There seems to have been a failure of will in the west where space is concerned. As I said before: if the west doesn't do it, then someone else will. Heinlein doubted whether there was intelligent life in Washington, but knew that Tokyo had a vision for the future. If he was alive today, he'd be saying the same thing about Beijing. Want a ticket to Mars? You might very well have to apply for a visa from the Chinese.
China's first Mars probe, Yinghuo-1, is expected to be launched in the second half of this year, an official of the Shanghai Academy of Space flight Technology (SAST) said Thursday... Yinghuo-1 would go into Mars orbit in 2010 after a 10-month, 380-million-kilometer journey.
