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Mars China

China Plans Its First Crewed Mission To Mars In 2033 (reuters.com) 94

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Hmmmmmm writes: China aims to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033, with regular follow-up flights to follow, under a long-term plan to build a permanently inhabited base on the Red Planet and extract its resources. The ambitious plan, which will intensify a race with the United States to plant humans on Mars, was disclosed in detail for the first time after China landed a robotic rover on Mars in mid-May in its inaugural mission to the planet. Crewed launches to Mars are planned for 2033, 2035, 2037, 2041 and beyond, the head of China's main rocket maker, Wang Xiaojun, told a space exploration conference in Russia recently by video link. Before the crewed missions begin, China will send robots to Mars to study possible sites for the base and to build systems to extract resources there, the official China Space News reported on Wednesday, citing Wang, who is head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
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China Plans Its First Crewed Mission To Mars In 2033 More

China Plans Its First Crewed Mission To Mars In 2033

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  • American and yet... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    American and yet I hope they do it. It'd be cool to see *anybody* do it, and if it's anything like space as we know it, there is more likely to be cooperation in the actual environment, even if there's competition on Earth. This will be like Antarctica to the Nth degree, and that's a very cooperative environment. I wish them the best of luck, "For all mankind".

    • Perhaps this would be an other Sputnik moment, where Americans actually realize how they are getting further behind then they think they are.

      America has a history of tunnel vision. Where they see themselves as the center of the world, who is the best at everything, then some country that we consider some backwater or insignificant comes in and out achieves the US,

      Germany WWI, Was a small country and was able to start a World War, introduced a mechanical warfare to the world. The Allies and the US was abl

      • Perhaps this would be an other Sputnik moment, where Americans actually realize how they are getting further behind then they think they are.

        Let's just slow up here for a moment. China hasn't even landed a person on the moon, which we did decades ago. They JUST landed a robotic probe on Mars, which we have been doing for quite some time not. And this is just an announcement for a plan a decade-plus into the future, from a authoritarian government that isn't know for it's honesty. Could they land a person on mars in twelve years? Sure, it's a remote possibility. But let's not treat a news release as a major milestone in space exploration...

    • Re:American and yet... (Score:5, Funny)

      by dvice ( 6309704 ) on Friday June 25, 2021 @01:06PM (#61520652)

      I don't know, I have a bad feeling about this them being communist. Imagine if they paint the whole planet red to support their ideals.

      • I don't know, I have a bad feeling about this them being communist. Imagine if they paint the whole planet red to support their ideals.

        This reminds me of an old joke about Soviets sending people to the moon to paint it red to show the world it's power. The US government didn't seem to be in a big rush to beat them, in fact was rather unconcerned and left much of the funding and development to private industry. So the Soviets are all working hard to send rockets to the moon full of red paint. In the mean time people in the USA are readying rockets to the moon, and making paint, but not as many rockets and not near as much paint.

        The Sovie

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        It's getting figuratively painted red no matter what. Whoever goes, is probably going to die there. The one thing that will keep them from dying there, is if they die on the way. So in terms of who gets there first, I think the best rule of thumb is: better them than us.

      • That does not matter, then than the americans fly over and paint in white "Coca Cola" on it.

    • It's nice when we have at least one country who can say "We choose to go to Mars, not because it's easy, but because it's hard"

      There used to be a great country who thought like that, but they went to the moon, and again, and again... then the TV ratings dropped, the bureaucrats... well the bureaucratted. The contractors found out there was more money in milking the government for more money rather than building what they had already been paid to build. And if you couldn't deliver before the end of the curre

  • Space race! Space race! Space race! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Friday June 25, 2021 @12:11PM (#61520468) Homepage
    Apparently the only major way to get serious investment in space issues is national pride and worries about other countries beating one. So if this can get the US to seriously push for Mars this may be really good. On the other hand, there is a downside: the Apollo program was all about getting to the moon as fast as possible, not developing infrastructure or rockets which would be practical for long-term exploration or colonization. So one hopes that with Mars it will go better than that, and even as there is a race, there will still be a serious push for long-term colonization.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dan East ( 318230 )

      Apparently the only major way to get serious investment in space issues is national pride and worries about other countries beating one.

      I think SpaceX and tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue from Starlink may prove you wrong.

