Report: China Plans to Launch Moon Probe

AP/Yahoo.com ^ | November 2, 2003 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

BEIJING - China plans within five years to launch a probe to orbit the moon, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday, citing a space program official.

The announcement came as China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, was in Hong Kong making his first public appearances since orbiting the Earth last month.

Since the success of Yang's nearly 22-hour flight inside a Shenzhou 5 capsule, there has been a stream of disclosures about the ambitions of the once-secret space program.

"China is to launch its first moon-probing satellite in the next three to five years," Xinhua said, citing an interview with Zhang Qingwei, deputy head of Yang's delegation in Hong Kong.

Plans call eventually for landing a robot probe on the moon and retrieving samples of the surface, Xinhua said. It did not say when that would happen.

China's space program is a key prestige project for the communist government, which launched its first satellite in 1970.

After satellites and manned space flight, a moon probe would be the "third milestone" of China's space program, Zhang said, according to Xinhua. The moon probe would be launched aboard one of China's Long March III A rockets, he said.

Officials say the country plans to launch another Shenzhou capsule within two years and eventually wants to send up a permanently manned space station.

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, left, applauds as China's first man in space, astronaut Yang Liwei completes signing an autograph on a poster of an Exhibition on China's first manned space mission at the exhibition opening ceremony in Hong Kong's Science Museum, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2003. Beijing gave Hong Kong the opportunity to host Yang's first public appearance since he orbited Earth 14 times, hoping the instant superstar's visit will infuse locals with a bit of the patriotism that's been missing since the 1997 handover from British sovereignty. (AP Photo/Anat Givon)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Soviets weren't an emerging economic power.

[Qwinn]

"Since when does the US Gov't own space? And why should anyone have to apply to the holy Federal Bureaucracy for "permission" to explore it?"

It's actually not a license to explore space - it's a license to build missile or other delivery systems necessary to explore space that could also be used to, for example, deliver a nuclear bomb halfway around the world.

There's laws against that. Call it an "assault missile ban". It's not totally unreasonable. But the overall effect is indistinguishable from making it a requirement to get a license from the government to be able to explore space.

Qwinn

[Pyrion]

Welcome to the 1960's, China.

[clee1]

Centrally managem economies NEVER work effeciently: never have, never will.

As long as the people at the top are the only ones to realize economic benefit, there is no reason to do your work well.

I predict that it will be 50 years before China lands a man on the moon - it will be a capitalist society long before that happens.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Secrecy vexes Sino-US space ties*** For all its value as a new addition to the planet's hopes for seeking out new forms of life and expanding the horizons of the known - the Shenzhou program is still quite solidly embedded in the Chinese military system, experts say. Yang was sent off by a military official, and greeted upon return by a military official. Indeed, the Shenzhou V recovery took place on the anniversary of China first successful nuclear weapons test in 1964, a symbol not lost on some Chinese commentators.

In the aftermath of the US led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Chinese military has taken note of US satellite systems that coordinate attacks. Sources say it is US satellites that most concern the Chinese. As Johnson-Freese put it in a paper delivered Friday at Harvard, "The Chinese, while advocating a treaty to ban space weapons, have also made no bones about working on anti-satellite technology. Kinetic energy weapons, jammers, parasite satellites that can surreptitiously attach themselves to other satellites, and high-powered ground-based lasers [have] all been on the Chinese menu of options being pursued. The Chinese are also interested in navigation satellites, which can enhance missile targeting capabilities."***