All you need to do is compare the respective mission plans.

China 2030: Send up two of the same rockets, one with a crew module and one with a moon lander. In lunar orbit get in the lander and land on the moon.

USA 2028: Send up SLS/Orion with crew. Send up 15 to 20 Starships to refuel one Starship to go to the moon. Astronauts get in the Starship in lunar orbit and it goes down and lands on the moon.

Which seems more likely to work?

#Artemis

as long as humans are making progress for humanity, im happy. we should strive to make these arbitrary social differences irrelevant

the prevailing sentiment from the space race between the usa and the soviet union of yesteryear is not “the usa/soviet union won!”, but that of “wow, im surprised humans are capable of this”

i hope we can all try to think of structural changes we could make to encourage this way of thinking

Imagine the shockwave of taikonauts bypassing the moon and walking on Mars.

Oh absolutely. Bill Nelson was a disaster.

On the other hand, I'd get some enjoyment watching the meltdown among people who think our place in the world is something we're owed rather than something previous generations worked hard to achieve and maintain...

I think the hope back then was to try to kick start space economy even though NASA was dangling the money.

@mike_malaska
I don't disagree. There is another white elephant in the air being positioned for static fire testing campaign now. At least they are still at it.

probably wouldn't much notice

When the Chinese land first on the Moon it will be just fine, and a good lesson for Isaacman, a tech bro who now leads a public administration. The reason we will lose this race is NASA bought into the wild SpaceX promises and has wasted untold billions and a decade shoveling money into an poorly conceived really big spaceship white elephant. Perhaps this will inform his decision making on public vs corporate spending going forward, but one doubts it.

I wish ESA would be beat both but ESA is not there yet.

We really are back in the 60s, aren't we?

Space race, taking pictures to help finding a good landing spot...

Disappointment. And some anger that we squandered a lot of opportunities to be on the Moon already.

So yes, if China gets to the Moon before we return, I'll be deeply disappointed. But hopeful that we'll redouble our efforts to return there for good.