Chinese space officials are now aiming to put astronauts on the moon within a decade. The country also plans to collect asteroid samples near Earth by 2025.
By 2030, it aims to launch a mission to Mars, and an unmanned exploration mission to Jupiter.
China also wants to develop and launch a 100-tonne super heavy-lift carrier rocket by 2035, along with a nuclear-powered space shuttle five years later that will enable resource exploration and asteroid mining.
It also intends to construct a space-based solar power station, as part of plans to become a world-leading space power by 2045.
THE REST OF THE WORLD
The space race is part of a broader shift in the global world order, said Dr Parker.
“We’re moving from a unipolar to a multipolar geopolitical world. That is coming whether certain quarters like it or not. Realpolitik is going on. There are countries that would rather China wasn’t quite so successful, and others that wished China was even more successful,” said Dr Parker.
He noted that China has made it clear that it is open to international collaboration on the space front.
Dr Parker said that the exclusion of China from the ISS in 2011 was what pushed it to pour vast resources into its own space programme and build “a spanking new and a fantastic” space station of its own, where it has access to international collaborations.
In the latest Chinese mission, the spacecraft took just over eight hours to dock with the station. For the ISS, the docking procedure takes about 16 to 18 hours, noted Dr Parker.
