Wu Zhijian, spokesman with the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense recently talked about China's future plans of sending manned spacecraft to moon. He said China's lunar exploration program was planned through 2020.
They are currently working under the schedule. The completion of "launch, loop and land" doesn't mean the completion of the entire lunar exploration program. There is more yet to be done and they are not sure about all the future plans. For deep space exploration, scientists have a common understanding of the current technologies and they are working hard on future deep space exploration plans.
FW News interviewed a few experts who had worked on Project Apollo. They believe that it will take less than 10 years for China to send manned spacecraft to moon.
FW: Base off the Chinese lunar development path, how long do you think it's going to take Chinese people to send man to the moon?
Paul Spudis - Let me put it this way, if manned lunar spacecraft program is a puzzle, China has got most of the parts, only missing a few pieces.
David Whitehouse - Before manned lunar landing, China needs to collect rock samples from the moon for study. During this period, China also needs to operate a manned space station in Earth orbit, collect samples from the surface of the moon, etc.
James Hayde － It took us less than a decade to achieve manned spacecraft moon landing, from President Kennedy's announcement of the launch of the lunar program to the success of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Because of America's success, a lot of critical technologies have been well known in the industry. So for China, it's going to be shorter than a decade.
John Westfall, American Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers - China can consider establishing a manned lunar base first to accomplish near-Earth asteroids and Mars missions. For those projects, China can certainly participate in international cooperations, even plays a leading role.
The base will need astronauts to take shifts, at least a few people to live in and monitor. The purpose is to establish the bases on the moon and the lunar environment for astronomical research in the absence of air and a dark environment. It's also for the study of the long-term impact on human under lunar environment, such as "local gravity" (the moon's gravity is a sixth of the Earth a) the impact on human physiology.
However, so far there hasn't been a base established on moon by any country yet. The only human that have visited moon were the Apollo astronauts. The time that Apollo astronauts spent on moon was only a few days. It will take us several decades to build a lunar base.