The competition heats up: In several different news stories today China touted its future plans in space.

• At a science conference in Beijing their chief scientist announced that they plan on doing a simulated return-to-Earth landing test of their lunar sample return unmanned probe by the end of the year.
• He also announced that they plan a Mars mission by 2020 and a Mars sample return mission by 2030, as well as missions to three asteroids.
• Three astronauts also completed a 105 day occupancy of a simulated lunar base dubbed Lunar Palace 1.

The landing test described in the first story above will also be the first test flight of China’s new heavy lift rocket, Long March 5.

That China is both politically and culturally serious about this effort can be seen by the nationalistic enthusiasm for this space effort that permeates these stories. They also can’t help comparing their plans to U.S. efforts.

In contrast to China’s ambitious space plans, NASA is trapped due to a limited budget and unclear strategy despite the US-based National Academy of Sciences announcing its schedule for a manned mission to Mars as early as 2037 to 2050 at the cost of hundreds of billions of US dollars. Under current circumstances, US analysts doubt whether this promise is achievable at all, the paper said.

Meanwhile, Ouyang said China will engage in a series of deep space explorations to Mars and further afield. The goals of the Mars mission, Ouyang said, are to search for signs of life on the red planet and analyze whether it could potentially sustain life.

And there’s this description of their Lunar Palace:

[T]he capsule inhabitants also raised and ate yellow mealworms, their main source of protein. The debut of these worms at the IAA Humans in Space Symposium in 2011 shocked peers from the U.S., but some said they tasted like French fries after they trying them.

Lunar Palace 1 is different from Biosphere 2, an Earth systems science research facility in the U.S., says chief designer and lead scientist Liu Hong, a professor with the Beihang University. “Biosphere 2 is a duplication of the living environment on Earth, which is a failure we did not want to repeat,” says Liu. “The system we made was directed towards the needs of humans. We carefully chose what plants, animals, and micro-organisms would be best included in the ecosystem.”

Though their knowledge and understanding of U.S. space policy as well as Biosphere is not quite accurate, there is no doubt that China’s present government is very committed to this long range space program. Whether that program can be sustained across future governments remains to be seen.