China’s Long March to the Moon – Gordon Fairclough

From Wall Street Journal:

Fifty years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first man-made satellite, and jolted the U.S. into a race for space, China is ramping up a new space contest — with an eye on rival Japan.

Tomorrow evening, the China National Space Administration is scheduled to fire a “Long March” rocket from a launch site in the southwestern province of Sichuan. If all goes well, it will propel a satellite into lunar orbit, an important step toward China’s goal of beating Japan to become the first Asian nation to put a man on the moon. [Full Text]