Thanks for the several interesting replies to my comment on this submission. I will first dispatch with the quibble. In the same way that "cosmonaut" (technically an English word, as it is not written in the Cyrillic alphabet) became a customary word in English-language publications (whether from the U.S.S.R. or from any other country) for referring to space voyagers from the U.S.S.R. and allied countries, the term "taikonaut" (yeah, technically an English word, as it is not written in Chinese characters) is becoming a customary word in English-language publications (whether from China[1] or from English-speaking countries[2]) for referring to space voyagers from the P.R.C. Of course the general term in English for space voyagers continues to be "astronaut,"[3] and of course the Russian language usually uses the term "космонавт" while the Chinese language usually uses the term "宇航员." (I used to hear the term "太空人" a lot when I lived in Taiwan, and I think that term is still standard there.) The interwiki links on Wikipedia make that clear enough, and that is enough of the terminological quibble.

To get back to the substance here, what is different about the world in the 2010s compared to the 1960s (when I was alive already and very aware of and very supportive of the space program) is that no one had ever been to the moon back then, but now there have been twelve people who walked on the moon and collected rock samples and placed scientific instruments there, all American astronauts, so no one is going to gain a lot of new knowledge nor much new glory by going there. The significant fact that no Russian cosmonaut has ever visited the moon, even during the era of Cold War superpower rivalry, suggests that NASA's sharing of moon rock samples and lunar scientific data around the world has satisfied most country's desire for knowledge about what's on the moon: a bunch of sterile rocks not so significantly different from earth rocks.

I used to read books by various authors when I was a kid with the full case for space exploration, up to and including colonization of the moon and Mars, laid out. Those books were very convincing to me in my childhood, even though those books were written in willful disregard of economic reality. I went to a high school that was named after the first man who set foot on the moon, and while I was a student there I reported my personal ambition to be the first man to set foot on Mars. (I could STILL be that man, which boggles my mind.) But over the years, I've grown up and traveled a lot and seen the world beyond the science fiction and space exploration sections of my town's public library, and while I continue to support sending out manned space probes hither and yon, and tolerate the low-return, high-expense International Space Station program, I see no need for my country or any country to send human beings outside the expensive grip of earth's gravity well until we take care of plenty of problems down here. If there has never been political will for manned moon exploration in Russia, nor any in any other country that has launched satellites since 1972, I have to think that China's program to plan for manned moon exploration is based on a glorious ignorance of economics and misplaced policy priorities in the interest of keeping the ruling party in power.

All China could do on the moon with a manned mission would come at a punishingly economically inefficient cost. If China wants to impress the United States, my suggestion is that it try lifting press censorship and allow free and fair local and national elections, an example Taiwan has already given China for about two decades. That really would be an impressive sign of modernity and progress. And that would be a great contribution to the peaceful wellbeing of all humankind.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=taikonauts+site%3A.cn

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=taikonauts

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut