Showing posts with label national preoccupation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national preoccupation. Show all posts

Friday, December 4, 2020

Will China Win the Race to Mars?

China Poised to Bring Home Moon Samples

With the impending success of a Lunar sample-return mission, it's worth asking: Does China now lead in the space race? 

In particular, how much more difficult than a Lunar sample-return mission is a Mars sample-return mission? Not much I would guess. So what's to stop China from bringing home samples of Martian soil, possibly with microbial life included, before anyone else? Nothing except a geriatric US space agency that lacks a sharp focus on the conquest of space, and couple of American billionaires. True, Musk and Bezos are extremely rich, but can they compete with the Government of China in a race that depends on the availability of a large amounts of brilliant engineering talent and unrestrained expenditure. 

What's more, being overtaken in the space race by a Third World country that graduates ten times as many engineers as the US is somethings that intelligent Americans must expect, particularly at a time when white privilege, transgenderism, and shuttering the economy to protect an obesity-prone population habituated to the toxic products of the American fast-food and food-processing industries from the consequences of a novel corona (i.e., common cold type) virus have become leading national preoccupations. 

Yes, it looks like an end to the technological supremacy of the American Empire and a time for the Communists again to terrorize the world. 

Related: 

ZH: China's New Supercomputer "10 Billion Times Faster" Than Google's