      • I suppose "serious investment" can mean many things. But 60 years of national pride-based investments created an environment where long-shot ROI investments were possible.
      • I certainly hope so.

      • I think SpaceX and tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue from Starlink may prove you wrong.

        Please. Space X has a target of 2.5 million monthly users to make a REVENUE of 3.3 billion in income. Of which likely only 20% is profit.

        1) That's not tens of billions of profit.
        2) They are nowhere close to achieving 2.5 million monthly users, and by their own admission are years away from that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by RevDisk ( 740008 )
          Eh, must not be an enterprise network admin with a lot of locations. I eventually plan on ordering 40 ish Starlink terminals. A lot of my buildings are out in the boonies and our LTE backups aren't the greatest. We fully intend on paying for 40 terminals and hopefully never have to use them, they're just backups for fiber. Basically every sysadmin/netadmin I know is expecting to be swapping out LTE units, or adding Starlink as tertiary internet.

          I expect the residential customers to be an extended beta te
      • I think if SpaceX advances enough that a Mars mission is a slam dunk, the US Gov. would then co-opt it and provide the necessary funding. It's too big of a win to pass up. Politicians don't mind spending money (it's not theirs) so long as it's on something popular. And I doubt SpaceX would pass up the offer because the cost will be huge.

    • if this can get the US to seriously push for Mars

      Unlikely. I think we will still be waiting for the first manned Artemis flight, come 2033

  • Now we see the brilliance of Musk (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday June 25, 2021 @12:11PM (#61520470)

    It would appear Elon Musk foresaw the new race between nations in getting people to Mars to set up mining camps, that is why he planned to be there a few years prior to set up malls and restaurants and supply depots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > getting people to Mars to set up mining camps

      I seriously don't know if you're talking about mineral mining or crypto mining. And... that is funny.

      • I seriously don't know if you're talking about mineral mining or crypto mining. And... that is funny.

        Now that you mention it, neither do I and that IS hilarious!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

      Welcome to Muskie's, finest fast food on the Red Planet!!

      Also, the only fast food on the Red Planet. . . . (grin)

      • Welcome to Muskie's, finest fast food on the Red Planet!!

        Also, the only fast food on the Red Planet. . . . (grin)

        Last gas for 4.2 million miles.
        Until you circle the planet and return here.

  • Errrrmm ... eh ... Good Luck! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Friday June 25, 2021 @12:14PM (#61520478)

    Good for them if they achieve that in 13 years.

    There is a problem though: Mars is far away. Like *very* far away. The Moon isn't at our doorstep, the moon *is* our doorstep.
    Mars is another planet. That's an entirely different deal.

    If they manage to extend their station to ISS level our more within the next 3-4 years, then they'll have my attention. Until then this sounds a bit like single-party-state propaganda to me.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If it didn't come straight from the Pooh's mouth, then it is probably just PR.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by nucrash ( 549705 )

      They are dumping several times more money into infrastructure than the U.S. is. They are building the 4 largest space station and the 3rd ever modular space station on their own. This is their third space station as opposed to the 8 that the USSR built before the ISS.

      For a few years, China has launching more rockets than any other country. China now has some accomplishments to their name including a fully automated return sample mission to the Moon as well as landing on the far side of the Moon with a ro

      • yeah and we had moon samples decades ago, "rover" with men sitting on it driving it in the early 70s, rovers on mars in the 70s.

        Their "hospital" was suffocating patients deemed not worthy to live with airtight bag and tossing into incinerator, if you recall firsthand witness patient woman's words. So they made a nazi human disposal system, nice.

        • That doesn't negate effectiveness. The US lunar missions were based on Nazi technology. Soviet space accomplishments happened under extreme authoritarian autocracy. So what was your point?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ghoul ( 157158 )
          Given that they were the origin point and had no warning and yet kept the number of infections to below 100K while USA with 3 months headsup still couldnt control the spread maybe we need more airtight plastic bags here.

        • There were no rovers on Mars in the 70's. I think you're confusing it with the Soviet Lunakhod program -- which had radio-controlled unmanned rovers on the moon.

          Automation had to get better before we had autonomous wheeled vehicles good enough to do anything meaningful with a nontrivial delay between commands being sent and executed, hence Sojourner in the 90's.

          The Viking landers *did* land on Mars in the 70's, but had no rovers.

          • oop yeah meant to say robotic craft. oh well, we beat anything China did or is going to do for a long time... long ago

      • 13 years to put humans on Mars is asking a lot of any national or international space agency.

        And what China built in Wuhan was a lot closer to a prison than a hospital. It certainly didn't meet the western world's definition of hospital. Which kind of goes to the point of this story. If the Mars mission isn't return, or the astronauts are expendable...13 years isn't a big reach.

    • There's a earth-mars launch windows about every 26 months according to NASA. In twelve years, that's about 6 one way trips to test technology and set things up. That's not much for testing life support and perhaps local fuel manufacture. I would also like to test at least one autonomous return trip before sending humans but maybe I just value human life too much...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Thats only if you are using Chemical rockets and Hoffman transfer orbits. Use a Nerva Rocket and Mars is a 4 week trip. The Chinese wont be bullied by Environmentalists into not using Nerva rockets. At least for the Cargo thats the best way to go rather than Starship.

        • Yeah, but unless they already have a designed and tested nuclear engine that we don't know about they won't make it in time. Whatever tech they intend to use need to start flying right now. With human lifes on the line, you need reliable tech (if you value human lifes)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ghoul ( 157158 )
            They have 12 years. Apollo took less time than that with 60s tech.Its more than enough time

            • SpaceX started developing the Raptor engine in 2009 and as we've seen from starship, it is not ready yet (very close, but not ready). And, Raptor is a conventional, well understood engine. Nukes are not.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ghoul ( 157158 )
                SpaceX has had to go slow as till very recently they had cash flow issues. Only recently money from NASA has started coming in. China also doesnt need to pay California salaries to its scientists and technicians.
  • It's going to depend on when another country (or company) gets there first. They'll need time to steal the plans and then implement the changes to their designs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Like Nasa and all its stolen NAZI plans which allowed Armstrong to walk on the moon?
      • To the victor go the spoils. That was war you nincompoop. An evil regime was defeated. Here you have an evil regime stealing technology during peacetime. Big difference.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ghoul ( 157158 )
          From the Chinese perspective no guilt in stealing tech from an "evil" regime like the US. US companies kept doing business with Hitler's "evil" regime from 1933-1939. At least Hitler was not trying to get CFOs of American companies extradited for trumped up charges.
  • They missed the "S".

  • More believable than other China plans (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lady Galadriel ( 4942909 ) on Friday June 25, 2021 @12:40PM (#61520562)
    This is a bit more believable than many other China plans and claims. A long term goal, with straight forward objectives.

    For me, I feed everything coming out of China through my BS detector. Lots of things from official sources in China fail that test. And rather quickly.

    To be fair, other countries, like misc. western countries, (US included), have made claims that have shown to be overly optimistic, (to say it politely). So they too, need a BS filter. But, for them, it's not automatic distrust.


    To China, good luck, and be honest, if, (or more likely when), you have to delay, (or have an accident). State a real reason, (it's hard, and here is why is generally good enough). This will build trust, at least in your space program. Right now, most of the rest of the world does not trust much, (if any), of what you say. (And remember, even those that "claim" to trust you, are probably just feeding you what you want to hear.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      China has a lot of advantages over the US on something like this. They have an unwavering sense of racial unity and national pride. They are more willing to take risks - so if there is no return journey, that won't stop them. And they don't care about deficit spending. If they say they are going, then I bet they will.

      • Don't forget their unwavering political unity -- although "unity" is maybe subjective. They also have the advantage of an economy that is 75% the size of America's but actual costs are far lower, so their potential is probably several times that of the US. The only thing they lack is experience. When you consider how much "open source" knowledge is out there, plus anything they can get via espionage, and the fact that America went from suborbital flight to walking on the moon in about ten years, I'd say the

    • These days, you'd better just leave your BS detector on, full-time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Lets just adjust this to Elon time and it will be realistic.
  • Again ;-)

  • Without some some significantly improved designs, they will be sending irradiated corpses to Mars. I suspect they will be "readjusting" their extremely ambitious plans.

  • So that's why they call it the red planet.

  • I bet humans do not get to Mars before 2040 and that the majority of the crew will NOT be Chinese.

    China is currently undergoing a massive political crackdown, in part because their economy is in shambles (mostly caused by aging population - look at their demographics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Compare with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] )

    These two factors will strain there ability to do research on longer term science which space flight clearly is.

