Re: Is USA going to be embarrased by China getting to Mars first

apparently China already has ten times the number of staff employed in
their space industry. India and Russia must also be thinking along the
same lines.

Yes, but China's current launch rate and hardware is not currently
reflecting this advantage. They are far below Russia and do a good job
for competition with the go nowhere quickly Space Shuttle.

There are a number of reasons why this is so. One reason may be the
fact that a lot of know how has already been acquired by NASA and ESA.
New launchers are usually produced as derivants of old.

The real threat would come if China were to have a breakthrogh in some
field where NASA did not start from an overwhelming know how base. I
refer here to robotics, the playing field here is a lot more level than
it is for launchers.

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