

China set to launch own space station within days - anigbrowl
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/chinas-space-station/

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kemayo
I'm glad that China seems to be picking up the USA's slack on this.

It helps to alleviate <http://www.xkcd.com/893/>

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SkyMarshal
I wouldn't mind extending that graph with "with number of robots that have
walked on other worlds." It might even have a positive slope.

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anigbrowl
Launch report: [http://bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/chinese-launch-of-
space...](http://bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/chinese-launch-of-space-lab-
module-aims-to-close-technology-gap-with-u-s-.html)

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ww520
Didn't it happen already yesterday or today?

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thefool
gogogaget space race: Redux?

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Cushman
If only... A space race might revitalize the economy, and is thus political.

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MichaelApproved
Dare I say this? A space race is a massive waste of money. We should be
combining resources on large scale projects, not duplicating them.

Competition is great to find the fundamental technology but we should unite to
build a massive vehicle.

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felipemnoa
Seeing that you are being left behind is a great motivator. The USA went to
the moon to make sure that Russia would not get there first.

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maaku
It is, in fact, a heck of a lot more complicated than that. Mostly the U.S.
went to the moon to provide civilian cover for R&D investments in I.C.B.M. and
satellite surveillance technology. If you are interested I suggest reading
"Red Moon Rising", which covers quite accurately the early players and their
politics and motivations on both sides (from the V-2 in WW2 to Yuri Gagarin
and Kennedy's declaration).

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william42
A google search gives a lot of results, but I think you mean this:
[http://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-Rising-Sputnik-
Rivalries/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-Rising-Sputnik-
Rivalries/dp/080508147X)

Is this true?

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maaku
The manuscript I read had a different cover, but I think it's the same book.

And yes, it's true. I work at NASA and some of my managers were there as early
as the Apollo program. The connection to the military is an open secret that
is well-known but has always been divorced from the mythic of the space race.
It wasn't until the players retired, memoirs were published, and the fall of
the U.S.S.R. that historians were able to put the pieces into a cohesive
whole, telling the story from both sides. Matthew Brzezinski draws upon this
more recent research for the book.

