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Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Who Will Own The Moon?

Chinese General sees military space race

China’s air force chief has called military competition in space “inevitable”, a departure from Beijing’s past insistence that it is not pursuing space programs for military purposes.

The remarks by General Xu Qiliang, head of the People’s Liberation Army air force, published in several state media, are a reminder of another area of potential future rivalry between the US and China. In addition, they indicate increased competition within China's military.

“The militarisation of the sky and space is a challenge to the peace of mankind. In the face of this challenge, you don’t have a voice unless you have power. Only if you have strong power can you protect and safeguard peace,” Gen Xu was quoted as saying.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will they allow my trailer there? It's purty new, and I got lot rent.

Chris Slavens said...

This brings up an interesting point. I've often wondered why the US pushed so hard to make it to the moon forty years ago, if we never planned to do it again. Considering the technological advances of the last four decades, it's fairly astonishing. I'd be happy to see more ambition in NASA; a moon base and manned missions to Mars shouldn't be confined to science fiction, as spaceward expansion could well be the future of the human race.

Anonymous said...

Chris,
Do you think NASA tells us everything they do? I have wondered the same things as you have written. Why never go back? Why never show us a modern day picture of the flag and the SUV which was left behind?

Orsonwells said...

We went there because it was something to discover and to be first to claim it. What we discovered there was that orbit based missions were of better use than moon missions, and that we needed to analyze what we had learned on the early moon missions to quantify how we would handle future missions... to anywhere! I don't see the question here. Now we have the technology under our belt to do what's next; whatever it is.

Chris Slavens said...

I certainly don't think they tell us everything; NASA is part of the most untrustworthy organization on the planet, our government.

Perhaps it's just the sci-fi fan in me, but I'd like to see more manned missions, with the goal of placing an American astronaut on Mars. Consider the grand scheme of the universe, its incredible size. The petty activities of Earth, the U.S., and Delmarva are insignificant in comparison. We are a small part of an unimaginably large picture, and current financial limitations shouldn't stop us from looking forward and outward in the future.