“Could”? No. “Will”? Yes.
Honestly they probably already have. The US is just coasting on inertia. The ISS is aging and will soon literally fall apart. China has built its own space station. China brought back samples from the moon just last year. Last time the US did this was in the 70s (around the same time as the USSR’s Luna missions). After they scrapped the Space Shuttle NASA had to beg the Russians to let them use their rockets. China built its own rockets, and they didn’t even need to debase themselves by outsourcing that development to a billionaire’s vanity project.
Pretty great way of looking at it. A lot of our space-power is being projected from the 70s-90s. Star-link is probably the most recent form of it and it’s not being projected outwards but rather inwards; entirely a surveillance network disguised as a internet provider, pretty much, lmao.
ESA and Japan have more note-worthy space programs as of the moment even in just the West.
The ISS is aging and will soon literally fall apart.
It kinda already is. There have been more and more reports of worst and worst leaks in the hull happening that they can’t plug.
I was talking about it being decommissioned and breaking up in the atmosphere, but that’s a good point too.
I’d argue so as well. The US is not capable of putting up their own space station into orbit right now. They can barely even send astronauts to the ISS at this point.
and have major issues bringing them back down to Earth also.
Really a shame for the country that “won” the space race.
