International effort for lunar-Mars mission

As President Bush outlined in his speech, he wants to involve other nations
on the lunar-Mars exploration endeavor. So who do you guys think will be
involved. I'm pretty sure Europe will want to join or take part in any
manned moon landing.

China will also want to team up is my guess, but it's a wildcard since
they're potential adversaries of the U.S. (of the military kind). China will
welcome the chance to team up with the more advanced Western nations and
maybe to gain some experience and knowledge on how to do such things. I'm
not sure the American public will appreciate their scientists' knowledge be
given away which had been amassed at great expense during the Apollo era.
The Chinese are able to do and make anything at least 90% cheaper and so
they can go much farther on a similar budget,*if* they knew how to (which
they most certainly don't at this time).

Russia is experienced but lacking cash so it's not sure how this will play
out. Most probably the Russians will want to get involved in a manned moon
landing, so they too can share in the glory (doing it by themselves would be
beyond their monetary capacity at this time). The Russians have the benefit
of being intellectually strong and pragmatic (their space program is
essentially running on fumes).

So my guess: Europe will most certainly take part, and Russia likely. China
is a wildcard.

What do you guys think?

Dr. O wrote:


So my guess: Europe will most certainly take part, and Russia likely.
China is a wildcard.

I dont think ESA is very mutch intrested in a manned program at this point.
They want a useful station, and they value from the money invested in the
station. I think ESA sees this as a distraction at the current time.

Russia has no financial possibility to join into something of that
magnitude, so without hard cash they'll stick where they are for the time
beeing. Besides, they are propably the best in the world on Space Stations
in terms of preformance. I think they'll stick to their domene for the next
decade.

Japan has real rocket science problems as well as financial problems. They
can't manage two HTV's a year it seems. Kibo is a wonderful asset and I
figure that is a priority.

China has no intrest in giving up it's critical path to human spaceflight
once they've come this far (as ESA has done). They'll probably join ISS
once USA has started looking another way. If they aim for the moon nobody
should imagine that the technology is advanced. 3 body problems can be
solved by my Commodore 64. Large rockets are big small rockets, and if
there not is crew on them they'll not need to "man rate" them. Docking
technology seems to be they're imidiate goal anyway.

If china wants the moon, they'll just need to use some more cash. I just
don't see them throwing cash on anything that can be made cheap if they use
sufficient time (see thei're human spaceflight budget).

What do you guys think?

Its an Election Year in USA, and NASA is allowed to say "Mars" and "Men" in
the same sentence now.

Sincerely
Bjørn Ove

China will also want to team up is my guess, but it's a wildcard since
they're potential adversaries of the U.S. (of the military kind).

But also one that can potentially make significant contributions, rather than
just going along for the ride like Europe and Japan. It would be really great
if China matches us dollar for dollar. Perhaps they can do the Moon while we
finish the space station, and while their building a Moon Base we could launch
a mission to Mars. Or perhaps by splitting it down the middle. The Chinese fund
half and get half the contracts of each program.

Tom

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 11:12:51 +0100, "Dr. O" dr.o@xxxxx wrote:

..... So my guess: Europe will most certainly take part, and Russia likely ....

I think there's another good idea to have Russia aboard: If we want
more than one new pad for a Nova-calss HLLV, if that's what the plan
calls for, then I can't think of where we'd buid the pad. But the
Russians might have the space. Or they could recondition the old
N1/Energia pads.

.... What do you guys think?


I think Bush should go eve farther and do this under the auspices of a
UN security council resolution. Think about it: Without UN backing, a
hypotheitcal Democratic victor in the November election would have no
compunction about killing the program. But no Dem in his or her left
mind would be as blase about going against a UN resolution. And our
partners in the program -- Russia, the UK, France, China -- sit on the
Security Council.

Seriously, I think it's worth considering as a way to safeguard the
prgram from the ravages of US politics.