> The fact that this hasn’t been politicized in the US (a la the 60s) is rather telling.
Two days ago, I posted the following news thread to r/Nasa:
* [*China lands on moon's far side in historic sample-retrieval mission [2024-06-02. Tangentially Artemis-relevant]*](https://old.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/1d6imhu/china_lands_on_moons_far_side_in_historic/)
It was of course removed as "not relevant to Nasa". I replied to explain why strong competition *is* relevant to Nasa. I've not heard from them since.
As SpaceX's free cashflow progressively becomes comparable to Nasa's budget, you can see what could happen to the US national space program. And nobody's got it that a financially autonomous NewSpace sector could (individually and collectively) break away from the USA much as "British America" broke away from Britain.
U S leadership knows Americans won't fund or support anything that doesn't paint them as rising from an underdog position. It's why NASA has appeared so stagnant since competition with the Soviets dried up, why SpaceX rallied so much support vs oldspace, and why Artemis and CLPS magically found the money and survived administration handover after China beat or matched all the old Soviet milestones.
I still remember when Newt Gingrich advocated for a lunar outpost in 2012, back when China was still early days and Shuttle was a recent retiree and he got laughed off the campaign trail.
> It's why NASA has appeared so stagnant since competition with the Soviets dried up
A simple alternative explanation is that NASA *is* stagnant. It's not intentional.
There may have been a level of political pressure on NASA in that past that made NASA leadership push forward and cut through bullshit (and also occasionally made them take stupid risks like Challenger). In the absence of that top-down pressure to perform, NASA has mired itself in bureaucratic mess.
I would argue that Artemis isn't funded at all. NASA just got lucky that SpaceX and BO are willing to put up 66% of the bill for them. Instead, NASA is busy trying to play Europe against Japan for favors by giving Japan the first astronaut on the moon over Europe.
If Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos ever make peace and start charging NASA what it actually costs to do space, then we'll see for real whether NASA wants to beat China or not.
Take a look at the Chinese space station. They got bloody wifi up there with smartphones connected to different on-board components like a roomba.
They haven’t caught up, they are ahead now.
So they’ve put people on the moon? They have a 6,000 satellite global internet constellation? They have reusable rockets? Take a Xanax and chill, they’re not ahead.
Artemis III would have to be delayed another three years. SLS and Orion are ready. The spacesuits seem on schedule. Starship is progressing quickly. Maybe it'll be delayed a year or two, but they'll still beat China.
China's moon rocket is still just a powerpoint rocket. Same with their suits, lander, crewed module, etc. Nothing has been built, let alone tested. They do claim to have developed some of the hardware, but nothing that can be confirmed as far as I can tell.
The Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou manned spacecraft, the Lanyue Moon lunar lander, and the moon landing suit have entered the prototype phase stage.
[There is not much to say about the engines, which are all improved versions of the existing mature engines. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_10)1-stage engine YF-100K has reached 4,400 seconds of cumulative testing on a single engine, 2-stage engine YF-100M has already passed the 105% high working condition and high mixing ratio test, and 3-stage engine YF-75E has exceeded 10,000 seconds of cumulative testing.
On February 24, 2024, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that the main vehicles, including the Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou manned spacecraft, the Lanyue Landing Vehicle and the Moon Landing Suit, had completed the development of the programmatic phase and had entered into the full-scale development prototype phase.
The follow-up is organized in the following stages:
prototype phase (assembly of components into an engineering prototype for ground testing and completion of related experiments, 2024-2026).
flight model phase (construction of a full-scale prototype ready for flight testing and completion of flight experiments, 2027)
Unmanned flight test (complete system-wide unmanned lunar landing experiment, 2028-2029)
Manned lunar flight and landing (2030)
Long March 10 5-meter diameter fuel tanks
https://preview.redd.it/cfbtkps1lv4d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=628fb64e7d33e823cae35e878dd131ed19426f1d
> SLS and Orion are ready.
That's optimistic. Wait what that "independent" commission will say about the Orion heat shield. If things go reasonably, they should advise development of a new heat shield from the ground up. Which will take at least 2 years. Then do a proof test. In that case Artemis 3 will happen NET 2028. Should still be earlier than China, but barely.
China is far ahead of India. India hasn't even sent anyone to orbit yet and China has a space station functioning already. But yeah if Taiwan happens then it'll be the US
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l72ljm4 "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[CLPS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l72jzb2 "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)|
|[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l79bcbm "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l79bcbm "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
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Race
FR I feel like they're winning too
The fact that this hasn’t been politicized in the US (a la the 60s) is rather telling.
