Sat, Aug 30, 2003
Where's A Traffic Cop When You Need One?
The monopoly on space exploration, held so long by the United
States and Russia, is a thing of the past. The European Union has
two spacecraft en route to Mars already, taking advantage of the
red planet's closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years. Now,
the EU is expected to launch its first-ever lunar probe from the
spaceport in French Guiana sometime around the end of
September.
A final announcement on the date is expected next week. The
European Space Agency (ESA) said the SMART-1 probe was supposed to
have launched Thursday. But that was pushed back at the request of
the probe's co-passenger aboard the Ariane-5 booster, a commercial
satellite consortium.
The SMART-1 mission is designed to scour the lunar surface for
clues to two mysteries: is there water on the moon and how did
Earth's closest celestial neighbor get there in the first place?
SMART-1 will need 16 months to get to the moon.
East Asian Space Race
As if there wasn't enough iron flying around up there already,
both China and sometime military rival India are locked in a race
to the moon. At the Paris Air Show earlier this year, Liu Youguang,
general manager of the space department at China's Great Wall
Industry Corp, said, "China's maiden manned space flight will be
launched by the end of the year." That's a heady promise, given
that there are only four more months until New Year's.
South Korea and even Taiwan have announced plans to develop
space programs. China now says it'll launch a mission to Mars by
the year 2020.
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