BEIJING -- China has no plan or timetable for a manned moon landing for now, senior Chinese lunar scientists told Xinhua on Thursday, a day after the nation launched its first lunar probe, Chang'e-1.
"A manned moon landing is a project with great difficulties, high risks and huge investments. A wish-list approach is not the way to go about it," said Luan Enjie, chief commander of China's lunar orbiter project.
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China's first lunar orbiter, Chang'e I, blasts off from its launch pad in the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, at about 6:05 pm October 24, 2007. [Xinhua]
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"Many factors have to be taken into account to carry out such a project, such as economic budgets, technological level, and whether it is a must for current scientific studies," Luan said.
"So, it's too early to talk about manned landings on the moon for the time being," he added.
Chang'e-1, named after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, blasted off on a Long March 3A carrier rocket at 6:05 p.m. Wednesday from the No. 3 launching tower in the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan Province.
The satellite launch marks the first step of China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to an unmanned moon landing and launch of a moon rover around 2012.
In the third phase, another rover will land on the moon and return to earth with lunar soil and stone samples for scientific research around 2017.
Sources with the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense said that China has finished working out an overall plan for carrying out the second phase of the moon program.
But according to Sun Laiyan, deputy head of the commission, China is still far from being capable of sending a man onto the moon, considering its current technology and capacity of launch vehicle.
In addition, it is a very complicated process from manned space flight to manned moon landing, and China has to crack lots of tough technological problems, such as allowing the taikonauts to walk out of the spacecraft, the rendezvous and docking of the spacecraft, the return of taikonauts from the lunar surface, and survival on the moon, said Sun Jiadong, chief designer of China's lunar orbiter project.
"We don't possess those technologies for now, and we cannot solve those problems in a short period of time," he said.
While Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's lunar orbiter project, told Xinhua that, after all, it is the first time that China has launched a lunar probe, and subsequent scientific research will grow with the deepening of China's lunar explorations.
His feelings were echoed by Luan.
