[FPSPACE] new Chinese claims

[KEITH GOTTSCHALK]

> During the International Astronautical Federation (IFA)
annual congress in Rio de Janeiro, China has  >unveiled
details of the new heavy-lift launch vehicle. Powered by
kerosene/LOX/LH engines and >four strap-on boosters, the new
800-ton, 50-55-meter high launcher will be capable of
lifting 23 tons into > LEO in single-stage configuration and
11 tons into geostationary transfer orbit. 

   That cheerful news seems to place this new Long March ?
XXX at just a nose ahead of the Proton,  Ariane V, Titan 4B,
& the shuttle in payload -  if & when it is successfully
launched.

    The following verbal claim, that China will go to the
Moon, IF that occurs, & IF that includes human as well as
robotic explorers, might be the only way, perhaps twenty
years from now, to prod Congress & NASA to drag out of the
formalin George Bush's mothballed statement of 1989 "Back to
the Moon - this time to stay."