China Is Building The Post-2024 Space Station

US expert: Launch of Tiangong-2 a 'great leap', CCTV (with video)

"Tiangong-2 is very important because it's the 2nd space station that China has launched. It's improved on the earlier version. This will be used for several years, and then it will be followed by a larger and more complex space station. This is how you learn to do things in space. This is the way the US did it, Russia did it. This is a very significant space station because it can also be refueled, which the earlier one could not. The Tiangong 2 also will last a lot longer. It has a matter of fact, the first mission, Shenzhou 11 is going up in October, and they will be up there for over a month. So, that now is twice the length of the previous mission. Every mission gets longer and more complex, that's what China is doing. China, within 2 or 3 years, could be seen as an equal competitor to the Russian goverment's space manned program, and the US's, the European's, and the Japanese space program," said Keith Cowing, former NASA employee."

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