    The best outcome of this is to get other people

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I bet humans do not get to Mars before 2040 and that the majority of the crew will NOT be Chinese.

      A buddy and I are going to have stable wormhole technology ready by then. We plan to show it off by opening our first one to the Mars landing site and offering to help them set up their flag. Then we will give them a quick ride home.

      That would actually make a great plot for a book.

    • China is currently undergoing a massive political crackdown, in part because their economy is in shambles (mostly caused by aging population - look at their demographics:

      They have a billion people.
      Just how many scientists do you think they will need?

  • I would like to announce to all my plans for a crewed mission to Mars. I expect to get them there by 2032 beating China by several months.

    My plan is complete bullshit, and I expect China's plan is also complete bullshit.

    The Apollo missions to the moon were laid out with incremental steps, each one a lead up to landing people on the moon and bringing them back. Each testing a vital system for the landing and return. Even then Apollo was preceded by the Gemini missions. Gemini preceded by Redstone, Vangau

  • I was naively hoping that the first manned mission to Mars would be an international effort.

    • I was naively hoping that the first manned mission to Mars would be an international effort.

      How well have international efforts gone in the past? The ISS was a failure. Sure, it's been a long time spot for civilian astronauts to congregate but the original primary purpose for the station was killed to satisfy the limits of Russian space launch capability. The purpose of the station was to be a way point to points beyond Earth orbit. Because Russia was not able to reach an equatorial orbit the ISS was put in an orbit with an inclination too steep to serve as a way point. So, what purpose does

      • The ISS was a failure.
        You seem to be under a rock.

        The ISS is still in orbit.

        It is continuously manned.

        No failure at all.

    • The first manned mission to mars will most likely be an colonization attempt.
      It will most likely be a bit international.

  • Five bucks says if they do get there first they try to lay sole claim to the entire planet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      Maybe. The honest situation is, the first country to establish a military base on a planet that includes an effective missile defense system will own it and no one will be able to change that. Everyone else will need permission or will simply be knocked out of the sky before they can land. Reinforcing an established base with those distances is much easier than invading it, and although a drone swarm has potential for attack it has equal potential for defense of such a base.
      • What about manufacturing capacity?
        Earth can probably make more rocks to drop on the base than Mars can make missiles to stop them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jzanu ( 668651 )
          In this case there is no local manufacturing required because resupply supports the base as done now with other military bases. This is a statement about a potential military occupation effort not an RTS game. Fantasy cannon weapons could work both ways just like drone swarms, but that kind of old sci-fi technology is non-existent because it is already obsolete. Chaff and random path distraction cloud for MIRV exist and are capable of aiming and course correction/change. Even artillery munitions use that no

          • So you are resupplying the Mars base from Earth then...
            Just stop the supply at the source.

            The original premise was to stop them from owning Mars, not storming and capturing the base.

            It would still come down to who can make the most things. Not who got a toehold on Mars first.

            MAD makes the whole discussion irrelevant anyway.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Jzanu ( 668651 )
              Do yoly think any country would fight another on Earth, over access to aa distant planet like Mars? That's the core reason the only thing requried is simply having a defensible military base established. Another issue is the matter of materiel production on Earth. China wins there doesn't it? Not even the US can produce more, especially since the weaponry required in space is hi-technology computer controlled where simply having unskill people in assembly lines won't cut it. I'm sure you're just reaching

              • First, it's not a militarily defensible base.

                Second, it's irrelevant. If nobody back on Earth wants a war over it. Then country#2 just says let me have a Mars base also, or war.
                Is country#1 going to let them have one? Or shoot them down and start a war on Earth? The base is irrelevant at that point is it not?
                Either we have a war on Earth, and the base is irrelevant. Or neither wants a war, and country 2 sets up their base and the first base was still irrelevant.

                People on Earth cooperate best they can or

  • China will actually do it.

  • China will do it at half the cost of western efforts. Guess how.

    • China will do it at half the cost of western efforts. Guess how.

      They don't have to spread the work around in key congressional districts in order to continue to get funding?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by iqu ( 1918840 )
      India went to mars at a 10th of the expense of the US. Of course it took longer to reach there but we put an unmanned probe there. Search "Mangalyan"

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