China Invites Venezuela To Join Moon Base Project (spacenews.com) 98
China has invited Venezuela to join its lunar research station project as the country works to gain partners for the endeavor. SpaceNews reports: Venezuela would be the first country to join China and Russia in the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), which is planned to be constructed in the early 2030s using super heavy-lift launch vehicles. The launches will follow smaller, precursor missions later this decade. Marglad Bencomo, executive director of the Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities (ABAE), visited China's new, national Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) March 30 to discuss cooperation and exchanges. She was met by Wu Yanhua, former deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and now executive vice chairman of DSEL. The two sides exchanged in-depth views on international cooperation in the field of deep space exploration, according to a DSEL statement.
Bencomo said that Venezuela was willing to sign a China-Venezuela Memorandum of Understanding as soon as possible to jointly promote the construction of international lunar research stations, according to the DSEL statement. ABAE has been invited to attend an international forum hosted by DSEL during China's national "space day," held annually on April 24 since 2016, potentially providing a platform for signing an MOU. China and Russia presented a roadmap for the joint ILRS in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2021 and opened the project to interested parties.
Bencomo said that Venezuela was willing to sign a China-Venezuela Memorandum of Understanding as soon as possible to jointly promote the construction of international lunar research stations, according to the DSEL statement. ABAE has been invited to attend an international forum hosted by DSEL during China's national "space day," held annually on April 24 since 2016, potentially providing a platform for signing an MOU. China and Russia presented a roadmap for the joint ILRS in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2021 and opened the project to interested parties.
You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:5, Interesting)
If you need the aerospace powerhouse Venezuela to go to the moon. Though they just want the equatorial location for the launch base.
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Was my first thought as well, but then I don't see how China would ship their rockets around half the globe to have them launched from Venezuela.
Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
Those Germans aren't that efficient, you know. Every single one of those rockets was in pieces by the time it was delivered.
Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:4, Insightful)
China has better options than Venezuela. Venezuela is completely on the other side of the world. Unless they want to transit through the Panama Canal under the watchful eyes of the American military, they will need to go through Suez and Gibraltar, or around Cape Horn.
They could launch from Hainan, which is home turf, and only a bit further north.
Cambodia is a close ally, and just as far south as Venezuela, but much closer and more politically stable.
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Wouldn't they need radio relay stations on the other side of the globe for a Moon mission? We had them all over the planet for Apollo.
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Wouldn't they need radio relay stations on the other side of the globe for a Moon mission? We had them all over the planet for Apollo.
I imagine that could all be handled with satellites.
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:1)
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
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Europe does it with all the Arianes. Not that much of an issue, apparently.
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Oh, wait...
Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:4, Interesting)
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Considering what the US has been trying to do to Venezuela, I think you should completely understand why Venezuela would like a Chinese military base.
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Yes, the people who stole democracy from their own people in Venezuela find themselves with more in common with China than the US who would like them to return it to their people.
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Right supposedly the Venezuelan government stole democracy from the people. This meant that the West could steal Venezuelan money, that is the people's money, such that basic infrastructure could no longer be maintained. This is the great logic that the Westerns love to employ.
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Right supposedly the Venezuelan government stole democracy from the people.
Not supposedly. Their current government overturned their own large and legitimate loss in 2015.
This meant that the West could steal Venezuelan money, that is the people's money, such that basic infrastructure could no longer be maintained. This is the great logic that the Westerns love to employ.
Their economy was already in a complete tailspin before major US sanctions. While I'm politically a Leftist (at least by US standards) they went with all sorts of Leftist policy that we know dont work like price controls on food. Just in that one category they went from being self sufficient in regards to food to having to import almost all of it because farmers cant afford to farm anymore in that country.
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You mean they overturned their 2018 elections.
No, I meant their 2015 election. https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com] , https://www.state.gov/venezuel... [state.gov]
But since you brought 2018 up, yes that election was considered dishonest by pretty much everyone.
As to their economy being a tailspin. There are plenty of articles around 2014-2015, suggesting collusion between the US and Saudi Arabia to collapse oil prices in order to punish Russia and fuck up their economy in return for annexing Crimea.
Venezuela's economy started it's massive decline in 2013. Yes oil prices did exacerbate this but the same people who stole their democracy are the ones who made their country almost wholly dependent on oil wealth, the rest of their economy had already turned to shit by this time. To tie this back to my one exam
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
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They did. First by kicking out the oil majors and then by firing anyone who knew what they were doing and replacing them with Chavez toadies. Net result, they can no longer actually produce oil.
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Yes, after the current government refused to acknowledge their massive defeat in 2015 the US did begin trying to destabilize their government. At no point was that ever trying to "steal democracy" though because by that point they had no democracy.
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Considering what the US has been trying to do to Venezuela
When was the last time the US did anything to Venezuela?
