I guarantee you if China or India were to make strides towards a serious Mars mission (i.e. they had a Moon landing) we would have another space race with the US involved. It's exactly what happened when the USSR sparked the first space race. Whether we would win, who knows, but there is still plenty of expertise and know how in about sending humans into space in the US ...
I really don't understand all the absolute trust in SpaceX, in terms of human exploration they have proved nothing thus far. Sending cargo to the ISS is a different thing than sending humans. Once they pull that off we can start talking about great strides they are making in human space exploration.
Otherwise it's still a risky venture that hasn't proven anything yet, the only reason to have so much faith in them is because you're over zealously infatuated with Elon Musk. Not to downplay any of his obvious success, but I still believe in seeing results in the same way you're waiting to see if NASA is going to do some "serious things". Let's hold people to same standards, shall we?
> I really don't understand all the absolute trust in SpaceX, in terms of human exploration they have proved nothing thus far. Sending cargo to the ISS is a different thing than sending humans. Once they pull that off we can start talking about great strides they are making in human space exploration.
I think the thing about SpaceX is it seems like they have no ulterior motives (no one honestly thought it was going to make money, until it did), and they seem to have some chance of success.
I also think your humans to the space station mark is entirely the wrong one, they could do that today if they were willing to accept a bit more risk, and will almost certainly be able to do it in the near future. But putting humans in space isn't solving any of the hard problems. Far more interesting will be if they manage to re-use a rocket (or even first-stage) with no or minor refurbishment... as re-use is the only way they will be able to achieve their goals (paraphrasing massively from what Elon has said on numerous occasions).
I guarantee you that people felt quite certain that SpaceX was going to at least have the possibility of making loads of money. No one invests capital or starts a business, much less an aerospace business, if they don't honestly believe it will make money. Even if you have a bunch of idealists who want to see humanity achieve it's destiny and reach for the stars, they would be fools to invest so much time and money in something that they believe was destined to fail.
The Chinese are motivated for nationalistic and propaganda purposes, just like the United States was in the 60s. They'll eventually get to Mars.
Elon Musk is personally motivated, and appears to be able to make the construction and launch of space vehicles commercially viable. If SpaceX doesn't get to Mars, it will at the very least push the commercial space industry to the point where a competitor can.
NASA? They're beholden to a group of self-serving fools on Capitol Hill and the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (which changes every 4-8 years). They're subject to the whims of politicians, which can make the necessary long-term planning and execution of such an endeavor nigh impossible.
SpaceX has put exactly 0 people into orbital space at all, much less to the Moon.
China has only just made it to space and are still struggling with getting probes to the Moon.
Not to say NASA is going to be the first to Mars, but they are far and away the only ones with anything remotely resembling a track record to support it. Well, NASA and Russia, but Russia doesn't seem to be doing much in terms of pushing new programs.
They have launched a Mars orbiter. It's an amazingly well done and cost effective mission, but it's not on the same scale we are talking about here. Hopefully they will expand their program.
I have more fate in SpaceX or Chinese to put man on Mars then NASA.