CHINA’S SPACE PROGRAM: Slow, steady, and, apparently, ambitious:

China has revealed further details of its plans to explore the Moon – the first unmanned probe could be launched by 2005, say officials. They also hinted that the motivation for the missions is to mine the Moon’s resources. . . .

Furthermore, Luan Enjie, director of China National Space Administration, hinted that China would be interesting in exploiting rare resources found on the Moon’s surface.

“The prospect for the development and utilisation of the lunar potential mineral and energy resources provide resource reserves for the sustainable development of human society,” he told the newspaper.

Hmm. I wonder if China will look for technologies that might provide a great leap forward in this department. To, er, coin a phrase. Well, there’s this quote from James Oberg:

Oberg adds that China has set itself a number of ambitious goals. “As with their manned programme, they don’t intend to recreate the US and Russian programmes,” he says. “They intend to go to the head of the queue in terms of capabilities.”

Food for thought.