Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2017

43 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2017 ments of the super- powers were much more motivated to achieve certain goals. The US-USSR rivalry in the space race was crucial in reaching the Moon. Since then, the more or less constant collab- oration and sharing of expertise between the major space agencies in the world have cer- tainly produced benefits, but none of it has carried astronauts further than 450 km from our planet’s surface. Aside from the projects in the pipeline, today the scenario is roughly the following: the ISS’s days are number- ed; the 2015 announcement of a new US- Russian space station is not being pursued; the Chinese dream of going to the Moon has suffered various setbacks, and little is known about the development of their plan for an Earth-orbiting space station; India ini- tially had a space program, which was sus- goal seemed to be to reach Mars, but then it was downsized to simply capturing an as- teroid or even merely some surface samples from one; now, with Trump, there are no more human missions to the asteroids, but rather new interest in the Moon, with Mars in second place. All this happens because there is no longer any real competition to conquer space, and the only nation that could relight that flame, China, is just now discovering the pitfalls of outer space. During the 1960s, fortunately, the govern-