Meanwhile, Back in Space
From Maciej Ceglowski’s excellent article:
It is likely, therefore, that the next decade will open with a Space Chase (the inevitable name), as China attempts to develop a space program from scratch faster than the United States can dust off its forty-year-old blueprints. There’s something charmingly retro about it - a rematch of the great 1960’s battle of ideology, using refurbished 1960’s equipment. On pad 1, we have Red China, the not-so-Communist menace, flying a souped-up clone of the Soyuz; on pad 2, there’s the United States, returning to flight in a tricked-out version of the Apollo. There may even be a pad 3, some kind of unholy alliance of Europeans, Russians, and Objectivist billionaires, flying a composite rocket powered by the sheer force of the market.