It's impressive how far China has come in just 2 decades. How significant is this achievement space technology wise? I still remember the first rover on Mars and it was a really big deal in my eyes back then.
The significance is that that space travel is becoming a commodity. In the recent past we had several countries attempting moon landings. The Chinese landed successfully. The Israelis had a failed mission recently. The Indians crashed (on purpose) a probe on the moon. The Japanese, Iranians, and probably a few others have each launched satellites into orbit. It's getting crowded there.
The other significant thing is that there is now a bit more urgency to the matter of getting humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars. The Chinese are preparing to set up their own space station and are obviously interested in going to the moon and Mars and they seem to have the technical capability to get there. It's a bit like the early days of the space age when NASA and the Russians were competing for getting there first. NASA seems busy fighting domestic battles for funding rather than getting stuff done. They got a lucky break with SpaceX having a bit more focus on that front and proposing something that might actually fly. Now they need to get serious about actually making that happen. If they don't, somebody else will.
Assuming the Zhurong Mars rover can be successfully released in the next few days, China will become the second country in the world with a working rover on Mars.
I think it’s very significant. Interplanetary navigation and retro propulsive soft landings are tricky to get right. Several recent lunar missions have failed and historically about half of missions to Mars crapped out. China is rapidly racking up a very solid track record with their lunar and now Mars landings. Also rovers are a significant step up in complexity and capability from static landers.
The Long March 8 architecture looks like it’s suitable for adaptation for first stage recovery, and they have expressed the intention to attempt it, so China are lining up to overtake Russia as the strongest competitor to the US in space technology.
When the entire world moved their factories there and then started to import everything, what else would you expect? It's funny how communists beat capitalists using greed to their advantage.
Now it's a matter of time that communism will be seeping through every country fabric and it will be the end of the free world as we know it.
Consider that China is banned from the ISS and other kinds of space technology collaboration programs. China had to develop all space technology on their own. Some perspective on how significant.
It is not like even you are open all US research to one country in an instant, they would be able to build their own next decade.
China did a really good job figuring out the know-hows and had their domestic team geared up for the job. That is nothing to be dismissed, like tired 'China can't do shit without stealing our technology' circlejerks would like to indicate.
When you look at the history of space travel. One of the first space programs (NASA) originated from Germany developments. North Korea nuclear weapons from Soviet undercover collaboration. Not familiar with specifics for your claim above, but just stealing is a miniscule part of what is really required for this type of effort
In the context of for-profit business I wholeheartedly agree with you, but in the context of space exploration, if there is research about how to go to the moon and Mars that can be "stolen," isn't the moral culpability on whatever entity is hoarding that knowledge?
Or is going to the moon and Mars the achievement of certain parts of humanity, to be kept secret from other unwanted parts of humanity?
Not downplaying the achievements as they just achieved something the Soviet and Russian programs could not even at the height of their powers during the space race. But there are plenty of countries most notably Russia that have allowed China to purchase military/dual use technologies. Hardware such as advanced fighter jets, missile and rocket technology, and there’s also the huge numbers of tertiary education students who leave China for education in advanced fields before returning home for their careers. All of this will have contributed in some way to advancing China’s space flight program.
They didn’t achieve this in a vacuum, let’s not perpetuate the notion that China is isolated from the rest of the world.
Did the Soviets make any major attempt for Mars? I thought that after the moon, they were mostly focused on Venus during the space race. Their ~28 Venus missions were no joke, with up to 5300 kg payloads for lander + orbiter, comparable to the Zhurong lander + orbiter payload of 5000 kg. Perhaps someone more skilled at rocket science than me can comment on the relative difficulty of moving mass to Mars vs Venus. From the table in Wikipedia's delta-v article they look about the same.
That said, congratulations to China for this achievement, and the more rovers we have on mars, the more science we learn. I hope China also has a new space telescope on their to-do list.
The other significant thing is that there is now a bit more urgency to the matter of getting humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars. The Chinese are preparing to set up their own space station and are obviously interested in going to the moon and Mars and they seem to have the technical capability to get there. It's a bit like the early days of the space age when NASA and the Russians were competing for getting there first. NASA seems busy fighting domestic battles for funding rather than getting stuff done. They got a lucky break with SpaceX having a bit more focus on that front and proposing something that might actually fly. Now they need to get serious about actually making that happen. If they don't, somebody else will.