Japan Plans To Place a Man on the Moon By 2030

The JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) has proclaimed a marvellous plan to place a man on the moon by the year 2030.

Being the 1st time Japan has attempted a lunar mission and intensifies the competition to be the dominant superpower in space.

In what is being named the "Asian space race", China has also said it will put a man on the moon by 2036. China already has plans to land a rover on Mars by the end of the 2020s.

AS far as we know, four nations have been to the moon: the USA, Russia, China and India - but only the USA has managed to land humans on the surface.

India have also said to have plans to launch another unmanned probe to the moon next year.

The JAXA proposal was placed into the panel at Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Science & Technology - which is effectively responsible for country's space exploration program.

A spokesperson told CNN, that In order to mitigate the high cost of a lunar mission it would most likely have to partner up with other countries.

Launching a "multinational manned lunar probe" would lower costs, however the country could still progress with one of its own astronauts was aboard.

Spokesman also said”  further details on the mission would be made public in time for the country's planned International Space Exploration Forum in March 2018”.

Primarily it is competing with neighbouring China which has pushed heavily into space exploration in recent years.

China launched the Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft in April this year – being the first in the country's history - into orbit.

, the cargo ship was transported away from Earth by a Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket and has described as a crucial step towards establishing a space base by 2022.

The Chinese space laboratory Tiangong-2 is already in orbit around the planet. This is what the cargo ship will dock with - transporting fuel and a few other supplies. The Chinese will also conduct a few other experiments with it before letting it fall back to Earth.

Ultimately, the country wants to build a more permanent space station that can stay in orbit for up to 10 years.