[Baron Munchausen]

You know, there was a lot of exploration activity by the Chinese in the 15th century. They sailed to India and Africa, and there are some controversial claims that they reached the Americas from the west before Columbus found them from the east. But a new Emperor came to power and had a fit of superstition, so he shut down the expeditions and China went back to its more traditional isolationism. Soon after these strange, pale foreigners began to appear in their primitive sailing ships. Before long those foreigners were everywhere trading and staking claims. From the early 16th century it was only downhill for China.

Now it looks like we've got a deja vu on our hands. The US and Russia started the space age. But Russia has fallen on hard times and can't afford to maintain a serious space program anymore, and the US just plain isn't interested. Only Europe and Japan also have the resources to do any serious space exploration but they are also barely interested. Will this era be written up in the history books as the 'lap' by the formerly 'lapped' runner? Will China now go forward into serious space exploration and leave the so-called 'advanced' west behind?