"China is planning and designing its future lunar exploration program. We will focus on the south pole region of the moon. The research on water and the permanent shadow area of the lunar south pole region will bring greater scientific discoveries," Liu said.
According to Wu Yansheng, general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China is working on an idea for manned lunar landing.
The mission will consist of a manned spaceship, a propulsion vehicle and a lunar lander. The manned spaceship and the lunar lander will be sent into circumlunar orbit separately.
Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, said that China is in the preliminary stage of its manned lunar program and estimated that Chinese astronauts will be able to walk on the moon around 2030.
LOW-COST SPACE TRANSPORT
Without capable launch vehicles, humans are not able to go deeper into space.
China's Long March carrier rockets still have room for improvement, according to Lu Yu, director of Science and Technology Committee of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).
He said that CALT is developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a payload of 140 tonnes to low Earth orbit and 50 tonnes to lunar transfer orbit.
CALT has made progress in developing reusable launch vehicles, including parachute landing and propulsion landing, said Lu.
Founded by U.S. entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX aims to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars. It has developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and invested big in reusable technology for orbital rockets.
Aerospace transportation is now focused on low-cost ways to enter space, said Wang Guoqing, a CASC official.
Wang said leaders in space exploration have set up their own range of launch vehicles and systems, and reusing launch vehicles will become important for reducing costs.
"Breakthroughs have been achieved in reusable technology after 10 years of study. However, we still face challenges as reusable aerospace launches require high reliability and safety," he added.
WIN-WIN SITUATION
Chinese and global space leaders reached an agreement on cooperation in space exploration at GLEX 2017 -- no matter whether they aim for the moon or Mars.
"China is expanding cooperation with the United Nations (UN) in space exploration and will disclose projects later this year," said Yang.
The country has previously undertaken bilateral cooperation with various countries and institutions and is looking toward multilateral projects. China will carry out joint projects with the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), including astronaut training, scientific experiments aboard space stations and multilateral application of such experiments, he added.
Liu also proposed creating an open platform for cooperation in accordance with the principle of "sharing the risks and achievements" and setting up the International Union of Planetary Scientists and the International Union of Planetary Science College Students.
"Rather than a space race, I think cooperation is always good and worldwide cooperation is even better. I hope we can breach Earth's crises by having worldwide cooperation in space," said Woerner.
"We should not try to duplicate everything, and if we join forces we can do even more with the same amount of money," he added.
