Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 20:31:36 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] China Has Big Plans to Explore the Moon and Mars
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

It looks like, to me, that China is where or ahead of where we were in the
mid-sixties... excerpt without idiot politics deciding that the GOP
disliked the "Democratic civilian space".... (And if anyone wants to
argue, you'll need to do so in the context of the GOP in Congress in the
early nineties trying to kill the Station, and cutting its budget.)

Excerpt:
  China continues to ramp up its space activities, which include a new
launch complex, more powerful boosters and the construction of a large
space station, as well as plans for complex robotic missions to the moon
and Mars.

For example, China's "little fly" spacecraft looped around the moon and
returned to Earth Nov. 1 (Beijing time) after eight days of flight,
parachuting safely down in northern China's Inner Mongolia.

The capsule used seven kinds of thermal protection materials, returning
data that will be applied to China's Chang'e 5 robotic lunar sample return
mission, which is slated to launch in 2017 from the new Wenchang Satellite
Launch Center. [Greatest Moon Missions of All Time]

In the human spaceflight arena, China's manned space agency is readying
the Tiangong 2 space lab for liftoff around 2016, which will be followed
by the crewed Shenzhou 11 spacecraft and a Tianzhou cargo vessel that will
rendezvous with the lab.

Chinese officials expect that the core space station module will be
launched around 2018, and the orbiting facility is slated to be completed
by about 2022.

All of these plans form a comphrehensive space exploration agenda for the
coming years.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.space.com/27893-china-space-program-moon-mars.html>

        mark