spacetoday.net: space news from around the webin association with SpaceNews


China backs away from manned lunar mission plans
Posted: Tue, May 18, 2004, 1:54 PM ET (1754 GMT)
Long March 2F launch of Shenzhou 5 (Xinhua) China will concentrate on developing a space station and has no plans to send humans to the Moon, a leading Chinese space official said this week. Wang Yongzhi, chief designer of China's manned spaceflight program, said Sunday that the country will focus on developing its own space station, a project that will take 15 years to complete. Wang said that while China will proceed with a series of robotic lunar missions, there are no plans to mount human missions to the Moon "due to financial reasons." Chinese officials have sent mixed messages about manned lunar mission plans, with a concensus emerging that such missions would likely not be attempted until at least 2020. He also disclosed that China has spent about $2.2 billion on its manned space program since its inception in 1993, a figure that the Chinese Xinhua news service described as being "far lesser than previously expected."
<<previous article   next article>>
news in brief

SpaceX launches Indonesia communications satellite
Posted: Sun, Sep 14 4:07 AM ET (0807 GMT)

Soyuz launches Progress cargo spacecraft to ISS
Posted: Sun, Sep 14 4:06 AM ET (0806 GMT)

news links
Thursday, September 18
Rocket Lab Looks To Raise $750M In Share Sale
Aviation Week — 1:53 am ET (0553 GMT)
Update: SpaceX Launch from Vandenberg Rescheduled Due to Weather
Santa Barbara (CA) Edhat — 1:50 am ET (0550 GMT)


about spacetoday.net   ·   info@spacetoday.net   ·   mailing list