Three Astronauts in Apollo

Forty years ago, three astronauts in Apollo 11 blasted off towards the moon, the culmination of a decade-long space race between the United States and Russia.Now, on the 40th anniversary of the historic landing, the future of space exploration looks to be increasingly in the hands of Asia's emerging superpowers.

It was a promise, first expressed by the US President, John F. Kennedy, to the US congress in 1961 - to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."- John F. Kennedy - May 25, 1961The moon landing, on July 20, 1969, delivered on that promise, after eight years of unprecedented national effort by over 100,000 people, more than $US100 billion, and the death of three other astronauts.On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Around 600 million people, or what was then one-fifth of the world's population, are believed to have watched the live broadcast of his first steps on moon.
"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

The moon landing followed more than a decade of the so-called 'space race' between the United States and Russia, and was the first of six manned moon landings. December 1972 was the last time that man stood on the moon.

China's missions

But the last decade has seen several new players entering the final frontier - most notably from Asia - including China, India and South Korea, resulting in a new 'space race'."There is some discussion of a space race, particularly between the United States and China," says Jeff Foust, publisher of The Space Review."I think the real space race though is the competition between these Asian countries, China, India, also Japan, South Korea that are ramping up their space programs and embarking on new missions, such as missions to the moon and also manned space craft programs in an effort to demonstrate that they are at the very least at the same level as the leaders, the United States and Russia, if not perhaps superior in some ways."China in particular has accelerated its space program - launching two manned missions since 2003.US space agency NASA has acknowledged its plans to return to the moon by 2020 could be trumped by a Chinese mission, but Jeff Foust says that doesn't seem likely based on its current schedule."Certainly I think their long term ambitions do include human missions to the moon," he said. "I don't think we will see that before 2020. In fact some Chinese officials talk about doing human lunar missions sometime around 2025 or 2030, which is probably a little more realistic based on the current progress, as well as their current interest focusing more on human missions in earth orbits in developing a small series of small stations."

Indian landing

In 2008, India became the fourth country to plant its flag on the moon, when it crash-landed a scientific probe launched from its Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.It plans to launch a second mission with the goal of landing a rover on the moon by 2012, with manned spaceflight missions shortly after."They did their first mission to the moon or robotic mission to the moon last year and now they are moving into a greater interest in human space flight and perhaps doing their first human space flight sometime in the middle of the next decade," said Mr Foust."So certainly they are ramping up and putting more and more resources into their space program."

Other Asian exploration

Japan has been active in space exploration since the 1970s, including missions to explore Halley's Comet and Mars. Its lunar explorer mission, known as Kaguya, has been described as the largest lunar mission since the Apollo program. Japan has also crash-landed a lunar orbiter into the moon's surface at the end of its mission. Although Japan has set a goal of lunar landings by 2020, with the construction of a lunar base to follow, it has not yet developed its own manned spacecraft - but several Japanese astronauts have been sent into space, among them Koichi Wakata who will be in space, as part of the International Space Station crew, during the Apollo anniversary.And other Asian countries have also joined the space race, launching satellites and unmanned spacecraft. "South Korea is starting to devote more resources to their space program as well," said Mr Foust. "They have been working with Russia to develop their own small launch vehicle for launching satellites themselves, which could be ready for launch as soon as the end of this month and they also have some long term ambitions about perhaps doing some robotic missions to the moon sometime in the next decade."Indonesia has also claimed success in its plans to put a satellite in orbit.Jeff Foust says the new space race is as much about prestige for the emerging Asian powers as it is the economic and security benefits."It really is in terms of funding and what level of priority you want to put on your space program and certainly as these countries become wealthier and more powerful, they have more resources that they can put into space, in part because they realise the economic and security benefits that space can provide,"he said."But also the greater prestige that space can provide and demonstrating to the world that these really are rising powers in the world."