I knew it! China will beat us to Mars, just watch! They have a lot going for them honestly. With the huge swelling of nationalist pride, it wouldn't take much to convince the people their that putting boots on Mars would show the world how much more superior China is to the rest of the nations.

Best case scenario is that the US sweet talks China into joining an international effort for the trip/colonization.

China is about leave the US behind. Any one reading the comments page on any of the posts here can see the political divide and state of the deteriorating economy is dragging down America. I am not a hater, I love America but from my view it will be a long road back to leading the world. It is not about Dems or Rep both have SOLD you out. These people can't agree on the color of the sky.

I still love space exploration and the great legacy of th Apollo missions ( a government program by the way)

Hope China does beat us to Mars. It'll be a wake-up call for us to get back again on our space travel track, too. It would also encourage more nations to participate in joint ventures. None of our countries can afford doing this on our own anymore.

The red planet and Mao's little red book.

Honestly, I don't care who gets there first (I'd like it to be me), as long as people are starting to push out from this planet. Earth is a single point of failure for the entire human race. Nationalism will just turn the whole world into the US congress and we'll die of stagnation.

Amazing how many of the commenters jumped to the wrong conclusion. What was announced was just China's plans to send unmanned orbiters and landers to Mars, with one lander going to the Mars moon Phobos. No mention of "manned missions", but that's what far too many assumed it was about!

If you follow the the "written statement" link in the article above you'll find a little more of what Boldin had to say about his recent visit. It's interesting how similar the language is to that of the "U.S.-China Joint Statement" from November 2009 (that's when Obama went to China and stood on the Great Wall in a wind breaker).

A snippit from that statement reads as follows: "The United States and China look forward to expanding discussions on space science cooperation and starting a dialogue on human space flight and space exploration, based on the principles of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit. Both sides welcome reciprocal visits of the NASA Administrator and the appropriate Chinese counterpart in 2010." For the whole statement follow this link http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-china-joint-statement

It really sounds to me like the stage is being set for real cooperation between the super powers in terms of space programs. Although, it is the government talking so it still sounds very shady. and as a matter of personal opinion I for one don't like doing business with Communists. But I'm keeping an open mind on issue.

 WE went off to space, got there and just like everything this country does, it was just once so we could puff up our egos.  All that effort just to build a space bus and crash it on a regular basis.  If this country could just figure out what it is that we want and JUST DO IT, we might be more than a buch of braggerts.

  We could have been on mars 20 years ago if we did something with the genious of this country. This country has just figured out that, If you pinch your egotisticalm butt too tight all you do is cut off the circulation to your head.

Sounds like all that they are trying to do is an orbital insertion. But to do this by 2013, I'll just have to wait to see if they even make that deadline. The big difference now is to see how the commercial space business will take off in the US. If this takes off like they hope, I think the American public will start to get more interested in space.

 by the time the usa gets to mars,,,,there'll be a chinese walmart waiting for us;-)

Government contractors did almost all of the work, but it was indeed organized by the govt.

HAHAHA there are sure alot of people on here that either dont follow the news or follow whats going on with our space program. China is decades behind America in all phases of space exploration, they just sent a manned spacecraft into a low orbit, that is all they have done. What was the year that we had people walking on the moon ? ummm 1969 where was china ??? hmmm has China ever made a shuttle that could land like an airplane ? mmmmm no! Have we already sent probes and rovers to mars ? ummm yes , did we piggy back a russian rocket ummm no! Dont give China too much credit they have a long way to go....so all you American haters should just move to China and shut up !

I'm sure the NASA chief discussed with the Chinese how the agency is trying to interface with muslims and how they can better understand NASA. Mars? What about Mars? Is space travel that important as the Chinese listened carefully.

Someone wrote "Earth is a single point of failure for the entire human race." That's right. And it always will be. The human body is evolved for this environment, and no other. For this gravity, with immunity for Earth virus's (except those that kill us), for this level of radiation, for this cycle of day and night. To think we will find another Earth-like planet to go to is silly. Humans will never leave this solar system, and Earth is the only place we will ever be able to live at.

So what we need to focus on for the future of humanity is solving political problems and man-made global warming. And at least thinking about long term plans to deal with global catastrophes like volcanoes (one major eruption at Yellowstone could end civilzation as we know it) and global climate change due to natural cycles.

