In the 1960s, everything is Space Race and no other things. Such as nowadays, everything is AI and chips, and nothing else. So, you can see that now China is having the largest scale of military exercise around Taiwan, but Taiwanese Weighted Average stock index broke record high and Japanese Nikkei 225 also at year-end record high. Why these indexes did not fall and still have record high? It is simple and clear that Japan is backed up by US, but Donald Trump is a merchant; he is just a CEO of the United Sates Company Limited rather than the president of US. He has no interest to protect the democracy, freedom and human right of Taiwan, what he really wants to protect is the factory of TSMC which has 18 branches and 5 fabs (research centre) in the island of Taiwan.
So, for any single stock, we not only have to know the financial report, dividend and company outlook, we have to know the importance of that industry and the position of that stock in the industry. India has 1.46 billion population and China 1.41 billion (see page 12) still cannot have a factory like TSMC in Taiwan who just has 23 million. This is the focus and this is the point.
So, when you want to know more concerning Mars related stocks, you must have a full view of Space Race from 1960s till 2026.
In early stage of Space Race, Russia is running faster and ahead of US. The sputnik crisis gave the whole nation of US a shock. The Project Mercury is left behind by Russia. After President Kennedy announced that US should send astronauts to the Moon and return safely by the end of that decade, the Moon Landing project is divided into two projects, that is Project Gemini and Project Apollo. Gemini is a 2-crew project aiming at rendezvous, and Apollo is a 3-crew project, the commander left in Moon’s orbit and 2 crews will mount on a lunar module to land and then back to the mother craft.
There are 12 fights of Gemini all in the orbit of earth (see page 11). In Gemini IV, there is a space-walk. In space, there is no gravity and no support underneath the feet, how can they walk? Actually, he walks with his gun, the astronaut holds a thrust gun, when he shoots back, the body will move forward, when he shoots down, the body will move upward. The legs are completely no use. However, they have to test the pressurized suit when going out of the capsule and expose to the universe, and see how long is the effect of staying longer in universe. Gemini V is the first craft that has a week-long flight when is the round trip from earth to Moon. It proves human body can bear such a long time.
So, it comes the rendezvous. Gemini VIA flies up on 15th Dec 1965 and Gemini VII one day later at 16th. Two tiny man-made crafts have to meet in the endless universe. The calculation of orbit must be very accurate but cannot crush together and just meeting. The film at that time shown a tiny lighter object very far and come nearer and nearer later, for the side of spacecraft facing the sun is in white and another side in black. They really had rendezvous and the whole Houston Space Centre rejoiced greatly. They fly side by side. Gemini VIA played Jingle Bell by harmonica in Space for Christmas, the first music in space.
Gemini VIII is most important, for it will meet with another uncrewed space craft and have docking, that is 2 crafts will link up as one craft. The method is the same as spacewalk, the crafts have tiny thrust gun to propel backward/forward, upward/downward in order to link up two crafts. Of course, when successful, next flight will be 2 crafts are manned. There was a malfunction and nearly have to cancelled the flight, but the commander is Neil Armstrong, he overcame the unexpected disorder and made the docking successful. So, he was appointed to be the first man to land on the Moon of Apollo 11, because it might have some unexpected happening which need a gelivable (capable) crew to overcome it. Congratulations to Neil Armstrong to become the historical astronaut!