TL;DR
People have not walked on the Moon since 1972, and before this decade is out it could happen twice over, by astronauts from two different countries. At a space symposium in Beijing, the chief designer of China's lunar program showed a slide laying out exactly how China plans to land its astronauts, called taikonauts: two rockets, a crew ship and a lander that meet in orbit around the Moon, three uncrewed dress rehearsals in 2027, 2028 and 2029, and a crewed landing before 2030. That account is a secondary report, from SpacePolicyOnline's write-up of the talk. NASA, meanwhile, has its own first crewed landing in more than half a century aimed at 2028, so the next three years now carry two dated Moon schedules, each one a yardstick for the other. To see our odds on each of China's test flights, on its first landing and on NASA's, plus the timeline of steps from here to footprints, subscribe.
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