China: Man on the Moon by 2020? First lunar orbiter launch Successful

"As lunar exploration embodies our overall national strength, it is very significant for raising our international prestige and our national unity" Ouyang Ziyuan

The melting Arctic has led nations scrambling to declare 'new territory', but that's not the only race occurring. Currently, the United States, Japan, Russia, India, and countless private companies have planned missions to the moon. Not to be left out..China entered the race on Wednesday.

In a nationally broad casted event, at 6:05 pm local time (1005 GMT) China began baby stepping her way to the moon by successfully launching her first lunar orbiter. The program aims to land a rover on the moon by 2012 and place a man on her surface by 2020.

The launch of Chang'e I, which will explore and map the moon's surface, comes after Japan last month launched its first lunar probe and ahead of a planned similar mission by India next year. channelnewsasia
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Chang'e is a mythical Chinese goddess who was banished to the earth with her husband for offending a heavenly emperor. Stealing an elixir for eternal life, she flew to the moon only to regret abandoning her husband and ending up sad and lonely. reuters
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China started its space program in the 1960s. In 2003, it became only the third country, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to put a man into space. It sent two men into orbit in 2005 and plans a space walk in 2008. reuters
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Wednesday's launch marks the first step in China's three-stage moon mission, to be followed by an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover planned for 2012 and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. reuters

And since the Chinese want their presence in space to be known, they loaded up the orbiter with some tunes for possible space creatures to listen to,

"To further drum up Chinese pride, the national anthem and 31 other patriotic songs were uploaded onto the satellite so it could broadcast the music back to China. "

Welcome to the space race...I guess, it's time to exploit the moon. Boo

Same Players. Different Scandal.