.....and this stops other countries from launching space missions of their own because...?

Never said "it stops". We could say, though: "Don't keep your hopes up high too much"! "Don't count your eggs before they hatch". "Don't waste a shitload of money in failures, instead of tending to immediate problems dealing with survival of people". Somewhere here, my question fits in to be re-asked... "Have we fixed all problems currently here, even at least the most important ones, before moving on to space"?

...and these questions somehow don't apply to Russia and China? O_o

China = mass emigration
Russia = in a much better condition than europe

Europe is in the brink of undoing, literally. And it still went and spent a shitload of money in a failure. Without even having the required technology/qualifications/proof reserved and double-checked for such a heavy task guaranteed, first... Despite your clever talking tricks, this single thing was the most stupid thing europe could ever do. Definition of toxic investment.

But you are living there in america, son, you will not be overtaxed to death or severe poverty, so just enjoy your time there. When your economy starts getting worse, the warmongering idiots you elect will drown their allies in a war or something, so they can save their dollar, which they keep printing without the rule of equivalent gold, even.

Guys, do y'think.....do y'think I should tell him that Russia is technically part of-
...
Nah.

The only manned lunar orbital flight so far was Apollo 8 in 1968. Sadly, none of the Russian N1 rockets ever made it past the separation of the first stage (as technically impressive as they were).

Well, Russian technology was never really advanced, but it was more robust than other technologies.
The power of russian technology is, that it keeps everything as simple as possible and therefore failures seldom happen.
On the other hand, the western technology is really complicated and therefore it provides more possibillities for failures.

Don't worry, soon Europe will technically be part of Russia, should your soon to be newly elected muppet puppet start something stupid enough that they cannot and certainly won't, finish.

For some reason, anyway, americans do a small portion of their space technology parts, as shopping from Russia... Just saying. But obviously, america is nowhere near the state europe is in. Space programs is the LAST thing europe should have in mind; much less digging inside pockets for...

I'd hardly classify as "communist" a guy who's nothing but a common crook; who's been robbing every penny that comes from EU instead of applying it on Greece; who ignored the will of the people when (years ahead of England) Greeced opted out of the Euro; and who's been backed by Clinton in the shadows.
Nope. Doesn't sound like a communist to me. You guys should hang him on the Acropolis as an example to traitors. And I'll even send you my country's politicians for free to embelish the show ;)

But let's not derail the post.

A friend of mine knows a couple of guys who work at the ESA. Basically he thinks that the great difference between NASA and its european "counterpart" is that the americans are on it because they really love Sci-Fi and space travel. The europeans are on it just for the €€€
Don't know if that explanation fits or not.

Just going to say that Russia sent 10 Mars missions including a lander, rover or penetrator (actually, 7 for Mars, 3 for Phobos) and a single one lasted for some 15 seconds after landing, others failed completely. Many didn't even reach Mars. Last big failure was Phobos-Grunt in 2011, which cost China their orbiter as well. NASA has 10 attempts too, but only 2 failures, both on the same mission, due to that embarrassing measurement system mixup.
And Russia has recent failures under its name even for ISS flights, if fortunately so far only for supply runs. A manned one is bound to fail too sooner or later though, unless NASA can get its act together and have something of their own again, after idiotically scrapping the shuttle before (WAY before) a replacement was ready.

But I keep saying space shouldn't be a matter of what country does what, but a major project for the world, everyone should work together and really look up and explore what's out there, each doing what they can. But have the bigger economies fund it at the level it was in the US during the space race.
Down here we know a lot and we have the abilities to do a lot, it's more a matter of willingness which is lacking. Out there, we're still barely taking our first steps.

We may already have pictures of the bits.

I guess it depends on one's definition of landing.

It was advanced in some ways; I'd say that on the whole, the Russians were ahead in some fields because they just put more focus on them -- space stations, for instance. The Americans on the other hand put a lot of research into reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles. Technically Buran was more advanced than the Space Shuttle, but it was more complex, and more costly...and it was rushed out the door half-baked for political reasons, to boot.

That's only because a lot of research into engine development was centered around engines for the Space Shuttle, which for a variety of reasons just aren't suitable for what companies like SpaceX are doing (though that apparently isn't stopping NASA from trying to use a modified version of them on the SLS/Orion stack).

From what I understand the US basically bet everything on the Space Shutle, which arguably from the beginning was hamstrung by politics, and people unwilling to invest the necessary resources into making sure the Shuttle could deliver on its promise (if it even could, with the available technology). And it's not like Russia's space program hasn't suffered from bureacratic and budgetary issues either. Their own manned moon program is proof of that.

It's never really been about who's better than who. It's always been a matter of finding a way to make large-scale investment in national space programs a politically profitable goal.

You are talking to a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn_(political_party)]neonazi supporter[/url]. You think that anything isn't about that ?