A Chinese spaceship inn last Tuesday in pastures in the Inner Mongolia region Chinacarrying the first rock samples from its invisible side Moon. It is the first time such a thing has been achieved. A major scientific breakthrough in itself, the success boosts China’s plan to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and build a lunar base there by 2035.
This dynamic worries U.S. officials and policymakers, who have their own ambitions for building lunar bases. Unlike the original space race between the Americans and the Soviets, the U.S. and China’s goal is not simply to make a quick trip to the moon. They want to build permanent bases for humans at its most strategic location, the lunar south pole. And as both nations prepare to one day deploy stations there, it seems likely that tensions in space will mirror those on Earth.
Despite the ship’s successful return, there was a question mark over whether it brought with it any lunar samples. As announced by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, the ship brought around two kilograms of samples that are now in the hands of the mission’s scientists and their study will begin immediately, the results of which are obviously awaited with great interest.
Naftemporiki.gr with information from APE-MPE