Could the People’s Republic end up being the nation which solves one of the greatest mysteries in the universe? (Image: Nasa)

China has unveiled plans to send humans to Mars on a mission that’s expected to focus on a search for extraterrestrial life.

State-run media announced the exploration bid and said it was the first time Beijing had ‘publicly unveiled a plan for manned missions to the Red Planet’.

Taikonauts – Chinese astronauts – will first demonstrate they have the right stuff by landing on the moon, before blasting off for Mars.

‘The next steps in (China’s) manned space programs will be manned exploration of the moon,’ the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said in a statement published by China Daily.




‘(We will) set up bases on the moon to conduct scientific operations, expand a habitable place for mankind and gain experience and expertise for deep-space expeditions beyond the moon.

‘The long-term goal is to send humans to Mars.’

Pang Zhihao, a space technology researcher based in Beijing, said the mission would give Chinese scientists ‘opportunities to look for traces of life on Mars’ and understand the evolution of life on Earth.

An illustration of the oasis on Mars, which has now dried up (Image: Nasa)

Currently, Nasa is leading the world when it comes to Mars exploration.

It recently found the remnants of a mysterious ‘oasis’ on the surface of Mars, raising hopes that evidence of life may also one day be found on the Red Planet.

The Nasa Curiosity Rover has found traces of ‘shallow, salty ponds that went through episodes of overflow and drying’.

It made the astonishing find within Gale Crater, a 100-mile-wide dry lakebed, using a tool which allows it to zap Martian rocks with a laser to work out their chemical make-up.

The discovery is more proof that Mars was once able to support life – but is not quite the smoking gun which proves extraterrestrial organisms thrived on the now-barren planet.

‘We’ve learned over the years of Curiosity’s traverse across Gale Crater that Mars’ climate was habitable once, long ago,’ said Roger Wiens, the principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument at Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-author of a paper on the research.

The Curiosity Rover has been operational on Mars since August 2012 (Image: Nasa)

‘What these new findings show is that the climate on Mars was not as stable as we thought it was.

‘There were very wet periods and very dry periods.’

Currently, Mars is a ‘freezing desert’, but it was once wetter and therefore more hospitable.

Analysis of the rocks in the desiccated oasis suggest its rocks dried out completely at times but were soaked at others, indicating huge ‘fluctuations in the Martian climate’.

Gale Crater was formed in a massive impact and was eventually filled with sediment.

Over the aeons, the wind carved out a large hill which has been named Mount Sharp, which Curiosity is currently climbing up.

‘We went to Gale Crater because it preserves this unique record of a changing Mars,” said lead author William Rapin of Caltech.

‘Understanding when and how the planet’s climate started evolving is a piece of another puzzle: When and how long was Mars capable of supporting microbial life at the surface?’