The Chinese in Space

With the success of their mission to the moon, there is no doubt that the Chinese are becoming the dominant force among the world's space faring nations.

The two former greats, America and Russia appear to be stuck, NASA appears to be firmly going down the road of robotic missions, the two shuttle disasters seems to have given the American space programme, and its directors, cold feet when it comes to sending humans further into space, they speak of a manned mission to Mars, but I think I will have a long white beard before that happens.

The Russian space programme has come down to a launch status, sending satellites into orbit and shuttling men and supplies to the space station.

I don't think that it is difficult to predict that the next nation to land a man on the moon will be the Chinese, and I believe that the first person on Mars will also be Chinese. The Chinese have the same spirit of adventure that NASA and the USSR had in the 60's and 70's, they are determined and unlike the other countries, they are not confined by budgetary committees telling them to slash costs, they have the backing of the Chinese state and all its resources.

Okay, it will be interesting to see what will happen if they experience a disaster like the shuttle, somehow, I don't think that will slow them down, it made the Americans more determined when they experienced deaths to crews in the 60's.

We have had names like Gagarin, Tereshkova and Armstrong, the next will be a Chan or a Liew or a Huang.

Paul

So, let's say they do land a person on the moon and mars, what then?
It could be argued that the approach of the US to encourage private enterprise to participate is the best route in the long term.

well, the Americans went to the Moon to beat the Russians, which in the long run has proven to be a disaster as far as lunar surface missions have been concerned. You go for the wrong reason, you're not going to stay there.
The Chinese have learned from this, they have a long term plan, to explore the mineral surface content in detail with a view to eventually building a lunar base, anyone else notice how similar the decent stage was to the apollo era decent stage and they have more lunar rovers planned in the not too distant future. They're not going to send people to the Moon until they need to.
This program is buying the Chinese huge prestige, the communist machine will give them a blank cheque book to keep it going.
Forget that the next man on the moon will be Chinese, the first habitat on the Moon will be Chinese and unlike a man on Mars, a lunar base is something we could see it the next few decades.