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Who will be the first to put a human on the Moon in this century?
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Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04 2019, @09:09PM (11 children)
They will spend ridiculous amounts of money for national prestige. Out of the choices given, they are the only dictatorship. Their "congress" has no power to tell the government that it is a waste of money.
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday June 04 2019, @10:46PM
Neither does our own. They mandated the waste and have no interest in removing it.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 05 2019, @02:55PM (5 children)
I voted China. I think they have the most determination to put people there. They certainly have the determination to embarrass the US and it's allies. Everybody else seems to want to go to the moon, but they aren't willing to take the risks associated with it. That includes financial risks. Those who are willing to take some risk, sometimes seem too cautious. China only cares that they aren't terribly embarrassed with a failure. They'll work hard to beat all the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:41PM (2 children)
What risk? There's nothing valuable up there worth rushing for. It's a sure loss.
More importantly, China doesn't even have plans to land until the 2030s while the US and Russia already have fully funded programs with early-mid 2020s launch dates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#Crewed [wikipedia.org]
China will get there 3rd, 4th or even 5th depending on Japan's and the EU's economy.
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(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 08 2019, @01:26AM (1 child)
I think that the EU will be next -- They have plenty of new monkies to send into space.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:21AM
The EU as a whole doesn't have a strong industrial aerospace lobby. Even in Germany and France getting a budget for maintaining the satellite launch platforms is a struggle and their last moon program was scraped in 2012. There's no way they can get it through the union.
If you put aside the corporate corruption, the key reason to go to the moon is to give STEMs busywork during the recession to prevent a decline in technological independence. Throw in some class-struggle and the fear of a left-leaning Academia and you'd start seeing why the US would want to go to the moon. But, while much of this applies to Russia, India and even China, it means little to the EU.
The EU's "moon shot" is going to be focused on reclaiming and advancing information technologies independence, super-computing facilities and self driving cars. They want industrial robots. They want silicon patents. They want navigation software databases. They're far more worried about Google than Huawei since they can replace Huawei with some Indian or Korean manufacturer but can't say the same about Google. And while they can't agree on much, they all look at your "old employer"'s Spot Mini with the same thoughts in mind and fears at heart. So that's where they'll aim.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:29PM (1 child)
Are you aware that the US already had some people talk on the moon some years back?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 14 2019, @01:07AM
Americans talk everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2019, @09:03AM (2 children)
Russia is a dictatorship in sheep's clothing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 19 2019, @09:46AM (1 child)
Russia is a flailing alcoholic. Roscosmos can't do anything new right. Luckily, they have Soyuz launch contracts, but that won't be around for long.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2019, @10:37AM
Which doesn't negate the stated sentence.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday June 21 2019, @10:58PM
I voted China, but just to play devil's advocate let's look at what might hold them back. First, they might care more about terrestrial military might. They're working on aircraft carriers to compete with the USA, and they're showing imperialist action on the seas. Imperialism is expensive. Second, they rely on trade to drive their economic engine and Trump is working to dismantle that trade. Third, "it's been done". They might prefer to push for Mars instead. Fourth, they might just do some analysis and decide that while a "prestige" shot is possible, they can't justify an ongoing presence at this time. They can be very practical as evidenced by their "communism" that is about as far from communism as you can get.
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