With China possibly just days away from their first attempt to launch a human into space, space experts and officials around the world ponder just what the Chinese are up to
With China possibly just days away from their first attempt to launch a human into space, space experts and officials around the world ponder just what the Chinese are up to.
One suggestion is that after an Earth-orbiting mission, China may work toward using its Shenzhou spaceship for a trip to the Moon.
Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin told
SPACE.com that China could be eyeing a
future piloted flight of the Moon using this craft, depicted above in an artist's
rendering by Mark Wade. Such a mission would propel a crew into space and around
the Moon without landing.
A report earlier this month suggested China might send a spacecraft to the Moon in three years.
Meanwhile, the anticipated Chinese Earth-orbiting mission, rumored to be slated for launch Oct. 15, would be the country's attempt to play with the big boys, as one analyst put it. Only the United States and Russia have, up to now, independently put humans in space.
More about the Shenzhou craft is available here.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: Mark
Wade
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