[Cincinatus' Wife]

The comments are "enlightening".......

[Spktyr]

The cheapest way to ship stuff back from the moon to Earth is going to be a mass driver mounted on the moon. The other name for a mass driver?

Railgun.

As in artillery.

As in “we can throw rocks from the moon to hit any point on Earth for damn near no money at all and on impact they will generate more ‘explosive’ force than any ICBM-carried warhead could ever produce - for damn near free.”

Heinlein laid out the basics and the mechanics of it in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.” The short version is that the moon is the ultimate high ground and there’s no way to intercept such projectiles in a meaningful fashion. And the lunar installation could see any military strike coming a long way off - far enough off to do something about it.

[Ronin]

If they can get there and set up a colony, I have no problem with them declaring extraterrestrial territorial sovereignty over any area they can physically control.

They’re doing it, we’re not. I support their efforts as a human being that hopes our species will someday achieve the stars. It would be nice if we could do it, but obviously we need all the money we can borrow or steal to give out food stamps and Obama phones.

AD ASTRA!!!!

[Puckster]

Simple thought.....China's economic experiment won't last long enough for it to accomplish this.

They will be trying to stay ahead of the internal chaos that will ensue by marching toward the middle-east to grab enough oil real estate to try and keep their fantasy going.

[Prospero]

Interesting soft soap. It's a shallow viewpoint that ignores the nationalism that all international communists must turn to if their "international" movements are to have any longevity. But the author ignores the prudent middle ground in being wary of any Asian "co-prosperity spheres" driven by fundamental shortages of materials. It's not simply the Moon, but the Moon's sheer strategic value, and the strategic national interests served by a strong manned space program.

China's preparations for extending force are real, and they more resemble those of Japan than the methodical national strategic goals of what, on paper at least, is still a free people.

The Moon is our world's deep water port to deeper space, and yes its resources. If the U.S. were not considered a strategic competitor, an attitude pioneered by Japan eighty years ago, and was just another "peace loving nation" the author might have a point. But it does, and the world as it will be around 2050 and beyond is being shaped today.

The Chinese are quite open about their goals and methods. We can be like Portugal and pioneer the navigation of "this new sea," only to retreat from influence and the stage of history, or we can be like England, determined to protect our realm, now and in the future.

Its true, the Chinese have just performed their first manual docking, a technique central to the regular success of each of the Apollo surface expeditions forty years ago, and the Space Station paid for with our treasure. and debt. But consider their steady progress. The last soft-landing on the Moon, of any kind, took place in 1976. Though the U.S. today has, after a long drought, a total of five spacecraft in orbit around the Moon at this hour, care to guess which nation, at this hour, is most likely to accomplish the next soft landing there?

[StAnDeliver]

Tungsten rods in orbit probably more economical, although if the PLA follows through, no doubt a military component will be part of any Chinese lunar base.

[StAnDeliver]

"In the 1990s, Wendell W. Mendell, a planetary scientist of NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, proposed a detailed plan on building a large-scale moon base. In December 2006, NASA publicized part of its plan to return to the moon. Due to financial problems, the lunar probe project hasn't been put into play yet."

Rather than scrap the ISS, retrofit it and put it into lunar orbit. That would force us to think moon daily.

Better yet, put the ISS into Martian orbit...

[Moonman62]

The author, US professor John Hickman, predicts that Washington is wearing blinders if it thinks the 1968 Outer Space Treaty will prevent a Chinese lunar land grab.

A lunar land grab isn't economical, or militarily worthwhile, otherwise we'd be doing it. China's space program (with Russian built space parts) is intended to inspire their people, and to impress the world.

[Jack Hammer]

Good for the Chinese.

We could have done it twenty years ago if our blatantly and infinitely corrupt government weren’t so eager to throw away our hard earned tax dollars buying up votes with social give-aways.

Now we’ve got what we deserve - a Kenyan Moslem-in-Chief and his filthy law-breaking Chicago-style attorney general out to break our public finances with the give-away of all give-aways, putting the United States into debt to our creditors (namely the Chinese) for the next twenty years.

And those collecting the government checks cheer them on.

[Elsie]

Has NONE of our FR posters realized how EXPENSIVE it would be to do ANY of these fantastic things they’ve imagined the Chiunese doing?

[eleventyone]

Get back to me when China can feed all of its citizens.

Till then I’m not worried about Chinamen on the Moon.

Get back to me when China has widespread electricity in rural areas.

Till then I’m not worried about Chinamen on the Moon.

Get back to me when China does anything original.

Till then I’m not worried about Chinamen on the Moon.