MANNED CREW TO MARS BY 2025? OBAMA THINKS SO.

where is the money going to come from? We had more than enough trouble putting together a space station, it took forever and we had to go hat in hand to the rest of the world to get it done. Now we are talking about burning it up, and it is not even finished yet!

Where is the political leadership going to come from? These days every new president throws out what the last one planned and decides to do something else.

From the little people as usual. I would rather finance a manned space flight than another war.

exactly, healthcare and a mars mission over 8 years of useless war

the space station was advertised at $8 billion, it ended up over $100 billion. Mars was http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=1&oq=cost+of+space+sta&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS244US244&q=total+cost+of+space+station

we have shown zero ability to predict either schedules or budgets, both have been pure fantasy.

Better get there before the Chinese do. Bet it will be before 2025, too.

The country that controls space will control the world.

How sophisticated is China's space program?

They are building 1000 miles of high speed rail a year, we so far have 17 miles (Amtrak between DC and NY mostly does not qualify though Acela is said to be HSR)

If I had to bet my money would be on China.

China lacks the industrial base. Basically, Chinese industry is still geared toward either assembly of products developed in other countries, and in which the parts design comes from the expertise of those countries, or it is geared toward cheap goods manufacture, and knock-offs of popular western brands. The Chinese don't have a heavy industrial base of their own to match what is available in the west. Their biggest applicable industry so far has been building the silkworm missiles which they sell indiscriminately as a part of their arms industry, which itself is otherwise a light industrial base. The Chinese will only be able to move up to manned space flight after a long and capital intensive program of developing the industrial base necessary to the production of the booster rockets and crew vehicles necessary to the effort.

When the United States and the Soviet Union began their space programs in the late 1950s, they both already had large heavy industrial bases which had been built up for the wars against Germany and Japan. China does not have and never has had such a heavy industrial base. They have the capital, and they might have the will (although i doubt it), but they don't yet have the industrial base to be serious contenders in manned space flight even in the near neighborhood of the earth, let alone a mission to Mars.

Your information is out of date.

Bullshit, you're making it up as you go along. During the Second World War, the United States built more than 50,000 Sherman tanks, and that doesn't include the Grant, Stuart and Pershing tanks they built, nor the armored personnel carriers. The Soviet Union built over 70,000 T-34 tanks, and that doesn't include all of their other tank models and armored personnel carriers--and in particular, the T-34 obliged the Soviet Union to build the heavy industrial base to manufacture those AFVs in those numbers. The Soviet Union built in excess of 200,000 aircraft for the war--the Yakovlev Yak-1 and Yak-3 accounted for 35,000 aircraft alone; the Mikoyan and Guryevich MiG-1 and MiG-3 were sufficiently inferior that few were built, but the Ilyushin Il-2 "Sturmovik" close air support fighter was built in the factories which were to have produced the MiGs, and well over 40,000 of them were built--which makes it the largest aircraft production effort of all time. North American built more than 15,000 P-51 Mustangs, Republic built even more P-47 Thunderbolts, Curtiss built even more of their P-40 "Hawk" series (Kittyhawk, Tomahawk and Warhawk), with nearly 14,000 of the Warhawks alone being built; Lockheed built more than 9,000 P-38 Lightnings. That's more than 50,000 fighter aircraft built in just four models. For the Navy, Grumman built almost 8,000 F4F Wildcats, Vought built nearly 12,000 F4U Corsairs and Grumman built more than 12,000 F6F Hellcats--so that's well over 30,000 fighters alone for the Navy

These totals don't include the medium and heavy bombers built for the Army Air Force, nor the dive bombers and torpedo attack planes built for the Navy. The big three heavy bombers used by the United States in World War II--the Boeing B-17, the Consolidated B-24 and the Boeing B-29--accounted for another 25,000 aircraft built. North American's B-25 medium bomber adds almost 10,000 more manufactured. Both nations had this legacy of hundreds of thousands of armored fighting vehicles, many tens of thousands of trucks, and hundreds of thousands of aircraft built from a converted or newly created heavy industrial base before either of them began a space program.

China has never had heavy industrial production which remotely approaches that level of production, nor has what relatively small heavy industry they have been in business for most of a century as is the case in the United States and Russia. You can continue to make your silly statements from authority--an authority which i have no reason to believe you possess--but i will be happy to provide you with sources to back up the figures i have cited here.

Once again, China has never developed the heavy industrial base which both Russia and the United States had already built up before they began their space programs. To be serious entrants in a program to reach Mars, they will first have to develop the heavy industrial base to produce something more than tactical or strategic ballistic missiles.

Check this out Set:
http://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/handle/10220/4533/RSIS1212008.pdf?sequence=2

Plus they are way ahead of America on Green Tech, both R&D and Manufacturing.

You are at least five years behind the power curve on this subject.

It takes a heavy industrial base which is experienced and wide-spread to produce the launch vehicles and crewed vehicles necessary for space flight. Research and Development is certainly necessary, but it is not a heavy industrial base--coming up with good designs doesn't eliminate the need for the industrial base to produce your new designs. "Green" technology doesn't equate with a heavy industrial base. That is why i focused on the production of aircraft and armored fighting vehicles. Apart from heavy mining and earth-moving equipment, there is nothing in civilian production which places such high demands on the industrial base as does the production of hundreds of thousands of pieces of military hardware. Comments about "the power curve" may delight your conceit about being in the know, but they don't offer any evidence that China has the heavy industrial base necessary for the production of the launch vehicles and the crewed vehicles necessary for a successful manned program.

According to Wikipedia (which cites its sources), China produced somewhat fewer than 14 million automotive products last year. Of those, 44% were their own local brands, and 56% were joint ventures with foreign automotive companies. And an automobile industry does not qualify as heavy industry in the same class as armored fighting vehicles and military aircraft. China continues to buy the lion's share of their military aircraft from Russia, or to produce Chinese models based on the Russian designs. Norinco, the Chinese company which manufactures their main battle tank, the Type 99, has built all of about 500 of the model (exact figures are difficult to obtain). By contrast, Russia has 5000 T-72 main battle tanks in service or ready reserve, and of the modified design, the T-90, about 500. The United States has built more than 9,000 of the M-1 Abrams main battle tank.

It's only 15 years to 2025--it is ludicrous to suggest that China can build the heavy industrial base necessary for a manned space program, and successfully produce the launch and crewed vehicles necessary for a Mars mission in that space of time.

But hey, little things like facts have never stopped you in the past, have they?

did you even look at the link about China's military industrial complex?? If they are ready to produce world class military products on a huge scale then they are ready to manufacture a space program....they require the same skills and plants.

Yeah, i looked at it, which is exactly why i pointed out that they buy their aircraft from Russia or build it under license, and have a tiny fraction of state of the art main battle tanks in comparison to the United States and Russia. The point which you don't seem to get is that the space programs in the United States and Russia depended upon broad, diversified and highly experience heavy industrial facilities such as China does not yet have. I have no doubt that they can accomplish this--i just have no reason to assume that they can accomplish it within 15 years. They don't yet produce their own designs for military hardware, for example. They don't yet manufacture heavy military equipment in even significant fractions of the production of Russia or the United States.

Someday--maybe. Fifteen years? Hardly.