How will society feel if Russia goes to the moon?

Question

Or, how will Americans feel if Russia goes to the moon in a few years? Would NASA attempt to go to the moon again and will a new space race emerge?

Answer 1

N.A.S.A. is planning to go back to the Moon in 2019 to 2024 to set up a lunar base, and Russia is part of the E.S.A.(European Space Agency) and last i heard there not planning a Moon mission before N.A.S.A. is.

Answer 2

It depends whether they try to claim it as part of their continental shelf.

Answer 3

The easy (and sarcastic) answer is that we'll complain that their cosmonauts are too young.

However, being that we've "Been there, done that, got the rocks", it is difficult to imagine how it could turn into another race.

If they go now, it is because they are going for the silver medal, trying to get there before the Chinese.

Now, if they were going for Mars (and they are about just as ready as we are), then we might have a race.  But that might still be decades away.

Answer 4

>How will society feel if Russia goes to the moon?

What society? People in different parts of the world would likely feel differently about it.

>Would NASA attempt to go to the moon again and will a new space race emerge?

NASA is already planning to go back to the Moon. They will probably be the first ones to manage it; theoretically China could pull it off first if they really put a lot of effort into it, but since they aren't really in a Cold War situation they probably won't bother. Russia, in the meantime, doesn't really have the resources to make it feasible, and if they did it, it would probably be a joint effort with, say, the ESA or China. In any case I don't think NASA would change their plans significantly just because someone else managed it first, unless the russians did something REALLY drastic like put a laser cannon up and programmed it to shoot at anything else trying to get to the Moon.

>will Americans be disappointed in themselves?

Many of them probably would be. Americans (and people in general for that matter, but especially americans) are quite competitive, and the idea of someone else 'winning' wouldn't go over too well. That may be one reason NASA is planning to go back.