Comment by PassingClouds

Comment by PassingClouds 7 hours ago

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It is interesting to see who will get there first. China seems to be right on target with their schedule, but the US is being more ambitious, this also looks a bit more fragile on execution.

I long suspect Blue Origin will be the first US based to touch down as Starship is just too complicated to get it done in the next 2-3 years, but that doesnt mean even the 2028 landing is assured.

Space exploration had been fairly low key for decades but the last decade has been something to see.

chihuahua 7 hours ago

Maybe my date calculations are off, but I think the people that landed on the moon on July 20, 1969 got there first. According to my calculations, if China lands people on the moon in 2030, that will be approximately 61 years later. The people that got there 61 years earlier can be reasonably said to have gotten there first.

Oddly enough, the same country also accomplished the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth landing on the moon by humans. So if all goes well, China can be extremely triumphant with their highly anticipated seventh place trophy.

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  • kube-system 6 hours ago

    Neither the current space race nor the cold-war era space race have anything to do with planting a flag in a history book. They are geopolitical dick measuring contests of contemporary power.

    The current question isn't "is it possible?", it is "who can pull it off today?"

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  • nancyminusone 5 hours ago

    The people from 61 years ago are either extremely old or dead. Of the other three-quarters of the world population born after December 19, 1972, none have made it there; it will be a first for them.

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  • anigbrowl 3 hours ago

    Kinda deliberately missing the point there, but go off.

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  • XorNot 6 hours ago

    And as we all know, successful enterprises are always the ones which do something once and then never again for 61 years. /S

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    • chihuahua 6 hours ago

      They did it 5 more times. Are the goalposts moving so that you have to do something 7 times before it counts?

      They stopped doing more moon missions in the 70s because people lost interest very quickly and nobody cared anymore.

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      • XorNot 5 hours ago

        No I'm poking fun at the defensive reflex of Americans to get very upset at the notion anyone else will go to the moon. Because in context, who will get their first is the relevant question again because no one has the capability anymore.

        It was perfectly clear in context that the OP was talking about the new space race where the question is which modern superpower will get there first. It's just hilarious that so many Americans immediately begin talking about how really they got their truly first, in an effort to pretend they couldn't understand and change the question to one which doesn't hurt their ego.

        The America which landed on the moon in the 1960s is dead and buried. And the America which said it's going to land on the moon again hasn't done it yet and it's not clear that it can.

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  • throwui 6 hours ago

    One was coloniser and another one was a colony. That's why 61y gap

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    • JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago

      > One was coloniser and another one was a colony

      This is an America-centric geopolitical model with zero predictive power.

      China annexed Tibet in 1951 [1]. Xinjiang has been fighting colonization from the Qings, Soviets, Nationalists and PRC for over a century.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_China

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      • chihuahua 6 hours ago

        I think GP was referring to the fact that the United States is made up of former colonies of Great Britain, but that was such a long time ago, I don't see how it matters for the moon landing.

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      • RobotToaster 5 hours ago

        It was part of China since 1720, it briefly declared independence in 1913 but that was recognised by no foreign nation [0]

        [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet

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        • JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago

          Correct. Conquered or colonized in 1720 [1]. A century before the British colonized China with almost the same model (small garrison, literal Mandarin in charge). Put another way, the British controlled Hong Kong for longer than China has Tibet.

          The coloniser-colonised model works in the New World. It’s silly outside it as a general model. (And it misfires completely when comparing America and China. Both were colonies. Both have colonized and hegemonised.)

          [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_expedition_to_Tibet_(1...

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    • chihuahua 6 hours ago

      Indeed, the 13 colonies that formed the United States in 1776 were a colony of Great Britain up to that point, but what does that have to do with the moon landing? In the 1960s, neither country was a colony of any other country.

      But regardless, I will congratulate China wholeheartedly on its 7th place, if and when that happens.

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baxtr 6 hours ago

Are you talking about Mars? Moon happened a while back.

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  • tartoran 6 hours ago

    Mars is Elon Musk fantasy. Manned missions to Mars are extremely dangerous and pointless at this time.

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    • raincole 3 hours ago

      Guess what, manned missions to Moons are extremely pointless at this time too.

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      • tartoran an hour ago

        I am sure about that, the Chinese want to land men on the moon so they feel they caught up with the US and Russia, and as pointless as it is it has some kind effect on their national pride. It does involve some risks but compared to landing people on Mars the risks pale in comparison.

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georgeburdell 6 hours ago

Watch China’s announcements year to year and you’ll see their plans do change. Long March 9 has gone through enough design iterations that I wouldn’t even call it the same rocket anymore

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