21st Century Space Race

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I'm sure most people are aware of the poor state NASA is currently in. The US government is making a grave mistake not giving more support to what may be the most important agency your country has. Though I do have faith in the private space industry, and the future of Western space flight could remain bright. They might have an ace up their sleeve.

That is all good and fine but the newest player in manned spaceflight, China, could overtake the US and its allies in having the most advanced space program. Why? Because China is making space a priority. Their government is putting a great deal of effort and foresight into their program. This in truth reflects Chinese policy of long-term gains. They have a plan, and a vision, for the future of space. The US government cannot really say the same. The "vision" shown by most presidents amounts to little more than rhetoric. With each presidency the priorities seem to change. There are no "five year plans" for NASA. The American people and government are truly fair-weather friends to NASA, which could be their greatest mistake

NASA and its associates really need to light a fire under their asses. Space is the future. The high ground in conflict, the treasure trove of mineral resources, and eventually a place where people live and work. If more resources are not allocated to these organizations the US et al will be left behind while the Chinese gain hegemony over Earth and its colonies.

We have no money.

But yea, certainly would rather spend on space exploration than I would wars or bailouts.

Why is space so important right now?

The Chinese do have the most population, so if they start the emigration into space it would make some sense. It would be weird if the official language of Mars and most of the solar system were Chinese though.

It would be nice if China decided to accelerate their program and stick with it. What the US and Russia discovered was that it wasnt worth that much money. Maybe China will come to a different conclusion, which would spur the US to spend more.

I expect they'll grab some laurels (moon flight?) and then retreat to a slower pace, like everyone else.

http://en.goldenmap.com/Antimatter_cata ... propulsion

if funding was placed in the right direction, like Freeman Dyson's Orion project in the 50s or the modern version of it Antimatter Catalyzed Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, which was researched at Penn State, then space would be worth it.

"Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion is a variation of nuclear pulse propulsion based upon the injection of antimatter into a mass of nuclear fuel which normally would not be useful in propulsion. The anti-protons used to start the reaction are consumed, so it is a misnomer to refer to them as a catalyst.

Traditional nuclear pulse propulsion has the downside that the minimum size of the engine is defined by the minimum size of the nuclear bombs used to create thrust. With conventional technologies nuclear explosives can scale down to about 1/100 kiloton (10 tons, 42 GJ; W54), but making them smaller seems difficult. Large nuclear explosive charges require a heavy structure for the spacecraft, and a very large (and heavy) pusher-plate assembly. Small nuclear explosives are believed to stop shrinking in overall size and required fissile nuclear materials at around 25 kilograms weight, so smaller pulse units are much more expensive per delivered unit energy, and much less mass efficient than larger ones. By injecting a small amount of antimatter into a subcritical mass of fuel (typically plutonium or uranium) fission of the fuel can be forced. An anti-proton has a negative electric charge just like an electron, and can be captured in a similar way by a positively charged atomic nucleus. The initial configuration, however, is not stable and radiates energy as gamma rays. As a consequence, the anti-proton moves closer and closer to the nucleus until they eventually touch, at which point the anti-proton and a proton are both annihilated. This reaction releases a tremendous amount of energy, of which some is released as gamma rays and some is transferred as kinetic energy to the nucleus, causing it to explode. The resulting shower of neutrons can cause the surrounding fuel to undergo rapid fission or even nuclear fusion.

The lower limit of the device size is determined by anti-proton handling issues and fission reaction requirements,

Tuning of the performance to the mission is also possible. Rocket efficiency is strongly related to the mass of the working mass used, which in this case is the nuclear fuel. The energy released by a given mass of fusion fuel is several times larger than that released by the same mass of a fission fuel. For missions requiring short periods of high thrust, such as manned interplanetary missions, pure microfission might be preferred because it reduces the number of fuel elements needed. For missions with longer periods of lower thrust, such as outer-planet probes, a combination of microfission and fusion might be preferred because it reduces the total fuel mass.

The concept was invented at Pennsylvania State University before 1992. Since then, several groups have studied antimatter-catalyzed micro fission/fusion engines in the lab (sometimes antiproton as opposed to antimatter).

Work has been performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on antiproton-initiated fusion. In contrast to the large mass, complexity and recirculating power of conventional drivers for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), antiproton annihilation offers a specific energy of 90 MJ per µg and thus a unique form of energy packaging and delivery. In principle, antiproton drivers could provide a profound reduction in system mass for advanced space propulsion by ICF. Antiproton-driven ICF is a speculative concept, and the handling of antiprotons and their required injection precision—temporally and spatially—will present significant technical challenges. The storage and manipulation of low-energy antiprotons, particularly in the form of antihydrogen, is a science in its infancy and a large scale-up of antiproton production over present supply methods would be required to embark on a serious R&D programme for such applications. The current (2011) record for antimatter storage is just over 1000 seconds performed in the CERN facility, a monumental leap from the millisecond timescales that previously were achievable"

NASA is at the mercy of whimsical politicians as it always has been.
With the exception of myself and a minority of others, the American public could care less what the Chinese or Russians do in space because we’re more interested in “change”.
NASA’s budget may seem big to us but by comparison to other programs it’s negligible.
I blame NASA for its own decline, as well. They don’t do nearly enough to relay the scientific fruits of their work in space to the public so therefore the public is in the dark and only sees it was waste. NASA says that a government agency can’t advertise itself but that doesn’t mean they can’t hire a contractor to do it for them like everything else.