This article claims a 66% chance of success in mid-2024. However, with the Starship flight 7, 8, and 9 failure since then, it is probably much lower.
The US is now at risk of losing to China in the race to send people back to the Moon’s surface
byu/KingoftheHillSphere inspace
28 Comments
They have already lost. Starship is not the answer.
is there any real need to send humans to the moon?
we already achieved the symbolic value of doing it once.
why not just send robots and focus more on bigger milestones like mars?
p.s. for people downvoting, that was an actual sincere question. thank you to those who responded with actual reasons why sending humans back to the moon would be of practical benefit e.g. moon settlement / stepping stone to mars.
Yeah that’s a dead horse racing. USA can’t agree on the most basic common sense things, much less a lunar program.
Musk made sure of that, he’s already set for Mars. Trump has already started shutting down the moon effort.
The US hasn’t been a serious country with rational national goals or priorities for decades
Oh, we are going to lose lots of things to China. Better get used to it.
uhh, didn’t the US beat China to the moon by more than half a century?
Sure, there’s a risk, but China hasn’t even launched a heavy lift rocket yet. LM10 (the full variant, not 10A) is still a year from launch, the full-fat variant won’t launch until 2027.
Oh! Are we actually trying to go to the moon? I assumed the SLS program was just an elaborate jobs scheme for Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
July 20, 1969 was the day to win the race to the moon. November 19, 1969 was the date for sending people back to the moon. China lost both by 50+ years.
Been there done that.
Let’s send someone to mars if we want a real challenge.
I think there are some serious mental gymnastics required here to frame US as losers in a race they’ve won 50 years ago.
Half of the United States population appears to be drug and alcohol addled and barely surviving. I think we’ll be ok if China gets to the moon 60-70 years after we got there.
So doom and gloom from some people. I hope China/Russia aren’t bluffing. It would be cool to see some more human advancement, like the mentioned nuclear powered robot base, even if this fucking country can’t fund someone to lightbulb. It might spark even more advancement/funding by US given how much of an ego the current admin has.
Better yet, we could send thousands of robots & extraplanetary satellites which could accomplish hundreds of times more useful science than risking lives just to burn human bodies to shreds with the guaranteed radioactivity & zero-gravity bone loss.
Alive? Just sayin’. It’s cool if you can bring ’em home alive too. Just sayin’.
If the US already went to the moon, what sort of race is this?
Just pull a page out of Jerry Seinfeld’s playbook: “The race is off. Why? Because I choose not to moon!”
> The US is now at risk of losing to China in the race to send people back to the Moon’s surface
Only one country is going **back** to the Moon.
The other is attempting to do it for the *first time*.
Prediction: China will go to the moon, and Elon’s privatized Space X will not go to Mars in a hundred years
I feel inspired by the ignorance of people here, I wish I had that ability.
Wouldn’t be the first time we lost the space race to a socialist country 🚀
Traveling to space isn’t a line you cross. It’s an ongoing skill that we need to keep exercising otherwise we will loose the ability to do it.
Back in the 60’s, space travel was inherently much more dangerous than the public would allow today (how many near misses / deaths were involved with the Apollo program?). Missions would have to be much safer and NASA is much more risk averse.
Also any lunar efforts today are being presented as more sustainable, so continuing to go to the moon to stay. Which is much more complex.
At risk? lol.
Maybe some Americans still believe it but they aren’t the world’s top player in space anymore.
China will beat Americans back to the moon. It’s not even a question. They’ve succeeded in every one of their objectives in space for over 15 years now. They have clear plans and are on track to go to the moon. They’re even due to send up a robot soon that will test 3D printing bricks using lunar regolith.
Meanwhile Americas a crumbling shithole speedrunning fascism being led by the single dumbest human to ever grace the human race. Who just cut NASA’s budget. A NASA that has a frankly stupid mission plan with Artemis, no clear funding beyond Artemis 3, which will be delayed well past 2030.
Nah, I look forward to watching a HD moon landing in a few years with my kids. Sure we will need subtitles but at least it will happen.
The current administration seems to be far more interested in Mars. But we all know it’s not going to happen this decade.
Well, yeah, when you gut NASA’s funding by 80% then this sort of thing is gonna happen.
Sorry, but with Trump in office and with Elon having so much influence with him, we have already lost the race to go to the moon. China is going to eat our lunch and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. NASA as well as America’s Science and Technology budgets have been gutted in favor of giving Elon all of our money.
I don’t care. Fuck spending tax dollars to go to the dumbass moon.