SoylentNews

China and Russia Agree to Build an "International Lunar Science Station"

posted by martyb on Thursday March 11 2021, @03:09AM   
from the spreading-humanity's-wings dept.

takyon writes:

Russia turns away from NASA, says it will work with China on a Moon base

The heads of the Chinese and Russian space agencies signed an agreement on Tuesday to work together to build a "scientific" station on the Moon.

Under terms of a memorandum of understanding, the two countries will cooperate on creation of an "International Lunar Science Station" and plan to invite other countries to participate. The agreement was signed by Zhang Kejian, director of the China National Space Administration, and Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of Russia's space corporation, Roscosmos. The agreement was announced by Roscosmos.

Details about the project were fairly sparse, specifying only that the countries would work together to create research facilities on the surface and/or in orbit around the Moon. The goal was both to establish long-term, uncrewed facilities on the Moon and build up the capabilities for a human presence there.

[...] This latest Russia-China agreement suggests the enduring relationship that NASA and Roscosmos have enjoyed for decades may come to a breaking point when it comes to deep space exploration. And while the term "space race" is certainly a cliché, that may nonetheless be what NASA and its partners find themselves in with China and Russia when it comes to returning to the Moon.

Also at BBC.

---

Original Submission

• Re:Science Fiction Station? (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 11 2021, @09:17PM

  by khallow (3766) on Thursday March 11 2021, @09:17PM (#1122933) Journal

  Or because it doesn't exist.

  Meaning?

  The Truman Doctrine [wikipedia.org] was, and remains, the heart of US foreign policy. And it's also something every nation knows about, and must know about, since it is effectively an announcement to the entire world that the US was going to act as the ideology police. And that doctrine is at the heart of many of our most awful acts, including how something like Operation Northwoods could ever even come to be considered.

  Given how bad the USSR was, something like the Truman Doctrine was needed.

  Yet no other nation has made such a declaration. Even when the doctrine was announced, you might expect the USSR to have announced their own equal but opposite plan. But that is not what happened. Instead they offered a simple, relatively brief, and level-headed response.\ And indeed the Soviet response written now 74 years ago described *precisely* what would, and *did*, happen as a result of the Truman Doctrine.

  And formed the Eastern Bloc. Oh wait, that preceded the Truman Doctrine.

  I am 100% in line with realpolitik, but willing to engage in even the most abysmal Machiavellian acts to try to dominate the world is something primarily restricted to the US. That may be only because if another nation did half the things we have, we'd invade and destroy them. As the old saying goes, if you want to see the true character of a man - give him power. And similarly for a nation. I've no doubt other nations are completely capable of all we have done. But I do not believe most have actually *done* anything on an even remotely comparable level. I am obviously speaking of the nations you and I are talking about. Things like the Indonesian mass killings other stuff is obviously abysmal and dwarfs any of this, but that's an entirely different field.

  Good, start by pulling your head our of your ass. My take is that we have a number of nations doing worse than what the US is documented as doing. They just have better security. Observation bias is not a good basis for moral judgments.

  Parent