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It's not a launch base, they'll get an agreement to set up Chinese military bases in Venezuela, completely friendly you understand ...
And Venezuela also has the world's largest oil reserve. China is going to really clean up on this deal.
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
Sounds like a good opportunity to bring Chinese Food to Venezuela.
Re:You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with the moon. It is a Chinese power move over Venezuela thanks to the $68billion in state-to-state loans China has given them over the years.
3rd world nations have been desperate to suck on the teat of Chinese "generosity". They are only now findout out they are drinkig sour milk.
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Yep, just like all the African countries that have cozied up to China, they are now learning there's a terrible price to pay, completely losing their autonomy.
I wonder if the US will let Venezuela complete this deal, seems doubtful. Could get rough.
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
How would they do that? China engineers it so the African countries are so indebted to them that they'll never be free of them. Just tell them they aren't gonna pay the money back? Don't think that'll work.
Re: You'd have to be pretty desperate (Score:2)
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That's not only whataboutism but also irrelevant. The USA could literally be asking for the death of every firstborn in return for loans, great, submit a story about that. It's not a relevant part of a discussion about why China and Venezuela are doing what they are doing now.
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Do their new engines run on cocaine?
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Venezuela has been launching rockets for over a decade.
You didn't read your link. Venezuela has launched zero rockets. All three of Venezuela's satellites were built by China and launched by China from Chinese launch sites. Venezuela just paid for them. Most likely they took out a loan (from China) to pay for them. Venezuela has no space program at all. They have a handful of people who know how to read the data from satellite downlinks. They're glorified IT guys.
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They need it as a base to nanogrow their space elevator.
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So then the plan would be for Maduro to leave the Venezuelan people with a debt they can't possibly pay and then, in exchange for not being repaid, presumabably China will eventually demand control of some important national asset, likely something having to do with petroleum p
Who? (Score:3)
China's newest vassal (Score:3)
Xi needs another chain
http://mediadc-brightspot.s3.a... [amazonaws.com]
Venezuela is completely broke (Score:5, Informative)
Venezuela?? What's the point of making grandiose costly plan with a partner that is desperately trying to conserve last pennies, and is politically unstable? Even if somehow the current regime stays, the chances they'll be interested in keeping this commitment a decade from now are nil.
The country's infrastructure is gone. Even basic electricity (our civilization lives by electric power) is unavailable, the power stations having been unmaintained since 1999 then physically looted. People are starving and trying to escape, the government forces are an army + gangs trying to stay in power despite having lost all recent elections, shooting opposition instead of trying to impose order.
And this country is trying an achievement that even first-world countries can't get their asses to do?
Re:Venezuela is completely broke (Score:5, Insightful)
Venezuale is a satelite state in this regard.
China is smart and they plan things way, WAY in advance (think 100 years minimum). They will invest in Venezuela, rent land there, build roads and whatnot, then simply ask for favors/products instead of money, and pretty much any government that will be there will jump at the opportunity (by lack of choice, really).
Most of the African continent is controlled by China from the shadow (not even a thick shadow), time to move to the South American continent now.
Re:Venezuela is completely broke (Score:5, Interesting)
WAY in advance (think 100 years minimum). They will invest in Venezuela, rent land there, build roads and whatnot
The Maduro regime is unlikely to last 100 years.
When democracy is someday restored, Venezuelans might not be too keen on paying back loans that supported a dictatorship.
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Some countries will remain locked in this endless cycle for a long time. Just look at Russia.
That's one problem.
Another is... a country's debt is not simply going away because the regime changed (unless you change a good one with a bad one).
China: "Where's my money?"
New Venezuela government: "You know... we just kicked out the bad guy, we're strapped for cash"
China: "no worries, you can pay us in $STUFF during the next 100 years".
Replace $STUFF with pretty much anything: an area to launch spacecraft from, o
Re:Venezuela is completely broke (Score:5, Informative)
While normally countries are supposed to repay debts after a change of government, there's:
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While normally countries are supposed to repay debts after a change of government, there's:
Did you even read the link you provided? Because it very plainly says it not "the world works this way", it's "some people would like the world to work this way, but they're mostly ignored". And for good reasons too, might I add.
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
What do they have to lose if they don't repay it? An already bad credit rating stays bad?
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Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
Except for that last bit, they're already dealing with that right now. But even then, in this case it doesn't sound like they'd be liberated by any Western countries, rather it sounds like they could get Russian style liberation.
And despite how bad it is in Ukraine for Russia, I think it would be even worse for China if they tried anything like that with Venezuela. Particularly when the US is just looking for an excuse to establish a naval blockade in the South China Sea, which China is very unlikely to be
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That's a theoretical concept. It obviously wouldn't work in reality. Nice wet dream for many, though.