> The fact that this hasn’t been politicized in the US (a la the 60s) is rather telling. Two days ago, I posted the following news thread to r/Nasa: * [*China lands on moon's far side in historic sample-retrieval mission [2024-06-02. Tangentially Artemis-relevant]*](https://old.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/1d6imhu/china_lands_on_moons_far_side_in_historic/) It was of course removed as "not relevant to Nasa". I replied to explain why strong competition *is* relevant to Nasa. I've not heard from them since. As SpaceX's free cashflow progressively becomes comparable to Nasa's budget, you can see what could happen to the US national space program. And nobody's got it that a financially autonomous NewSpace sector could (individually and collectively) break away from the USA much as "British America" broke away from Britain.
U S leadership knows Americans won't fund or support anything that doesn't paint them as rising from an underdog position. It's why NASA has appeared so stagnant since competition with the Soviets dried up, why SpaceX rallied so much support vs oldspace, and why Artemis and CLPS magically found the money and survived administration handover after China beat or matched all the old Soviet milestones. I still remember when Newt Gingrich advocated for a lunar outpost in 2012, back when China was still early days and Shuttle was a recent retiree and he got laughed off the campaign trail.
> It's why NASA has appeared so stagnant since competition with the Soviets dried up A simple alternative explanation is that NASA *is* stagnant. It's not intentional. There may have been a level of political pressure on NASA in that past that made NASA leadership push forward and cut through bullshit (and also occasionally made them take stupid risks like Challenger). In the absence of that top-down pressure to perform, NASA has mired itself in bureaucratic mess.
I would argue that Artemis isn't funded at all. NASA just got lucky that SpaceX and BO are willing to put up 66% of the bill for them. Instead, NASA is busy trying to play Europe against Japan for favors by giving Japan the first astronaut on the moon over Europe. If Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos ever make peace and start charging NASA what it actually costs to do space, then we'll see for real whether NASA wants to beat China or not.
So they’ve caught up to 1960’s America? Damn, that’s crazy. Guess I’ll start learning Mandarin…
*Bladerunner has entered the chat*
Take a look at the Chinese space station. They got bloody wifi up there with smartphones connected to different on-board components like a roomba. They haven’t caught up, they are ahead now.
So they’ve put people on the moon? They have a 6,000 satellite global internet constellation? They have reusable rockets? Take a Xanax and chill, they’re not ahead.
...have you heard of the ISS?
Based on what metric?
Wars
Next country to put a person on moon will be China.
Artemis III would have to be delayed another three years. SLS and Orion are ready. The spacesuits seem on schedule. Starship is progressing quickly. Maybe it'll be delayed a year or two, but they'll still beat China. China's moon rocket is still just a powerpoint rocket. Same with their suits, lander, crewed module, etc. Nothing has been built, let alone tested. They do claim to have developed some of the hardware, but nothing that can be confirmed as far as I can tell.
The Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou manned spacecraft, the Lanyue Moon lunar lander, and the moon landing suit have entered the prototype phase stage.
Proof of hardware?
[There is not much to say about the engines, which are all improved versions of the existing mature engines. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_10)1-stage engine YF-100K has reached 4,400 seconds of cumulative testing on a single engine, 2-stage engine YF-100M has already passed the 105% high working condition and high mixing ratio test, and 3-stage engine YF-75E has exceeded 10,000 seconds of cumulative testing. On February 24, 2024, the China Manned Space Engineering Office announced that the main vehicles, including the Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou manned spacecraft, the Lanyue Landing Vehicle and the Moon Landing Suit, had completed the development of the programmatic phase and had entered into the full-scale development prototype phase. The follow-up is organized in the following stages: prototype phase (assembly of components into an engineering prototype for ground testing and completion of related experiments, 2024-2026). flight model phase (construction of a full-scale prototype ready for flight testing and completion of flight experiments, 2027) Unmanned flight test (complete system-wide unmanned lunar landing experiment, 2028-2029) Manned lunar flight and landing (2030)
Well I hope what they're claiming is true. Competition is great and having two separate lunar colonies by 2030 would be incredible.
Long March 10 5-meter diameter fuel tanks https://preview.redd.it/cfbtkps1lv4d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=628fb64e7d33e823cae35e878dd131ed19426f1d
> SLS and Orion are ready. That's optimistic. Wait what that "independent" commission will say about the Orion heat shield. If things go reasonably, they should advise development of a new heat shield from the ground up. Which will take at least 2 years. Then do a proof test. In that case Artemis 3 will happen NET 2028. Should still be earlier than China, but barely.
My money is on India. China will quagmire down on Taiwan.
China is far ahead of India. India hasn't even sent anyone to orbit yet and China has a space station functioning already. But yeah if Taiwan happens then it'll be the US
China lives in fear of India.
...
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l72ljm4 "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CLPS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l72jzb2 "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)| |[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l79bcbm "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d7s9xs/stub/l79bcbm "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(4 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d8rny8)^( has 12 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12843 for this sub, first seen 5th Jun 2024, 03:31]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Silly humans