Well, in the sense that Microsoft becomes a bigger and bigger problem with regard to security, I do agree

I was thinking the same thing. Or maybe near the pole, to look for water. They already have comms satellites in place to communicate with the far side.

I'd say they are likely to try something that is clearly different to what Apollo did, and what Artemis is doing.

Aiming for too big to fail, because his AI stuff is failing and he needs to be sure that you will be forced to bail him out when it does.

The Chinese government is doing basically what the US government did back in the 1960s. Set a goal, make it happen, fund it properly. Gives private companies the confidence to invest in space, even if they aren't directly involved with government projects.

Except they also do it for stuff like electric vehicles and battery technology, renewable energy, railways, semiconductor manufacturing, steel production, and anything else they feel is strategically important to their economy.

Their goal is "before 2030", so 2029 at the latest, and they are on track for that. They either have or are at the prototype stage with everything they need. Their mission is not over ambitious either, it's a medium size lander and proven technologies. Blue Origin is also going with a reasonably conservative lander, but Starship is a much greater risk.

That's an interesting idea. What do they gain from doing a flight around the moon? They get to test the spacecraft in that mission profile, but they have already landed things on the moon so stuff like the comms and navigation is already sorted out. They have a space station so have experience with long duration missions, and the moon is only medium duration.

Artemis didn't test separation and docking in lunar orbit, but Apollo 10 did. The Chinese can already do the docking reliably for their space station.

These days it would make sense to do a fully automated landing and return to lunar orbit first. Apollo 11 was the first landing of the LM because they couldn't do it automated at the time. But if you are in a hurry to get there, going for a crewed landing is certainly an option now.

In any case, they need to fly some more hardware first, even if only in Earth orbit.

There's also been some developments in AI that means that the demand may level off a bit. Google said yesterday that they can now train AI with servers distributed over the globe. If one region has cheap renewable electricity right now, they can move more of it there. So the need to build more capacity and more storage is reduced as well.

There are some similar developments coming from Chinese companies too, particularly around making AI more efficient.

Hopefully by the end of the year we will be seeing reduced prices, and maybe a flood of used storage from failed AI startups.

I about died laughing reading your post. You basically said, we can't help endangered species unless we first kill them all off BUT THEN we could help them because they are extinct.

Look at the reply below by zephvark...

Look up the Haast Eagle. It use to hunt the young of a Moa but their young are the same size as a kid...

Nope. That is insightless nonsense. It has nothing to do with open or closed.

Yes. Musk is not one as well. He has no clue how semiconductor production works. Here is a hint: A current ASML lithography system is 2 stories high, 160 metric tons in weight and requires 250 experts 6 months to assemble. And this idiot is hallucinating about "microfabs".

Indeed. He expects this insane and really mindless hype to be over well before any new factories could start producing things. That means likely less than 5 years from now. I think he is perfectly correct on that one.

It is like toddlers who try to turn every interaction to how much they like their legos. And the same level of maturity.

Do these haters think that Americans don't know our problems? Do they think their country is bereft of issues? Do they find their commentary useful?

As a corrolary, do they believe that the response to every subject should be US citizens making unprovoked and snide comments on issues in their country? Is it proper for me to point out ongoing racism in Europe when any topic is brought up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , a place of active genocide until the mid 1990's. Roma are not allowed to swim in Bulgarian pools today! Enlightened Europeans, claiming superiority just like they did in 1930's Germany, an inclination that will come out again if given the chance. The superiority complex is the start.

No, it isn't appropriate or even displaying any intellectual ability. It is like 5th graders sneaking mommy and daddies laptop and agitating at a similar level. What it is - is exceedingly small minds that are trolling hard and poorly. And it is a very bad and destructive look, and in prior activity, quite similar to the trolling by people with severe psychosexual problems and general hatred that brought down USENET. When I first was on USENET, I could have conversations with actual experts in my field. Then the perverts and axe grinders swamped the place. The experts and even the dilettantes all left eventually. I fear the retreads might do the same to Slashdot.

That has been clear for centuries. It just has become more mainstream knowledge now.

Indeed. Microsoft "security is our highest priority" security level successfully established!

Why am I not surprises these people screw up massively time and again. I mean who overlooked that such addons have no business being on a system with high access privileges? But now, a separate system for admin work is obviously too expensive...

Well, nobody that makes their money as a supplier and supporting suppliers admits it. Independent security experts have warned of this type of attacks being far too easy for a decade or two. This is not the first such attack. On top of that, LLM-type AI has put this kind of attack withing reach of pretty low skill attackers.

I do agree that more vetting is needed. Also, amateur-hour in supply-chains needs to be over. I am not saying FOSS needs to be over, but some insight into software security and supply chain security will also be required from people doing FOSS. That is unfortunate, bit the only way. The other thing is that plug-in environments need to be prepared for something like this happening. And, obviously, installing potentially dangerous add-ons on a machine with critical access is poor foolishness. The dev machines must not also be the admin-machine and that is something found in basically all popular modern security control catalogs.

This attack was only possible because several groups of people screwed up rather badly.