Asian space race shoots for Mars

摘要

"We choose to go to the moon… because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills," said US president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Fair enough. But the space race was about international rivalry as well as national endeavour. Now China and India seem to be picking up where the US and the Soviet Union left off. India's Mars Orbiter Mission will launch next month, having been fast-tracked after a Chinese mission failed. China, for its part, plans to put a rover on the moon in December.