This will be a Russian-Chinese unmanned attempt to send a probe to Mars scheduled for October 2009. Nothing different from countless other probes sent by US or Russia in previous decades. In this regard the US is again way ahead their Russian counterparts and the newly contestants the Chinese, in the race to explore Mars. Of course Russia has the background and expertise to make such an attempt. But the collaboration between both countries just show how weak and limited their effort will be.

If Chinese rely on Russian rockets to reach Mars, collaborating to the project with just survey equipment, shows the enormous limitation they have in the field despite the latest efforts to portray themselves as the next space superpower. Vision doomers that focus on failed NASA projects or US budgetary constrains are not seeing the right picture blinding themselves with these new wave of Russian or Chinese space projects.

The problem for both countries is today´s global economy where not even giants like them could afford long shot space tries to grab a bunch of rocks. Their budget limits their exploration. Russians could not afford anymore ventures if they did not rent their rockets, share their technologies with countries like China or sell tickets to the next western billionaires.

If China jumps on Russian misfortune only to copy their space capsules or to share a Mars probe project leaving the Ruskies with their rocketry big bulk, how did they pretend to reach Mars with a manned mission on their own?

Their (Russia and China) unmanned exploration must likely succeed but one needs to consider the high percentage of Mars probe failure attained during last decade attempts on the red planet. That’s why NASA changed their Mars space doctrine after the late 90´s and early 2000´s attempting 300 million cheap probe launches instead 1.300 million expensive tries.

It was cheaper on the budget and easy on the Agency if for any reason a project missed the mark as they had occur in previous years. From the eight probes sent to Mars during the nineties, six were American one Russian and one Japanese. Four of the American probes failed or crash landed, the Russian and Japanese probes also failed. Only the American Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor survived the nineties Mars demolition derby.

In contrast, after the millennium nine probes were sent to Mars, six American, two ESA (European Space Agency) and one British. From them eight were successful including all the American probes except the British. This clearly exemplifies that cheaper less ambitious projects were the way to go.

For the next scheduled probes to Mars, six will be American (two will be share with ESA), one Canadian and one Russian, this the Phobos-Grunt probe (Chinese will travel with the Russian mission). It is clearly visible which country is ahead on the exploration of planet Mars and which one is just a newcomer not capable to afford their own launcher.

http://contenidos.educarex.es/cnice/biosfera/alumno/1ESO/Astro/imagenes/mpath_sojourner_pia01122.jpg
Mars Pathfinder succesful 1997 deployment on the surface of the red planet.

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