China's Space Program - Space Stations and Lunar Probes

I was going to write an article about this, but Cumudgeon's Corner has a succinct post on it, that's at least as good as anything I could have written.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

CAPE CANAVERAL -- Congress is poised to give NASA all the money it asked for in 2005, including funding to start work on human missions to the moon and Mars.
[...]
Nothing is final until the Senate votes. But the deal is progress for a space agency that spent months fending off Congressional threats to cut its budget, delaying if not killing the moon-Mars plan.

(From Florida Today)

The preliminary plans provide the first glimpse of the next possible moon mission and how NASA intends to prepare for a Mars expedition. Extended moon visits were proposed by Bush in January as a steppingstone for the more complex task of reaching Mars.

(From USA Today)

More to the point, extended Lunar missions are a stepping-stone to Colonisation, of both the Moon and Mars (for now). And that's the crux of the whole manned space programme, if only we dare say it.