The US is arguably the brightest example, with the world's greatest economy, having famously announced plans to engage in a fresh space race. According to Dr Gbenga Oduntan, the US' space intentions are just a decisive move of the Trump administration to make a storm in a teacup by artificially launching a race:
"I'm afraid I'll have to agree with some contemporary commenters who seem to think that this is just opportunism by the current administration of the US, who are trying to engineer a race where there is none", the commenter noted, adding that this is a drive to make the Congress earmark money for a mission "that might even end up being impossible in the time frame, but the money would've been released and spent". He remarked that there are "satanic verses to the current plans of the United States of America, particularly in space".
"So in a sense, space is now the new military industrial complex", he concluded, dwelling on the US' ambitions to rattle the sabre, yet noting that contrary to the US, China has demonstrated that its Moon programme boils down to mere research:
"China's activities on the Moon, to the extent that we have seen, are quite clearly on the surface on the side of the Moon we've not been to before or seen before, they would want to have a presence on the Moon, a robotic presence, experimental and otherwise, but narrowing this down to just a manned mission on the Moon", Oduntan argued.
He has called out the "dramatic" project, which does not provide any "excitement" for humans:
"Anyway, we wouldn't sit in the driving seat of the American administration, we don't know what they consider important, but from where we sit as an international space lawyer, this is not exciting, I don't see the excitement there, even for space scientists", Oduntan revealed.
He specified that "the excitement" that researchers would wish for lies in the opportunities that space offers to solve human issues:
"There are 1,001 things that we still need to perfect, from tele-medicine, to the use of space for rescue missions, to disaster management, there's so many ways space observation is useful, these are the ways where we think, at least the scientists, the lawyers; we think we should be seeing progress, not in dramatic missions that tend to buttress the political fortunes of current politicians", the academic commented on the Lunar project, which is expected to be funded in part by the government, thus out of taxpayers' pockets, and by private sponsors alike.
The latter may meanwhile comprise military advocates, in line with the US' extensive lobbying practices carried out by dozens of influential interest groups. Voluntary organisations designed to support a specific branch of the American military have historically existed in the United States, with the nation's oldest military lobbying association being the National Guard Association (NGA). This one, along with several others like The Association of the US Army (AUSA) and The Air Force Association (AFA), were meant to draw public attention to a whole range of military issues, as well as bring up certain topics for debate in Congress.
, haluan sanoa että ihmisillä on uskomattoman hyvä kyky oppia asioita pelkästään näkemällä ja kokeilemalla. Ja tarvittava tekniikka kehitetään nopeasti kun tiedetään että se on mahdollista.