The moon is up for grabs! Let's take all our wars up there!:
Beijing, China (AHN) - China is looking forward to India's orbiter launch in April, just as it blasted into space on Wednesday night a lunar probe that will spend a year exploring and mapping the moon.
The launch paves the way for a Chinese astronaut landing on the moon in about 10 years.
Japan is not far behind, when it sent a moon orbiter into space in September. India will send its version next April just ahead of the United States that will launch a moon probe next year.
"Japan began its lunar exploration research much earlier than we did," said China's top mission official Zhang Jianqihe, pointing it out it's not a matter of who made it first.
Japan's lunar probe launch a month ago was "very well done," said Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist behind China's lunar probe, adding he was looking forward to India's orbiter launch.
The launch came four years after China became only the third country - after the US and Russia - to launch a man into space. Over the next two decades, Beijing aims to land an unmanned lunar rover on the moon, retrieve lunar samples, and eventually put a Chinese astronaut on the moon.
China doesn't participate in the International Space Station because the US is uneasy of having a crew from an authoritarian state onboard.
Authoritarian state? Didn't we let a Saudi go up a while back? So why are we allowed on the International Space Station then?
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