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The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

Alive-in-2025 11mo ago
You are missing that the money and research into figuring out how to solve many engineering and scientific challenges related to the missions had tremendous benefit to industry later. As we gain ability to do my re in space more cheaply it will get more important
- nickff 11mo ago
  It's not clear that concentrating so much money on a single government project fosters more benefit than having the money go to a variety of other projects. It is easy to see the items developed by something like the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program, but we often miss the innovations created by private industry when you compare a similar total spend (Bastiat's "seen and unseen"). One example of the alternative is how (private) demand for cellular telephony has triggered many innovations, from powerful and efficient microcontrollers to bright LCD screens, and fast-charging lithium-ion batteries.
- bell-cot 11mo ago
  I'm thinking that Apollo covered 90% of the useful spin-offs from developing tech for manned travel to the moon or Mars. And at least 90% of what's left was either covered by the ISS, or could be covered by a few small LEO space stations. The economic cases for manned moon or Mars programs look really iffy these days. The US has poured tens of $billions down the SLS rat hole, with very little to show for it. And Wienersmith's A City on Mars is a pretty damning dissection of the whole concept of Martian colonies.
  - zizee 11mo ago
    The SLS is widely understood to be less about research and development, and more about pork barreling, and jobs program. I don't buy that humanity should avoid investing in space travel because US Congress and surrounding governmental beaurcracy is not running projects effectively. That argument would stop just about any human activity. It's pretty difficult to predict what spinoffs would come from attempting to put a colony on Mars. I would imagine to succeed we would need to solve a lot of challenges with human biology, genetic engineering, automation, and many novel engineering solutions. But economics is not the only reason to do things, and I bet you don't expect everything humans do to have a purely economic rational.
- nitwit005 11mo ago
  If you want to do research to benefit industry, you can just do so. There's no particular reason research funding tied to human space flight should get better results.
poszlem 11mo ago
That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors, lasers, and signals. It is the closest thing to perfect concealment anyone is ever going to get in space. From that position, gravity is on your side. Sending kinetic weapons toward Earth takes almost no energy. Sending anything from Earth to the Moon takes a huge amount of fuel just to fight the gravity well. The attacker on the surface is always at a disadvantage, and the lunar side barely has to spend anything to strike. A base on the Moon also survives whatever happens on Earth. Even a full scale nuclear exchange leaves it untouched. That means guaranteed retaliation. It becomes a true third strike platform, something no one can wipe out in a first strike. It locks in deterrence in a way that completely changes the strategic balance. And if one country gets there first, mutual deterrence is over. They hold an untargetable, unreachable launch point that the rest of the planet cannot neutralize. That is not a symbolic win. It is unilateral control over the highest ground humanity has access to. I honestly do not know why some people do not see it. This is literally rewriting Earth geopolitics. For hundreds of years we worked within Mackinder’s logic: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; who rules the World Island commands the World. With a lunar base it becomes: Who rules the Moon commands cislunar space; who commands cislunar space commands Earth orbit; who commands Earth orbit commands the Earth. This is not about pride or prestige. It is about who controls the one location in the solar system that offers absolute strategic dominance. Whoever controls the Moon controls the high ground. Good luck competing with China if they get there first. EDIT: Apparently posting six comments in thirty minutes counts as "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks. " and whoever decided that is a proper knob. I got throttled again, so if you reply, I can't respond anymore for now.
- danny_codes 11mo ago
  This doesn’t make any sense. You must be trolling or a bot. What good does inter-planetary bombardment do me? I already have enough nukes to destroy the world. I mean it’s a bit redundant

Alive-in-2025 11mo ago

You are missing that the money and research into figuring out how to solve many engineering and scientific challenges related to the missions had tremendous benefit to industry later. As we gain ability to do my re in space more cheaply it will get more important

nickff 11mo ago
It's not clear that concentrating so much money on a single government project fosters more benefit than having the money go to a variety of other projects. It is easy to see the items developed by something like the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program, but we often miss the innovations created by private industry when you compare a similar total spend (Bastiat's "seen and unseen"). One example of the alternative is how (private) demand for cellular telephony has triggered many innovations, from powerful and efficient microcontrollers to bright LCD screens, and fast-charging lithium-ion batteries.
bell-cot 11mo ago
I'm thinking that Apollo covered 90% of the useful spin-offs from developing tech for manned travel to the moon or Mars. And at least 90% of what's left was either covered by the ISS, or could be covered by a few small LEO space stations. The economic cases for manned moon or Mars programs look really iffy these days. The US has poured tens of $billions down the SLS rat hole, with very little to show for it. And Wienersmith's A City on Mars is a pretty damning dissection of the whole concept of Martian colonies.
- zizee 11mo ago
  The SLS is widely understood to be less about research and development, and more about pork barreling, and jobs program. I don't buy that humanity should avoid investing in space travel because US Congress and surrounding governmental beaurcracy is not running projects effectively. That argument would stop just about any human activity. It's pretty difficult to predict what spinoffs would come from attempting to put a colony on Mars. I would imagine to succeed we would need to solve a lot of challenges with human biology, genetic engineering, automation, and many novel engineering solutions. But economics is not the only reason to do things, and I bet you don't expect everything humans do to have a purely economic rational.
nitwit005 11mo ago
If you want to do research to benefit industry, you can just do so. There's no particular reason research funding tied to human space flight should get better results.

poszlem 11mo ago

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors, lasers, and signals. It is the closest thing to perfect concealment anyone is ever going to get in space. From that position, gravity is on your side. Sending kinetic weapons toward Earth takes almost no energy. Sending anything from Earth to the Moon takes a huge amount of fuel just to fight the gravity well. The attacker on the surface is always at a disadvantage, and the lunar side barely has to spend anything to strike. A base on the Moon also survives whatever happens on Earth. Even a full scale nuclear exchange leaves it untouched. That means guaranteed retaliation. It becomes a true third strike platform, something no one can wipe out in a first strike. It locks in deterrence in a way that completely changes the strategic balance. And if one country gets there first, mutual deterrence is over. They hold an untargetable, unreachable launch point that the rest of the planet cannot neutralize. That is not a symbolic win. It is unilateral control over the highest ground humanity has access to. I honestly do not know why some people do not see it. This is literally rewriting Earth geopolitics. For hundreds of years we worked within Mackinder’s logic: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; who rules the World Island commands the World. With a lunar base it becomes: Who rules the Moon commands cislunar space; who commands cislunar space commands Earth orbit; who commands Earth orbit commands the Earth. This is not about pride or prestige. It is about who controls the one location in the solar system that offers absolute strategic dominance. Whoever controls the Moon controls the high ground. Good luck competing with China if they get there first. EDIT: Apparently posting six comments in thirty minutes counts as "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks. " and whoever decided that is a proper knob. I got throttled again, so if you reply, I can't respond anymore for now.

danny_codes 11mo ago
This doesn’t make any sense. You must be trolling or a bot. What good does inter-planetary bombardment do me? I already have enough nukes to destroy the world. I mean it’s a bit redundant