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Did the US pay CSA's debts? Do you expect that when Assad gets ousted, democratically elected Syrian forces will pay for him -- or the other way around?
China knew beforehand that they're backing one of the sides of the conflict, rather than a possibly hated but uncontested ruler.
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Although China has dumped about half of their US Treasury holdings in the past 18 months they still have hundreds of billions left that they can't dump without immediately cratering the value. Why not use that to retire much of Venezuala's debt in return for whatever China is after there? Seems like a win-win.
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
China never held many to begin with.
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China was the largest holder of US Treasuries ever until the past year or so. They're 2nd behind Japan today.
https://ticdata.treasury.gov/P... [treasury.gov]
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
Biggest single holder maybe, but as an overall percentage, it was never that big. The reason China is divesting is likely because they realize that what happened to Russia will likely happen to them, as they're basically trying to do the same shit.
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China: "Where's my money?" New Venezuela government: "You know... we just kicked out the bad guy, we're strapped for cash" China: "no worries, you can pay us in $STUFF during the next 100 years". Replace $STUFF with pretty much anything: an area to launch spacecraft from, oil, fertile land, timber, steel, cement, etc.
Venezuela: “Oh? That deal you made with the guy we jut kicked out? Sorry about that. Go collect from him.”
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Yeah, it doesn't work that way.
If a country could write off its debt just because of a regime change, all debts worldwide would be written off every 4 years or 5 per country.
It's as if I'd go to the bank and tell them "sorry, guys, I owe you nothing because I got a new cat, the old one died, go get your money from it".
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Yeah, it doesn't work that way.
There are a number of ways to do that, beyond just refusing to pay.. They could nationalize industries, for example, that are foreign owned. If the deal is that debt is paid from revenue from a project, they can pass, or not pass, law as impacting the revenue In addition, corruption in the loan process is also a potential way to invalidate debts.
If a country could write off its debt just because of a regime change, all debts worldwide would be written off every 4 years or 5 per country. It's as if I'd go to the bank and tell them "sorry, guys, I owe you nothing because I got a new cat, the old one died, go get your money from it".
My point is, once you build something somewhere, you effectively lose the ability to control it and ensure whatever deal was in place stays in place.
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Of course they could do that. Look how well it works for Russia. /sarcasm
In reality, any country which takes that path becomes increasingly isolated and falls behind even further.
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Of course they could do that. Look how well it works for Russia. /sarcasm
In reality, any country which takes that path becomes increasingly isolated and falls behind even further.
true; but my point is, by financing projects via China's EXIM bank, they have taken on huge credit risk.
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Of course they could do that. Look how well it works for Russia. /sarcasm
In reality, any country which takes that path becomes increasingly isolated and falls behind even further.
true; but my point is, by financing projects via China's EXIM bank, they have taken on huge credit risk.
By they I mean China.
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The risk is small to none.
Look, China has too much cash to care. They are sitting on a giant pile of money they need to use.
China investing in Venezuela is like me buying a cheap lottery ticket, I couldn't care less if I don't win.
On the other hand, the leverage this (relatively) small investment brings, now that's where the real value is.
Read this article, especially the Debt Trap Diplomacy section.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2... [chathamhouse.org]
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China: "Where's my money?"
New Venezuela government: "You know... we just kicked out the bad guy, we're strapped for cash and you supported him. We don't like you."
China: "no worries, you can pay us in $STUFF during the next 100 years".
New Venezuela government: "nah, we'll pay you nothing, and form an alliance with Taiwan. suck it."
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Yeah, that's not going to happen. It basically sends a signal to the world that you can't reliably do business with that country.
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
Which changes what?
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If you can't figure that out, I'm afraid we can't have a proper conversation.
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
The rest of the world already knows they can't reliably do business with Venezuela, especially with their price controls. So again, what changes?
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
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Venezuelans might not be too keen on paying back loans that supported a dictatorship.
It doesn't really matter. When Russia became communist, they refused to pay any loans taken by the Tsarist government. Since in communism, money isn't real anyway, etc.
When Russia left the Soviet Union, they had to pay it. You can restructure your debt, but the international community cares about nothing more than debt repayment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The Maduro regime is unlikely to last 100 years.
When democracy is someday restored, Venezuelans might not be too keen on paying back loans that supported a dictatorship.
Government changes do not eliminate past debt. Cipriano Castro (a dictator), refused to pay the debt of Joaquin Crespo (a previous dictator), so the Germans, British and Italians sent their navy to block our coasts to force the government to pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]–1903
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But all I see is an old-school emperor that’s crushed what little efficiency and forward-thinking that the CCP had during the late-1900s. I mean, they used to h
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If you care to pay some attention to what China has been doing during the last 30 years, you'd be very much surprised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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In terms of economy-normalized-per-person, they went from “Zimbabwe-level” to “Slovakia-level”. In other words, from the very bottom to squarely in the middle. There’s a reason they call it a middle income country. They aren’t rich. They aren’t technologically advanced. Their economy isn’t really all that sophisticated. They’re just big. Really, really big. And, yes, that counts but size isn’t everything.
