<story><title>Astronauts enter China&apos;s space station [video]</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37699910?ocid=socialflow_twitter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jcoffland</author><text>My statements above were neutral but yes I do think that the US and the western world in general are falling behind.  What happens if US and Russian relations break down?  Privatization of the US space industry is interesting but has yet to prove itself.  No private institution has achieved manned orbit.</text></item><item><author>djaychela</author><text>True, but is it not the case that NASA is focused beyond the level that&amp;#x27;s being achieved by the Chinese? I appreciate that the sls has its detractors (I&amp;#x27;m from the UK so I don&amp;#x27;t think I have the same internal political perspective that a US commenter might), but aside from that the US government appears to have helped create a nascent private space industry that will yield real fruit in terms of both leo capacity and also beyond in the future?</text></item><item><author>jcoffland</author><text>China has now done 6 crewed missions to space in the last 3 years.  In that time, Russia has had 13 manned missions many of which NASA astronauts have hitched a ride on.  NASA is still on the ground since discontinuing the shuttle program in 2011.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>avar</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    &amp;gt; What happens if US and Russian relations break down?
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Isn&amp;#x27;t it literally the case that if the US wanted to send people into space on their own hardware they could do it with months of lead time with the Falcon 9, Delta IV etc.?&lt;p&gt;Those rockets aren&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;human rated&amp;quot;, but are they (particularly the Delta IV) any less safe then the Soyuz or Chinese rockets?&lt;p&gt;I.e. this seems more of a &amp;quot;we have some rockets, but it&amp;#x27;s cheaper to launch with the Russians&amp;quot; rather than &amp;quot;we can&amp;#x27;t do it&amp;quot; problem to me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Astronauts enter China&apos;s space station [video]</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37699910?ocid=socialflow_twitter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jcoffland</author><text>My statements above were neutral but yes I do think that the US and the western world in general are falling behind.  What happens if US and Russian relations break down?  Privatization of the US space industry is interesting but has yet to prove itself.  No private institution has achieved manned orbit.</text></item><item><author>djaychela</author><text>True, but is it not the case that NASA is focused beyond the level that&amp;#x27;s being achieved by the Chinese? I appreciate that the sls has its detractors (I&amp;#x27;m from the UK so I don&amp;#x27;t think I have the same internal political perspective that a US commenter might), but aside from that the US government appears to have helped create a nascent private space industry that will yield real fruit in terms of both leo capacity and also beyond in the future?</text></item><item><author>jcoffland</author><text>China has now done 6 crewed missions to space in the last 3 years.  In that time, Russia has had 13 manned missions many of which NASA astronauts have hitched a ride on.  NASA is still on the ground since discontinuing the shuttle program in 2011.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stickfigure</author><text>&lt;i&gt;No private institution has achieved manned orbit.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s because manned orbit is motivated by prestige, not rational economic behavior.</text></comment>