China Plans To Reach Mars by 2020 and Eventually Build a Moon Base (techinsider.io)

Rebecca Harrington, writing for Tech Insider: China has plans to orbit the moon, land people on it, and eventually settle a moon colony. But that's just part of the nation's vision for space exploration: China intends to get a spacecraft to Mars by 2020. "Our long-term goal is to explore, land, and settle [on the moon]," Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's moon and Mars missions, told the BBC. "We want a manned lunar landing to stay for longer periods and establish a research base." Weiren didn't specify when the country plans to accomplish these goals, but he did say they will "check out" the far side of the moon before attempting to land astronauts there. This mission already has concrete plans. He also said China wants to reach Mars by 2020, and implied that the country has finally settled on a mission to send a rover to the Red Planet. "We will orbit Mars, land and deploy a rover -- all in one mission," Weiren told the BBC.

Comments

Then stop talking

[NotDrWho]

Then go do it.

Talk is cheap, bitches.

Re:Finally

[Areyoukiddingme]

They have't started shit. So far, they're just TALKING shit.

Well yes and no. They did land a rover on the moon recently. It croaked during the first lunar night, but it worked up until then. So they are building hardware and successfully soft-landing it places that aren't Earth. They aren't random space nutters wishing out loud. They're engineers with a proven track record, orbiting multiple humans and landing a moon rover. Western media carefully forgets that China has engineers and astronauts with orbital experience, not just sub-orbital.

Re:The kickstart we need

[chihowa]

Honestly, it's my personal opinion that the US needs someone else to beat us to a major milestone in space. We've fallen into a bit of a winners dilemma. We've beaten everyone else, why do we need to keep trying? I think if China beats the US to Mars, you'll see the political will materialize around the space program again.

For the most part, the US got whomped by the USSR in major milestones in space. Besides landing a human on the moon and some amazing unmanned planetary and outer system probes, they beat us at nearly every early milestone: ICBM, probe to orbit, animal in space, human in space, spacewalk, woman in space, probe to moon (orbit, impact, and soft landing), image of dark side of moon, return of moon sample to earth, space station, ...

Your last sentence is spot on, though. Getting beat by the Russians was the perfect motivator for our space program.