[JurijD]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
The Chinese would have a much larger undertaking to get to the moon than the US would to get back. The Chinese have largely been using old Soviet space rockets and technology. The Soviet Lunar rocket for manned flight never worked. So they are starting from scratch there.

Next, the Chinese moon missions are not manned. That is a rumor. The Chinese plan to land an automated probe on the moon by 2010 and have it return with rock samples. They have themselves denied any plans of landing a man there.

Lets not all get so excited we get ahead of ourselves. I would have to predict that the US will return to the moon before anyone else goes. The US has been there before. The US has the experience to draw on that no one else does.

In general:
Hmm, I still say the EU (ESA) the Japaneese and the Russians (RKA) should get together for a cup of tea and some cookies With the Russians still having most of the know-how in rocet engineering (heck even the americans are buying 30 year old N1 engines from them to put into new titans) and some monetary injections from the EU and Japan these theree should be able to put together something worth while to challenge China and the US. The problem is not money and know-how however... today its simply not COOL to go to space anymore, at least not to the general public and the politicians just don't see how they will justify the HUGE sums of money that would be needed for a new Moon manned program.

About China:
They deny it? Well good that means they are hard at work on it already. As far I remember the Russians and the Americans denied a big part of their programs too until it was time to show them off... say a few months before launch. (Ok, J.F.K did brag about going to the moon... but that was ages ago )

About the US going back to the Moon:
I don't think It'll happen. NASA has no money, no capable rockets and by now the old know-hows are enjoying some R&R in Florida Building a 30 year old rocket again from scratch isn't as easy as it sounds, even if you did it once before. Ok the US has an advantage over China and any other competitors but not a very big one. I say China could catch up in 2, 3 years if they wanted to. I eman if the US was able to do it in less than 9 years in the 1960s', with todays technology I don't think China would need half that time (especially if the russians give thema hand or two... or three)

About the space program in general:
I think these guys got it all wrong. The problem is that there is no long term plan involved. What we are doing now is something similar to this: imagine you were playing a game of SE IV and you only had one small planet under your control. Then instead of colonizing your home system and spreading out you would start not by builing colony ships and building new colonies but by constructing scouts and sending them out to "visit" other solar systems. (of course you'd only be able to build 1 every year because you'd have no income-technology).

I hope to god someone finds some kind of bacteria on Mars, then people will get interested in space once more and the space angencies will have 20 years time to spend spend spend heheh

[ December 11, 2003, 11:15: Message edited by: JurijD ]