Los Angeles, CA, October 4, 2000 – According to official Chinese media reports, China's growing space program plans to explore the Moon for commercially useful resources. It would seem that China has picked up the gauntlet America let fall in December of 1972, when American astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt left the last footprints on the Moon. NASA has no current plan to return to the Moon.

The military dominated Chinese space program has gathered momentum in recent years. It has received help from a more experienced Russia and greater budgets from a Chinese government eager not to fall further behind the West. In November of 1999, the program successfully tested a spacecraft for manned exploration, putting the unmanned Shenzhou, or 'Sacred Vessel', into orbit. Chinese state media reports indicate a second test-flight could come before the end of 2000 and a manned mission may soon follow. Other media accounts indicated that a group of Chinese astronauts, or what some have dubbed 'taikonauts', from the Chinese word for space, were recently sent to Russia for training.

China believes that its own manned space flight program will be the key to securing its international stature and economic survival. The Chinese space program would yield short-term practical economic and military benefits, such as a new generation of rockets and the marketing of Made-in-China communications satellites to foreign clients.

A Chineese landing on the Moon would be a great propoganda victory for the communist country. China's intentions in regards to the Moon are not entirely clear, but reports indicate that China is interested in permanent lunar ports for spacecraft and exploitation of the Moon's natural resources.