China plans to put astronauts on the Moon and send probes to Mars and Jupiter. Why the grand plans?
Who makes the rules for space?of 1979 says space should not be commercially exploited, but the US, China and Russia have refused to sign, spelling out how nations can exploit the Moon's minerals in a co-operative wayWhat is China's history in space?
The only other powers to have gone into space by that stage were the US, the Soviet Union, France and Japan.It has already sent an unmanned mission to the Moon, called Chang'e 5, to collect and return rock samples. It planted a Chinese flag on the lunar surface - which was deliberately bigger than previous US flags.
But there have been setbacks. In 2021, part of a Chinese rocket tumbled out of orbit and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and two launches failed in 2020.Chinese state media Xinhua said at least 300,000 people have worked on China's space projects - almost 18 times as many as currently work for Nasa. However, in 2016 China opened its space industry to private companies, and these are now investing more than 10 billion yuan a year, according to Chinese media.China is keen to develop its satellite technology, for telecommunications, air traffic management, weather forecasting and navigation and more.