@WesternInfidels @davidnjoku They were, JFK gave this great speech (a stark contrast to today):

“There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

John F. Kennedy Speech

"We choose to go to the Moon", officially titled the address at Rice University on the nation's space effort, is a September 12, 1962, speech by United States President John F. Kennedy to further inform the public about his plan to land a man on the Moon before 1970.

Rice University (www.rice.edu)

@michael_w_busch @davidnjoku

But yes, I agree that "scientists working on things" tend to have a better and more well rounded view than the "I just like the idea of space travel!" crowd. ️

@davidnjoku yeah. I was enjoying most of what I saw, but hearing one of the astronauts say that it's important the US take the lead in space exploration was icky. (I don't remember the exact wording.)

@mekkaokereke that’s awesome.

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku

Current CMSA human spaceflight plans beyond Earth orbit are only for lunar missions in 2030-2035; with the timing depending on the outcomes of tests of the Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou crew module, and the Lanyue lunar lander.

The next test in the series is the first orbital Long March 10 and Mengzhou launch, scheduled for late this year: https://spacenews.com/china-targets-2026-for-first-long-march-10-launch-new-lunar-crew-spacecraft-flight/

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku

CNSA robotic Mars mission plans currently include only Tianwen-3, which plans to do a simpler but easier version of Mars sample return than NASA has attempted.

Launch of Tianwen-3 is no earlier than 2030, which would have sample return to Earth no earlier than 2033: https://spacenews.com/china-targets-2030-for-mars-sample-return-mission-potential-landing-areas-revealed/

(Thanks go to @AndrewJonesSpace for his reporting, because I cannot read mission announcements in Chinese myself.)

@michael_w_busch @davidnjoku @AndrewJonesSpace

@AndrewJonesSpace Did China de-commit from Mars in 2033? I see that they stated the planned Mars mission, then also announced lunar missions, but I didn't see where they de-committed or delayed the 2033 crewed Mars mission.

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku @AndrewJonesSpace

This is more a matter of an aspirational statement from one program manager not being an actual mission commitment in the first place.

A human Mars mission would require and extended period of building & testing crew and landing spacecraft that no one now knows how to make.

The PRC space program is not doing that yet and was not in 2021 (it was then some years into developing Mengzhou and Lanyue for lunar missions).

@mekkaokereke @michael_w_busch @davidnjoku

I believe a crewed mission to mars would make it harder for us to figure out if theres life on mars as humans are giant bags filled with microbes which would run a big chance of contaminating the experiment.

Robots are the best path.

@davidnjoku This part. It feels impossible for me to overlook the way aeronautics research has been used for nationalistic, surveillance, and war purposes*, especially now when it's literally happening and there's nothing I can do about it. And this is coming from someone who fundraised with their graduating class so we could go to Space Camp.

*this part is for any nation, they all do this, it's how they get government funding to start with

@davidnjoku@mastodon.world

i literally dont have time to get excited because midterm ​​

@mekkaokereke @cyberlyra @davidnjoku
Two things can be possible at the same time. Planning and timing of the Artemis II mission was set (even with setbacks/hiccups) well before the Orange 's regime. Cheer the progress for humanity, the science, teamwork, etc. NASA is as much a punching bag and pawn of the current administration as all of the other science-based agencies for which we lament the devastation foisted on them.
https://mastodon.online/@piquant00/116341655002272867 v @piquant00

@davidnjoku

I grok. But recall that the whole Apollo program was "America is beating the Soviets to the moon". And once we'd checked the box, that was it.

Am I excited? No. Am I following the progress? Yes.

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku They were so silent about it that I didn’t even realize some of those things had happened.

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku it’s an incredibly jingoistic industry. The “USA! USA!” pride can always be seen under the surface.
On top of that, Congress making it illegal to have bilateral-only cooperation between the US and China makes collaboration and celebration thereof almost impossible.
Icing on the shit cake: ridiculous levels of competition between academics for publication space, multiplied by racism … well there you have it.
In our lifetimes, access to space will always be a fight. No one involved is interested in having it any other way, grand gestures of internationalism notwithstanding.

@RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00

You've either completely missed, or completely ignored, the point of my post.

I'll say it much more bluntly, to let you react to it:

It's not "cheering for humanity" if you only cheer when Europeans or Americans do it. Instead it's a weird kind of nationalism or eurocentrism that is the opposite of what Star Trek is supposedly selling.

And it's super obvious to non-white observers how we "cheer for humanity" when Elon or NASA does something spacey, but to not even talk about it when China or India do something.

India has also landed a probe on the moon, and India has sent a probe to Mars orbit. India is the first nation to successfully enter Mars orbit on the first try. And their mission control and science and engineering teams are a lot more gender balanced than most places.

I'm saying that we should "celebrate humanity's space achievements" when they do stuff too, but I don't see that happening.

This isn't "Don't cheer for NASA." I cheer for NASA!

This is "Don't try to sell me that US space race fever, is a win for humanity, because it's not."

It's "We can have a Federation of Planets, just as long as Earth is the head of that Federation, and the US is the head of Earth, and Starfleet headquarters is in San Francisco. Anything else is Romulans! "

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku TBF, The Planetary Society is pretty rigorous about cheering space accomplishments no matter whose they are.

@marsroverdriver @davidnjoku

Fair.

But do people hear about Elon launches and Artemis from the planetary society? Or from CNN and other mainstream media?

Mekka

@aizuchi @mekkaokereke @davidnjoku

There were a couple of years where I was the only member of my work group who was allowed to communicate with PRC asteroid researchers directly; because I was then paid by the NSF and did not have the NASA restriction imposed by Frank Wolf when he was in Congress.

So much nonsense because of Wolf's racism and other members of Congress choosing to enable it.

@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku I concede the point, although from my perspective I've had my interest in space absolutely shattered by the Expanse-esque competition from the billionaires.

I did watch Tiangong launch, and the first set of astronauts to go up. Kinda wild how the feed gets flagged as "state media" in a way NASA (and perhaps ESA?) doesn't, to your point.

Trying not to "not all Artemis enthusiasts" about this. I definitely am trying to latch onto an accomplishment that feels multi-national and worthwhile, particularly as it would rekindle my life-long love of space. There was a time when I was retweeting the goings on of every fledgling launch provider (I remember watching RocketLab back when it was literally just a cheap web cam pointing at the pad). Just can't these days, Musk has put paid to that.

Not sure I had a overall point sorry, just wanted to provide some context for anyone in the same, ostensibly silent boat as myself.

I saw an article earlier about the potential collapse of the video game industry (possibly on Aftermath), and their point was along the lines of "yeah but that giant free-to-play game in South Korea that you've never heard of doesn't care if Call of Duty sales nosedive". I guess we all have our blind spots to things going on elsewhere.