The story

When China's lunar orbiter blasted off last month, there was not a cheer or smile or a "whoo-haaa" to be had in mission control.

Perhaps because for the government scientists, it was just another small step in an ambitious space program which could ultimately see a Chinese space station orbiting the Earth, a Chinese moon colony and a joint China-Russia explorer on Mars.

If all goes well, and so far it has, the Chang'e 1 will spend the next year orbiting the moon, mapping the surface and looking for resources. Next, the Chinese hope to send an unmanned rover to the moon by 2012, with a robotic mission to bring back samples by 2017. Officials have recently backpedaled from goals of putting a taikonaut (the Chinese version of an astronaut or cosmonaut) on the moon by 2020, but analysts believe that is still a pressing ambition. Read full article »

All About Manned Space Flight • Space Technology