China have the financial or technological resources to mine or colonize a distant planet. And then there are those pesky problems on Mother Earth like pandemics, world hunger and climate change that must be addressed.
China is now only planning for a permanent space station, for 2022. So that puts them about two decades behind the joint soviet/US space station ISS. So they have lots of ground to catch up on. A trip to Mars for China is at least two more decades away, maybe shortened depending on how much technology they can steal from the west (as is there habit).
As for the US, yeah I think it's fair to say that with this new administration space exploration will slow down dramatically if even exist at all, sadly. So we will give China those two decades. Sadly because alot of our modern technology we use today is attributed to the space race. It will give China that high tech advantage.
The bad thing? China isn't interested in science, mankind, exploration for the sake of knowledge. They don't care about an article in "National Geographic". They will be there to exploit - extracting minerals, gasses, whatever they can use.
I should have said we have derived some benefits from space exploration by diverting resources away from problems on our own planet. It isn’t clear to me that the American public would abide any decision by the federal government to go as far as manned exploration of Mars. As far as China goes public opinion doesn’t matter.
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