China’s Mars Mission Wish Is To Work With NASA Like In ‘The Martian’

China National Space Administration held a press conference where the admin’s head Xu Dazhe talked about China’s Mars mission, future plans, and their announcement to name April 24 as Space Day.

China’s Mars mission is reportedly on schedule to send a rover-like vehicle to the red planet by 2020.

In the movie The Martian, China National Space Administration (CNSA) helped the U.S. with their mission to rescue the main character who becomes stranded on Mars.

For the time being, that will remain only within the realm of fiction as the Inquisitr once noted that China’s Mars mission could pose a competitive threat to the United States‘ current Mars program.

The article goes over the details of what China’s Mars mission would be, and also covers other launches that will be taking place throughout the year.

CNSA has also said that they would like to engage with other nations for their Mars mission, but the Inquisitr article states that due to a bill passed by congress in 2011, NASA is forbidden from working with China.

During the same press conference, Xu Dazhe also referred to the Oscar winning film as a sign that the U.S. wanted to cooperate with China‘s Mars mission, but also noted the ban from the senate, as reported by Reuters.

“When I saw the U.S. film ‘The Martian’, which envisages China-U.S. cooperation on a Mars rescue mission under emergency circumstances, it shows that our U.S. counterparts very much hope to cooperate with us. However, it’s very regrettable that, for reasons everyone is aware of, there are currently some impediments to cooperation.

“China’s space program would continue to serve national security and economic interests, in what Beijing calls a ‘military-civil’ development strategy, Xu said, but added that such efforts would be used in support of ‘world peace.’

“I believe that on this matter, China is more and more open, and I hope our American friends can take note.”

The Inquisitr also published a report about Chinese scientists successfully preparing to grow vegetables on Mars, much like Mat Damon’s character in the movie.

Congress’ ban on China’s interaction with the U.S. does not only apply to their space program, but as noted in another report by the Inquisitr, the company Huawei was pressured out of the U.S. mobile market over for their products and fears of them being used for spying.

The All Things Nuclear blog published an article on the space talks between both China and the U.S. governments, which took place in Beijing last September, despite the ban where it also references to another one scheduled for this year.

NASA’s yearly budget has been increased for 2016 and 2017, and said to be well over the amount from the previous years according to Space.com, however, in contrast the CNSA’s budget is reportedly at only 2 billion a year.

And even with that, China’s Mars mission, among other programs, is said to be highly competitive with NASA’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDkiyFRiMxU

Also, well before China’s Mars mission, the CNSA is looking to land a probe on the far side of the moon to look for water and ice, which, according to their research, there stands a good chance that they would find plenty of it in areas which are locked in permanent darkness.

There have not been many details release on China’s Mars mission, aside from what many consider is a very ambitious program, where a probe — which would also include a rover — would first revolve around the alien planet before it lands and continues to search on the surface.

#China wants to visit Mars by 2020 and beat Nasa to set up the first manned moon base https://t.co/Khit833jpB pic.twitter.com/TEzgXTAi5G

— Zesty China News (@zesty_china) April 23, 2016

Aside from China’s Mars mission, there are also reports that Europe also has similar goals, along with Russia, and considering the often polarizing relationship between those nations with the U.S., which is usually in the headlines, many are wondering what that relationship would look like during space exploration.

[Image via Kevin Gill | Flickr | Cropped and resized | CC BY-SA 2.0]