China’s rekindling of the space race is part of an on going effort to challenge US hegemony, China is throwing its hat in the ring in yet another area to demonstrate its rising status as a global superpower. In many ways the US has become increasingly inward looking in recent years and will probably not be able to enter this new space race on equal footing. This milestone in Chinese engineering and space exploration marks the first lunar surface exploration of any nation in several decades, and has taken little over a decade since the first Chinese lunar orbital mission in 2007 with the Chang’e 1. Chang’e 5 was China’s first attempt and success with a sample return mission, obtaining 2kg of rock and soil samples before relaunching from the moon’s surface to return to Earth. What is the really significance in this moon mission ?

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