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Within a few months China will launch the first module of its own space station. This important new milestone reached by the Asian super-power, after the first manned orbital flight in 2003, the first lunar probe in 2006 and the first space walk in 2008, could signal the transfer of the leadership role in manned space exploration from the USA to China.
When in 2020 the Chinese space station is fully operational, the present International Space Station will be decommissioned, and as there is no plan for a replacement it seems almost certain that most of the astronauts in orbit in that period will be Chinese.
With the end of the Shuttle program (the last mission of Atlantis is currently in progress), after having abandoned any possibility of returning to the Moon and having only hinted at the possibility of a manned mission to an asteroid and further in the future (who knows how far) to Mars, the USA are virtually leaving the field of astronautics, leaving the transport of their astronauts to Russian vehicles at a price of well over 50 million dollars per "ticket".
Nor does Russia seem to have great ambitions in space, limiting itself to maintaining a role of transport of materials and people into orbit. Other emerging forces, such as the private sector or the Indian space agency don't seem to be sufficiently competitive.
Therefore, thanks to its remarkable economic growth in recent years, and a form of government which allows for the execution of large projects without significant opposition, China is well placed to become the number one power in space.
The main objective seems to be the Moon, where the Chinese space agency will release a rover in 2013 that will serve as a pathfinder for the first Chinese manned mission, planned between 2020 and 2025.
Now that the dream of seeing Man walk on Mars within a reasonable time scale seems to have evaporated with the problems of the two decaying space super-powers, all we can do at this point is wish the Chinese well, and hope that all goes according to the predictions.
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