China is looking to land a man on the moon by 2020, Japan by 2025, and America by 2018. I guess depending on how you look at it, we'll have beaten the Chinese by 50 years or 2. Either way, it has been 33 (nearly 34) years since we last landed on the moon, and that's just too dang long. This is one of those ventures where the symbolic importance is disproportionate to the practical effects. After all, China won't be doing anything anyone hasn't done before. What's precisely important is they will be doing what only we (the US) has done before. The Chinese want recognition as a modern superpower, and evidently they're willing to pay the price to get it. We want to prove that we're still technologically superior. The question is if we're willing to pay the price to be technologically superior.
As far as long-term plans, I don't know what the implications are for sure, but given that we're seeing growth in the private space industry sector, it may be that whoever gets there first gets to stake a claim for commercial interests.
Friday, December 30, 2005
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2 comments:
Space should definitely not be on our high list of priorities when we have such a high deficit, etc.
I wouldn't say that. Exploitation of space resources could be a huge financial boon to our economy. I know it's far off in the future, but lunar mining or astroid mining could yield some serious profits. I also think that our country has the potential to have plenty of revenue for projects like this if we give up foolish wars and foolish tax cuts for the wealthy. We should re-prioritize those before cutting spending on space exploration.
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