Word: lunar
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...With the two countries mired in a state of low-grade tension, it's not surprising that their efforts to be (and be seen as) the region's heavyweight have entered a new and higher frontier. Both countries are focusing on increasingly visible and expensive manned missions and unmanned lunar landings within the next two decades. Space exploration is one area of national endeavor where developing China, the third nation to put a man in orbit around Earth, is not scrambling to catch up with its wealthier, more technologically advanced rival. Make no mistake, says Joan Johnson-Freese, the chair...
...accomplishment triggered a historic outpouring of national pride, with China's state media portraying the country's first manned space shot as a triumph of native science, technology and collective will. Soon after the success of Shenzhou V, China upped the ante, announcing plans to launch an unmanned lunar orbiter before 2007 and a lunar lander by 2010. Chinese officials have also indicated that the nation's ultimate goal is to land a man on the moon...
...secure more generous funding from a skeptical government. This April, Tachikawa unveiled a new long-term planning statement titled "JAXA Vision 2025" designed to turn the space agency around and establish a manned space program. Over the next 10 years, says Tachikawa, JAXA will study the advisability of lunar exploration and figure out whether Japan should initiate its own manned program. The process won't be quick: he hopes for government approval...
...best parts of the shuttle will be cannibalized to build them. A mammoth new heavy-lift cargo booster will be assembled out of two of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and up to six of its liquid fuel main engines. This would be used to put an unmanned lunar lander and a small upper stage rocket into Earth orbit. A smaller booster, made of a single solid rocket and a single liquid-fueled engine, would then launch the four-person crew in the command module. The astronauts would dock with the lunar lander, light the upper-stage engine...
...plans. Nor is the science the crews would perform once they get to the moon. If NASA-not to mention the White House-wants taxpayers to take this plan seriously, they must tighten it up with a deadline that demands greater focus and a specific program of both lunar and Martian exploration. This week's plan is a very good start. Skeptical spacewatchers are right to demand more...