The
Re: Venezuela is completely broke (Score:2)
This is just another Chyna debt trap, nothing new or ground breaking there⦠just the new overlord putting his bloody filthy greedy heel on a new subject.
The point? Resources (Score:5, Insightful)
Venezuela sits on quite a bit of natural resources like oil and ore. Them being dead broke due to their own stupidity and with an "increasingly authoritarian" head honcho in charge makes them an ideal fit for China. He'll do as they say, they get the stuff they'll need (later) for a song, and they get plenty influence to turn the country away from "the West". China tends to take the long-term view. In that respect they're "inside the curve" on Western decision making.
With China so much on the prowl, you'd think USA and EU would take notice. But no.
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Hey, what would you do? Buy the cheap stuff and look the other way or take notice?
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and they get plenty influence to turn the country away from "the West".
There is no "east" or "west", it's a globe. There are no races, it's a single human race.
Don't give in to the people who want to divide us with hate.
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USA (and to a lesser extent EU) can't really make long term plans cos the political leadership may get changed in anything from a couple of years to every decade (if they are lucky) and the next bunch of leadership may turn everything upside down.
Whereas China is planning for the next few decades to century. Even before the current Xi leadership, China was doing long term planning.
Re:Venezuela is completely broke (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is simple. This has nothing to do with Venezuela building infrastructure. It's China using desperate ploys not to write down foreign debt. They have over the past 10 years invested heavily in providing finance for African and South American nations (reminder nothing is free). But even where the finance has gone into building something the financial returns haven't happened. As a result China has been doing all sorts of fancy accounting tricks to write down their investments.
I suspect this was a power grab. "All your launch-platforms are belong to us, unless that is you want to repay the $68billion in state-to-state loans we lent you."
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It will be a source of income and investment for Venezuela. The Chinese will pay them to do research and design work. Help build up Venezuelan universities and their skill base. The technology can be commercialised too.
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It will be a source of income and investment for Venezuela.
Investment? What fucking return on investment do you expect from building a space station on the moon?
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Yes. It's a good thing that Western countries and banks all sanctioned Venezuela, and froze Venezuela's accounts, such that Venezuela could not pay to maintain the country's infrastructure causing runaway inflation as well as other issues.
People try to put all the onus on Venezuela, but when you're fucking sanctioned to hell, as a small country, there's little you can do about economic collapse, even if you have a competent government or not.
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Even basic electricity (our civilization lives by electric power) is unavailable
There are certainly electricity outages, but uptime is in the high 90's, even in the countryside, where I live. There hasn't been political violence since 2017. Exaggerated accounts of Venezuela don't help at all. Perhaps China is willing to look at things through a different eye than Miami and extend an olive branch, even if they wouldn't really need us for the moment being.
Slight problem (Score:2)
They don't have a super heavy launch system, and certainly not a reusable super heavy launch system and they sure as heck won't have one by the 2030s. They are about 20 tio 30 years behind.
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America went from nothing to footprints on the moon in a decade.
Elon Musk is moving even faster.
It doesn't take 20 to 30 years to build a space program.
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Elon Musk is moving even faster.
He is? SpaceX has been launching for over a decade - but I don't see any new footprints on the moon yet... He's I guess he's moving faster on a per inflation adjusted dollar spent though.
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Yep, keep telling yourself that. Next stake is "then they win". It is far too late to slow down China significantly. Only Xi can do that now and so far he has not gone off the rails enough for that.
Starship will change everything (Score:2)
It is high likely to be flying regularly this year.
It is designed for quick, simple manufacturing and there are already several vehicles in store that could launch within months.
It can launch 150 tons to orbit and be reused, or 250 tons if you throw it away like some dumb old SLS system.
It will change everything about access to space.
My point:
Spacex could have multiple manned bases on the moon before China and Venezuela (sic) get a single
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Alpha (Score:2)
The purple wigs are made in China, but they needed some hot Venezuelan women to wear them.
China gets everything they want...again (Score:2)
So, let's see here. China gets: A foothold in the western hemisphere for a military base especially a naval one; all the oil it wants and more control over the world supply; a place to build a launch facility although they could probably do that on those new islands they built; a partner with another anti-western country. Venezuela gets what?
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Venezuela gets what?
Money.
The more the merrier (Score:2)
Belt and Road is all over Latin and S. America (Score:2)
This video gives a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Dear USA Congress:
instead of bipartisan bickering here is a good metric to make for every decision that comes your way - ask:
which decision improves our competitiveness with China?
Venezuela (Score:2)
China should set up a Oil REFINERY in Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]