The Shape Of Things To Come?

Xinhua (More sections of China's own orbiting space station head up)

More 'Change': China Plans Manned Moon Landings As U.S. Rents Seats On Russian Rockets -- IBD Editorial

Americans better get used to it: Watching China's rockets and astronauts launching from Earth to explore new frontiers in space, near and very far.

With the U.S. space shuttle fleet now fully retired and decommissioned by the Obama administration, NASA must rent $62 million seats on Russian rockets to get Americans up to the International Space Station. And no farther.

On Thursday, the emerging superpower of China, flush with cash from its booming economy and overseas investments, released a major policy paper, announcing far more ambitious goals for its own national space explorations.

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My Comment: For the past 25 years I have made it a routine to visit the States at least once a year .... and I am usually in China visiting friends or former business colleagues every second year. These visits have given me a perspective that is unique .... but also sad. The United States that I learned to love and admire is not the United States of 25 years ago .... it has become something else. And while I am not going to bore you with on why I believe liberalism and statism coupled with union, Washington, and Wall Street cronyism has destroyed the vibrancy that once made America great ....I will instead point out that China .... a poor and confused country with multiple problems has instead embraced in the past 25 years what we have abandoned .... a free entrepreneurial spirit with a view and a determination to embrace the future even though (for most Chinese) they still live a destitute existence. Hope is what gives us the energy to continue ... and I can easily say right now that for the Chinese .... even with all of their problems and poverty .... they have buckets of it.

In the end, I do not know if the Chinese will succeed. The problems over there are incredible .... but I do know that we are failing, and if these trends continue there will be a day when we look at the Chinese as the trend makers, while the U.S. will become like today's Britain ..... a great empire that once was the center of the universe .... but is now just a so-so tourist spot.