[techdragon]

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.

[jbay808]

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.

[yurish]

Soviet Union sent probs on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3

[coliveira]

And the US had to bring German scientists to have a space program.