[FPSPACE] PRC to beat USA in return of humans to the lunar surface, NASA official says

[Peter Pesavento]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/science/story/39784.html

 

NASA's associate administrator says so.

 

Posted on Wed, Jun. 04, 2008


China likely to beat U.S. back to the moon, NASA says


Robert S. Boyd | McClatchy Newspapers


last updated: June 04, 2008 07:49:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Here's one Olympic-style event that China is likely to win:
landing the next humans on the moon.

Chinese astronauts are on schedule to beat the United States back to the
moon by two or three years, the head of NASA's lunar exploration program
said Wednesday.

``If they keep on the path they're on, they can" land before Americans do,
said Rick Gilbreth, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems.

The goal of NASA's Constellation program is to return astronauts to the moon
by 2020, as proposed in President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration.
Gilbreth said the Chinese could accomplish that by 2017 or 2018.

The Chinese lead will be even longer if the American schedule slips, as some
space experts predict.

Beating the U.S. back to the moon would be a feather in a resurgent China's
cap with psychological as well as military implications. Last year, China
became the first nation in the world to shoot down a space satellite,
setting off alarm bells in the Pentagon. Some defense analysts foresee a
long-range competition between the U.S. and China for future military
control of space.

America is still far ahead of China in space. The Chinese are aiming to
duplicate a feat that this country accomplished almost 40 years ago. The
first two Apollo astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, when Richard Nixon
was in the White House.

In addition, NASA's back-to-the-moon program is substantially bolder than
China's.

``They're taking an Apollo-like approach,'' Gilbreth said. ``Our program is
much more ambitious than Apollo. We're going to put four people on the moon
for seven days, eventually for six months. China is looking for a minimum
capability. We're looking to put an outpost on the moon.''

He called China's space program ``very impressive,'' but said, ``We're not
in a race. We're going for the long haul.''

China's interest in space dates to the 1950s. It sent up its first satellite
in 1970, lofted its first astronaut into space in 2003 and launched a
mission to orbit the moon in 2007.

Russia has landed robots on the moon but not humans.

NASA's new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit is scheduled to launch this November.
The first unmanned test flight of Orion, the next lunar lander, won't come
until 2015.

As for the 2020 target for U.S. astronauts to land on the moon, a
blue-ribbon panel of space experts recently expressed doubt that the
timetable will be met.

``Human missions to the moon by the year 2020 ... are exceedingly
unlikely,'' Kathryn Thornton, a member of the panel and a University of
Virginia engineering professor, told the House Science Committee on April 3.

 

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