It would be nice, fun to send humans to Mars. It won't happen in the lifetimes of anyone alive today, but it would be cool. But to think of Mars as a place to re-settle humans? Never. No magnetic shield.

Duh, I know our landers were first. In the 70's I was an undergrad in a university's extra-terrestrial geology lab. The professor in charge of analying photos of the Martian terrain later created the maps that guided our first lander in. What I really meant was that after China clears her own technological hurdles, she'll continue going all-out in the intent to be first with MANNED landings. Newsweek recently claimed that attaining international prestige is foremost with China, and a manned landing would do it. But being no dummy, she knows she'll need help. This is where Russia enters in...but maybe also Japan, Western Europe, and even...us! In today's crazy mixed-up world, a multi-national space travel projecy on a scale this large could be a huge leap towards peace.

Mr. Boyle: Why didn't you say in the first place that it was an unmanned mission being discussed??  Of course everyone thought the opposite.  There are many millions of people in this country who are sick that the US is not aggressively pursuing manned missions to the Moon and Mars.  I for one would be delighted if China kicked certain people off their lazy butts with an aggressive space program. 

The more we get excited about people getting involved in space the better for us all. Technology is a wonderful thing and when it becomes important to the masses, just think how much can be gained.

hopefully he doesnt get attacked by aliens

I think it's great that China is growing up and looking outside itself, looking to work with the rest of the world's nations to push space exploration and research. This nationalistic hooey about "boots on mars" is for losers. Anybody heard of the ISS? Google it and be amazed at what international cooperation can do. China cannot and will not go to mars alone. I'm sure they have already reverse-engineered everything NASA, Russia, and the ESA have done in the last 50 years, so they're already "working with" the international community. If they pay the biggest share of $ (or Yuan) in the overall budget for a manned mars misssion maybe they'll get the first astronauts to walk on mars. Maybe we flip for it? Rock/paper/scissors? Who cares? Go humans!

We need to send the entire population of Pakistan to Mars. Then maybe we get back to fixing this planet.

The sudden "fear" that China will become a leading-edge space power, that China may team up with India or Russia or both and that the combine would eclipse NASA in the "race to Mars" is key to understanding the sudden shift of focus from a renewed effort to land a more advanced, longer term expedition to The Moon to the current "lunar bypass" policy. First is history. Second, third, or last are footnotes. US space tech and space prestige are once again facing challenges and nothing could be better for NASA and all concerned with or connected to it. Given the current economics, it is unlikely that NASA will get a major funding increase any time soon. As I have said so often, until the gigantic military squid becomes a creature of the past, there is not enough capital available to truly explore either Mars or The Moon. Curbing the appetite of a destructive global military, which is draining GDP everywhere with one war after another and another, is essential to building an industry capable of supporting human ex-ter expansion and colonization. Diverting human and material resources away from the military, away from warfare and into a progressive, systematic approach to exploring our nearest and most accessible neighbors may take a century.

It would be an economic tragedy if NASA were given resources to attempt putting humans on Mars.   Due to the culture of putting "technology" over "value", NASA has not produced an economically useful first stage booster since the Saturn V.   NASA has wasted so much of its resources on the $pace $huttel that it has ruined American Space Exploration

Think where we might be if NASA embraced THIS technology instead of the $pace $huttle

"http://www.buzzle.com/articles/big-dumb-boosters-low-tech-path-to-orbit.html"

They build a 3000 mile Freeway in 2 years and we cant even rebuild the twin towers with ANYTHING in almost 10 years.

All we will be doing for the next decade is chasing our tails....sadly.

Still proud to be an American, at least sometimes!

You might want to read some of the articles that NASA has written on Mars. Most if not all of them mention that for a manned mission to Mars it would be A.)LOOOONG B.)Lonely C.)very isolated. Then there is the problem of the sun slowly robbing what little atmosphere Mars has, and the radiation exposure on the side that faces the sun would be higher than humans can currently tolerate, the dark side is just above absolute -0-, so you would freeze to death before you even got started. Nope, Mars is not the next step ladies and gentlemen, we go back to the moon and then further out into the cosmos searching for our new home. Mars is to subject to being a death trap for human kind, and I'm not so sure that in reality that it is all that stable of a planet anyhow. Makes more sense to go from here to deeper space, because when the sun does go out, if Mars is still around, it will be the first planet to go in the explosion, then where will mankind be?