The lunar crater Daniell, seen from the Chang'E 2 spacecraft Controversy quickly followed astonishment with the recent release of a white paper outlining China’s intentions in space. Sparking particular buzz from the Internet was a statement about human lunar missions being an objective for future Chinese space efforts. That statement drew comment ranging from sophisticated to simplistic, yet in my opinion, most of the discussion to date neglects the essential point of what this means to humanity’s future in space. The report lays out China’s plan for missions to the Moon of increasing comple [...]
