We Win Science!

Hey guys! China is going to launch three astronauts this month to dock with an orbiting experimental module, and the crew might include its first female space traveler. At least that's what their government news agency is saying. To this, I say, "Congratulations, and welcome to the twentieth century."
You heard me right. I'm having a little bit of fun at the expense of the country to whom we owe, at last check, a little over one trillion dollars. Or about fifty times the cost of the United States' Apollo Program. The one that took us to the moon. And those were 1969 dollars. Like way back when dollars. The kind of dollars that we are now so nostalgic for that we make science fiction movies that fondly reference the fun we had up there, planting the Stars and Stripes and playing golf and tearing around in our moon buggy. And after we bagged up a bunch of cool rocks, and stirred up the dust a bit, we came back. And we left the place a mess. Because we're Americans and that's how we roll.
Oh, and that whole "female space traveler" thing? Been there. Done that. Even the Russians had the good sense to get in that game early on. It took us a little longer, but we got an American Woman in space nearly twenty years ago. In the eighties. That was during our space shuttle phase. Back when we were regularly sending our fleet of space trucks up to various floating outposts amidst the stars. That whole deal only cost us a little over two hundred billion dollars. We could do it all over again five times for the money we owe them.
If I sound smug, it could be that I'm just feeling my oats as the United States gears up for the next phase of our exploration of space: The privatization program. James Cameron is going to up there soon, mining asteroids and bringing back the riches of the universe. Or at the very least setting up very expensive package tours to sell to Chinese tourists.