Oh, I doubt it'll be another 45 years. But it's not all that likely that the next mission to the moon will be by the US.
Japan, China and India seem to be the prime candidates at the moment.
The US may wind up in the same place in history as China.
Remember, China started exploring the world *first*. Then for political reasons, they quit. If they'd kept on, they'd have contacted Europe instead of the other way around. And Probably colonized the Americas.
So instead, they got contacted by Europe and suffered for it.
Maybe so... America has always had this isolationist tendency, and with the way things are going that seems to be getting worse. That said, Mars may well end up being a company planet. Elon Musk has stated his plans, and Boeing have thrown their hat into the ring by stating they'll get there first [the entire twitter exchange between him and Boeing's CEO is hilarious...but ends in "Game on!"]. So one or the other will win that space race... although we all win really.
I suspect Japan's likely to get there first, with China ending up like Russia the first time around. But I could be wrong. Aside from anything else, if the International Deep Space Portal gets built at L5, then that's going to be a game changer for a lot of manned missions Out There.
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Japan, China and India seem to be the prime candidates at the moment.
The US may wind up in the same place in history as China.
Remember, China started exploring the world *first*. Then for political reasons, they quit. If they'd kept on, they'd have contacted Europe instead of the other way around. And Probably colonized the Americas.
So instead, they got contacted by Europe and suffered for it.
The US made the same kind of mistake...
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I suspect Japan's likely to get there first, with China ending up like Russia the first time around. But I could be wrong. Aside from anything else, if the International Deep Space Portal gets built at L5, then that's going to be a game changer for a lot of manned missions Out There.