United States Left the Moon Landings to the Chinese
B. Obama administration's decision to withdraw from NASA plans to return to the Moon, opens a chance for China to become the second country in the world, whose representatives were ever on the Moon surface. "The Moon landing is China's obvious goal, and they can achieve it by the year 2020" - says professor, space exploration expert Ken Pounds.
He said that the U.S. administration's decision on NASA's manned flight program has left an "open the door" to the Moon to other countries. China has already set its own astronauts into the Earth's orbit, and has deployed its' first space probes to the moon. India launched a lunar satellite and found water on the Moon's surface, the country plans to conduct its' first manned flight into space in 2016. Japan has also set its' own lunar satellite.
U.S. withdrawal from the lunar program has made China the main candidate to set down their astronauts in the Moon. In 2004 Beijing officially launched the unmanned flight to the moon program, which provides the delivery of new satellites into orbit and setting down devices to the Moon's surface. They will be equipped with an automatic observatory and they will carry back to the Earth 2 kg of Moon rocks by the year 2020. For China's manned space flight program, the government provides 2 billion U.S. dollars annually - about one tenth of NASA's annual budget. China plans to release up to three orbital space stations in years 2011 - 2015. Manned flight program also proposes in 2022 to set down the astronauts on the Moon whenever the necessary funding is provided.
Experts note that the landing of people on the Moon in twenty-first century will be very different from NASA's Apollo program. Obscured and merged TV broadcasting, which was used back then, will be replaced by color images in high definition (HDTV) image.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/02/lunar-us-china-race-moon
Published by John Rivers
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