AsianScientist (Mar. 31, 2016) – According to various media sources earlier this month, China has developed a crewed spacecraft capable of orbiting the Earth and landing on the Moon. What else do we know about this spacecraft?
As it goes, not much. Not much at all.
The main source for this information is a Chinese spacecraft engineer by the name of Zhang Bo Nan (张柏楠), who has released some tidbits of information through Science and Technology Daily (科技日报) the official newspaper of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China.
In the article, Zhang compares the ship to the Orion spacecraft and mentions that it is capable of carrying multiple taikonauts. It is also reusable and has re-entry capabilities (which are useful if you don’t want dead astronauts)… and that’s pretty much it. No pictures, no launch date, no nothing.
Various other sources write that the spacecraft has been developed, or is in development. There is a big difference in between those terms—and the difference could mean that China is either ten years away from a manned mission… or ten days. I’ll explain why later.
So is this just more sabre-rattling in light of Trump’s recent ambition to return Americans to the lunar surface? POLITICO reported in February 2017 that the Trump administration wants a rapid return to the Moon as part of the greater vision to send a crew to Mars by the 2030s. How rapidly? Apparently Trump and co would like to see a crewed round-the-moon trip by 2020. And by the end of February, SpaceX had declared that they plan to send two privately funded astronauts to fly around the Moon in 2018.
So it’s fair to say that if Trump gets his way, an American lunar mission is on the cards at some point in the next five years, so it’s hardly a surprise that China has announced their own lunar capabilities, even if it is just a hint of what may be to come.
NEXT >>>
