China Plans Moonwalk, Space Station by 2020

Fresh from its second manned space mission, China’s space program is aiming to put a man on the moon and build a space station by 2020, an official said this week.

“I think in about 10 to 15 years, we will have the ability to build our own space station and to carry out a manned moon landing,” Hu Shixiang, deputy commander of China’s manned space flight program, said Sunday. China wants to master the technology for a spacewalk and docking in space by 2012, but he added that China was developing its space program at its own pace. “It’s not the competition of the Cold War era,” he said.