Survey Says...
Continuing our week-long blogiversary celebration, one of the popular new features we added this year is surveys. So far we have done one on the Singularity, another on God and the Singularity, a survey on the Future of Space Development, and still another on the lieklihood of the Space Ark scenario.
Before running any official surveys, we did a poll related to a report that Sweden is planning to build a moon colony. Here are the results. Note how low Japan scored in the ranking of likely moon-colonizers.
Very interesting in light of this item from today's news (via GeekPress):
Japan sees manned moon station in 2030
Japan's space agency has set a goal of constructing a manned lunar base in 2030.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has revealed its ambition to an international conference in Tokyo this week but has not yet been allotted the budget for the ambitious project.
JAXA hopes to launch a satellite into lunar orbit next year, followed by an unmanned spacecraft that will land on the moon and a probe ship that will collect samples from the moon.
So this raises a couple of interesting follow-up questions:
1. Will they make it by 2030?
2. If so, will that be the first permanent moon settlement?
Comments
My guess is that a fair amount of libertarians read this blog, so they *want* to think that a private developer will get to the moon first - also keeping in mind all the hoopla of the X-Prize in recent times. This may very well be the case, but we have to keep in mind that governments are radically better funded that private individuals at this point. Japan is more futurist than China and possesses better technology, what weirds me out is that people would vote for Japan over China.
Posted by: Michael Anissimov![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 3, 2006 12:11 PM
2030? Not a chance, the timescale is way too long to sustain political interest in the project.
Now, if they'd said 2020 or 2015 I'd be more inclined to believe it. 2030 has been chosen as most of the people making the claim will have retired by then and can blame their successors for the failure.
Posted by: Will Sheward![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 3, 2006 04:18 PM
China does fall slightly behind in technology but they are catching up very fast. Plus economically they have been the fastest growing nation for 28 years with no signs of slowing down. Japan economy has largely been stagnant the past 16 years and they are 1st or 2nd most indebted countries in the world. Japan also doesn't even have a manned space program yet...China does.
Posted by: RiseOfTheRev01ution![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 3, 2006 10:02 PM