China Talking to Europe About Establishing Moon Base
China is in talks with Europe about launching a lunar settlement that could be used as a launch pad for missions to Mars and as a pit stop for further exploration of deep space. The "moon village" is also seen to support business ventures like space mining missions and tourism.
"The future of space travel needs a new vision. Right now we have the Space Station as a common international project, but it won't last forever," Johann-Dietrich Wörner, director general of the 22-member European Space Agency (ESA) said in a previous interview.
Wörner explained his concept of a moon village not as a place to raise a family but more of a human outpost where people can live and work together.
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"In the Moon Village we would like to combine the capabilities of different spacefaring nations, with the help of robots and astronauts," he explained. "The participants can work in different fields, perhaps they will conduct pure science and perhaps there will even be business ventures like mining or tourism."
He added that the village can help in the Mars program and deeper space exploration.
"This is where our Moon comes into play — it is the perfect stepping stone to Mars," he said.
ESA spokesman Pal Hvistendahl agreed with the need for international collaboration to explore space.
"Space has changed since the space race of the '60s," he recently told Associated Press. "We recognize that to explore space for peaceful purposes, we do international cooperation."
China arrived relatively late to space travel with its first manned spaceflight in 2003. It was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. concerns on the Chinese space program's military connections. China launched an unmanned spacecraft this month that will dock with its unoccupied space station.
"The Chinese have a very ambitious moon program already in place," Hvistendahl said, referring to its plan next year to launch the first mission to the far side of the moon where no human has ever visited. An unmanned mission found water ice on the lunar pole regions.
"Water is an important resource because you can produce rocket propellant and oxygen from it," Wörner mentioned earlier.
