2025-2026 if everything goes to plan at NASA
The Chinese also announced that they will be attempting to build a lunar base with Russia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, South Africa, UAE, and Belarus by 2035.
I'm curious what JAXA, ESA, and ISRO are going to try with regards to human space flight. I know JAXA and ISRO work very closely with each other, but seem to be much more probe and rocket driven for financial reasons.
there's a reason that there are launch sites in French Guiana and Florida.
It’s far from population centers, though (1), so it would require building/growing a city for personnel to live. It also appears to be swampy (not a show stopper, as Florida shows, but not ideal, either), and it has monsoons, so the weather may be a showstopper.
I also would be worried about political stability of the country.
(1) Apple Maps shows Tucupita as about the only thing near that coast. It’s about 100km away and, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucupita has a population of less than 100,000.
I think it's awesome to see previously neglected nations beginning to be able to take part in major space programs. They also come with unique benefits. Like somebody else mentioned, for one thing Venezuela is in a dream scenario for launches. Eastern exposure to the ocean and substantially closer to the equator than e.g. Florida. This means ships taking off from there are able to more optimally sort of 'sling shot' off of Earth's rotation - the Earth rotates Eastward, and fastest at the equator. Same reason that in Andy Weir's Artemis novel, Kenya ended up being a world leader in space. And there's no logical reason this wouldn't happen. Countries can be developed, but they can't be moved.
> Any achievement they did make was... stolen from somebody else. Yet now their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted.
Many nations "bootstrap" internal industry with organized mass IP theft. The US extensively (and quite intentionally) stole from Britain's industrial IP, for instance.
At the end of WWII, not only the Soviet Union has moved piece by piece many industrial factories from Germany to Russia, but also USA and GB have "stolen" massive amounts of IP from the occupied Germany.
One of the most notorious cases in how the American industry of making magnetic tape recorders (e.g. Ampex) and of making magnetic tapes for them has been founded based on the samples brought back from Germany.
The case of the liquid-fueled rockets directly connected to this Apollo story needs no further mention.
Whenever they could get away with it, no country has refrained from copying foreign better technology.
While there in no doubt that China must have done this frequently in the past, in recent years there are little chances for them to benefit from this, because now in many domains their products are much more innovative than anything made in USA, and also in research publications they have many that are also more innovative.
I do not believe that sabotaging the Chinese companies that were on the brink to take most of the market share from US companies like Qualcomm and Micron has been the right strategy for counteracting the Chinese threat.
This is just a temporary setback for them and there is the risk that they could emerge from it stronger, no longer fearing any US blackmail.
This should have been either saved for a more critical moment, when it could have a greater effect, or the so-called "sanctions" should have been real sanctions, and not just anti-competitive measures, i.e. they should have been tied to some political demands made to China, e.g. to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, or to give up their claims to extend their maritime borders.
Not just the Soviet Union. The USA also moved factories piece by piece.[0]
The reverse example occurred during inter-war period, when US companies extensively outsourced to (cheap labor in) Germany. The US companies who exported their factories all made huge profit on paper, which promptly evaporated the moment war broke out. A lesson for the modern age, perhaps?
They've made a lot of progress but still lag behind in these fundamental areas, for example bulk, precise fabrication of exotic materials for more complex items (jet engines). There is an enormous gap between having the specifics of the design and implementing it effectively when it comes to advanced fabs. There is a bit of 'arcane magic' to it unfortunately.
>I do not believe that sabotaging the Chinese companies that were on the brink to take most of the market share from US companies like Qualcomm and Micron has been the right strategy for counteracting the Chinese threat.
I knew a lawyer in DC who was part of a defense team for a US aerospace company accused of assisting China with their missile and space program. Among the things he learned were: 1) China is working pretty hard on improving its technology without necessarily relying on tech transfers (although they still at the time required certain Western machining tools), 2) sincerely concerned US members of Congress have no understanding of the technologies involved so they messed it all up and 3) there are many who are not so sincere and are just grandstanding and most importantly 4) it's never going to be a matter of stopping China's progress, just a matter of saying a couple of years ahead of them (ie. does it matter if they have 7nm chips when we have been using them for a decade already?)
Ever heard of Poland? It moved quite a lot.
I'd say that if everything goes perfectly from this point onwards, 2026 might see the uncrewed test of the system and maybe a crewed landing by 2028.
Similarly with Blue Origin's HLS, maybe New Glenn finally flies in 2024, but they too have so many steps to prove out first. JAXA and ISRO IIRC have seats on a future Artemis crewed mission, which would probably be how they get their first boots on the Moon. ISRO would probably be too busy with its LEO station at that point to make a crewed lunar lander, but JAXA and ISRO would most likely contribute with base components or related (rovers, orbital infrastructure).
The Chinese plans for a lunar base by 2035 are essentially imaginary in terms of partnerships, particularly since of them, China is the only one with any worthwhile space program (the Russian program being in steep decline and would be lucky to even pull off a proper ISS replacement by 2035 let alone a worthwhile contribution to a lunar base).
Idk.
The Russian program seems to be weaker at operationalizing in 2023 but still has a lot of IP from the USSR era.
China is making massive strides but doesn't seem to have as deep IP experience yet.
Imo I wouldn't oversell the Chinese and undersell the Russians.
> JAXA and ISRO would most likely contribute with base components or related
That tracks, and fits with their specialities.
Also, I didn't realize JAXA, ESA, and ISRO are part of Artemis. NASA needs to have a better PR team. The Chinese Lunar Base is getting so much PR despite being much more behind Artemis
Edit: they signed the Artemis accords, they are not part of the similarly named Artemis Program
JAXA, ESA are considered partners on the Artemis program (at least based on Wikipedia, there does not seem to be an explicit list of partners on NASA's site), they're training astronauts to eventually be sent to the Moon in a similar arrangement as with the ISS. JAXA and ESA (along with the Canadian Space Agency) are also contributing various key components for the Gateway space station. Plus, the ESA is an important player with the Orion capsule which Congress-critters seem committed to forcing to be the center of the program regardless of technical and financial sense.
As for ISRO, I think I mixed things up a little. I think I had heard talk about the potential for an arrangement to fly a vyomanaut to the ISS on Dragon, assumed that it was about the agreement having been made and then mixed it up with Artemis. Turns out none of that was real, there does not appear to be any talk of sending an vyomanaut to the ISS.
Highlighting international cooperation with Japan, UK, Germany, France, etc is a massive PR coup
Edit: they signed the Artemis Accords, not part of the Artemis Program
If we are lucky it will be before 2030.
Artemis Program - Land on the moon and make a habitation station
Artemis Accords - A global legal agreement on Space Exploraration and Research.
The naming is confusing (and I think partially done on purpose)