We join Fox News in hailing another glorious victory for Socialism, The People's Republic of China, and their majestic leader Xi Jinping!
Uncomfortable, but the US is behind in space. Only this year were US astronauts able to get to the ISS any way other than on Russian launch vehicles. That was 11 years like that.
Russian rocket engines were, until recently, the primary propulsion on US unmanned rockets.
China has a lunar rover mission on the far side of the moon, in operation now. Russia is dropping out of the ISS because they will have their own space station.
And no, don’t talk about cheap vs expensive. We print money from thin air. There is no such thing as cheap vs expensive when the measurement is a substance that comes from nothingness. Russia has their own Central Bank and they don’t do trillions of Quantitative Ease. Instead, they do superior spacecraft and launch vehicles for the past 11 years.