America looks inward, China looking to outer space

[LongTomH]

From the New York Times: As America Looks Inward, China Looks to Outer Space:

HONG KONG — While President Trump refocuses American industry on the earthbound technologies of the 20th century — coal, steel and aluminum — China is setting its sights on the far reaches of the solar system.

China this week launched a rocket headed for the moon, where for now only an American flag flies, with ambitions to land a spacecraft on its unexplored far side by the end of the year. It is just the most recent mission by the Chinese to advance their space program and supplant the United States as the front-runner in the space race.

China on Monday launched a relay satellite, a pivotal first step toward ensuring that controllers could land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon’s far side later this year.

That satellite will provide a relay for a rover on the moon's far side, where line-of-sight communications with the Earth are impossible.

A successful mission would be a significant scientific achievement as well as useful propaganda tool for President Xi Jinping, who sees China’s largely military-run space program as a vehicle for enhancing national prestige.

China landed an unmanned spacecraft, with the Jade Rabbit rover on the moon in 2013, and sent another spacecraft into lunar orbit a year later.



China has also sent its own astronauts, "taikonauts," into space. In the coming years and decades, China plans:

• A Mars rover by 2020,
  
• asteroid probes around 2022,
  
• a human carrying mission to the moon by 2025,
  
• Martian sample return by 2028,
  
• a robotic lunar research station by 2050 that would be visited by astronauts.


Remember when we were the leaders in space?

[appalachiablue]

1. How times change, and who would would have imagined..

[triron]

2. We are going backward while other technological nations

advance toward the future.

[LongTomH]

3. China now has more of the world's fastest supercomputers than the US

China's supercomputers race past US to world dominance"

China doesn't just have the single fastest supercomputer in the world. It now dominates the list of the 500 fastest.

For years, China has claimed the top spot on a list of the 500 fastest supercomputers. Now it dominates the overall list, too, pushing the United States into second place.

For the first time, China has the most systems on the Top500 list, 202, up from 159 six months ago. The US dropped from 169 to 144. And in terms of the total performance of those machines, China also overtook the US, the Top500 supercomputer list organizers said.

The news underscores the relentless ascent of China's supercomputing trajectory in recent years. It also marks a notable shift in the international balance of high-end computing power that's closely tied to industrial, academic and military abilities.

[appalachiablue]

4. Impt. news from NYT, *maybe also post in "Editorials & Other Articles" section

for exposure..

[LongTomH]

5. Done!!!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016207263

[appalachiablue]

6. Very good!