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Who will be the first to put a human on the Moon in this century? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 63 comments | Search Discussion
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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:41PM (2 children)

    by RamiK (1813) on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:41PM (#851879)

    That includes financial risks.

    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)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday June 08 2019, @01:26AM (#852930) Homepage

    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

      by RamiK (1813) on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:21AM (#853060)

      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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