1:02
- ABC News
- July 26, 2020
China, UAE and US head to Mars
Three nations are taking aim at the Red Planet this month.
1:02
Meanwhile, the Chinese mission is \"an extremely ambitious mission that has an orbiter, a lander and a rover,\" Logsdon said. \"And it is reflective of how ambitious China is to do significant space activity.\"
China's inaugural Mars mission is named Tianwen-1, which means \"Questions to Heaven\" and comes from an ancient Chinese poem, according to the nation's state-run news agency Xinhua.
\"We hope the mission will be innovative and help push forward scientific and technological development,\" Geng Yan, an official at the China National Space Administration, told Xinhua. They have a multipart goal that includes landing a rover on the surface of Mars that will conduct research.
Liu Tongije, a spokesperson for the China Mars mission, said the launch was a \"key step of China marching towards farther deep space,\" and that the nation's aim wasn't to compete with other countries but to peacefully explore the universe, according to The Associated Press.
Despite elevated political tensions between the U.S. and China, \"I don't think these missions have anything to do with dominance [of space],\" Logsdon said.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/china-01-as-ss-01-as-gty-200724_1595607071024_hpEmbed_17x11_384.jpg\")
\"They are competitive because scientists are competitive and everyone wants to do the best kind of science and discovery on Mars possible, but in the broader scheme of the things the world profits by multiple missions,\" he added.
\"We want to learn about Mars, and the more missions that are aimed at learning about Mars, the better off we are,\" he said. \"The one mission can't keep the other one from working.\"
Still, Logsdon noted that U.S. legislation prohibits NASA from working with China.
\"That prohibition is politically based, so collaboration between what in the coming years are probably the two major space powers is currently forbidden by U.S. law,\" he said.
He noted that by and large the scientific community has been able to keep the politics and research separate.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/china-01-as-ss-200724_1595606959467_hpMain_4x3t_384.jpg\")
As for how soon we can expect to see humans on the Red Planet, Logsdon said that \"depends on whether you believe Elon Musk or not.\"
\"Mr. Musk says he's going to be sending a number of people to Mars in the not-very-distant future,\" he said. \"I'm highly skeptical. There's a lot of difference between the first explorers going to Mars and tourism.\"
Still, he said he thinks there is a \"reasonable chance\" that there will be human footsteps on Mars by 2040.
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