Tamela Maciel — space communications manager at the National Space Centre, Leicester (spacecentre.co.uk) — has been considering who will be first to return to the Moon, as SpaceX, NASA and China are all making separate plans to land humans on the Moon.

She says a big surprise came from SpaceX recently, when it announced plans to fly two space tourists (as yet unnamed) on a trip round the Moon by the end of 2018.

“If successful, such a mission would return humans to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time in over 40 years; it would beat NASA’s current plans to place astronauts into lunar orbit by 2021.

There is no reason to doubtthat SpaceX’s plan to send people on a flight around the Moon will happen. The question is, when?

“We know from 60 years of space exploration that mission timelines are rarely fixed. More often than not they slip, delayed by inevitable setbacks and sometimes rather dramatic failures.

“All of SpaceX’s hardware for a trip to the Moon is as yet unflown, including the first flight of SpaceX’s powerful new rocket Falcon Heavy, the first flight of the crew-carrying capsule Crew Dragon, and the first SpaceX flight to carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.”

Ms Maciek says NASA has been focused on its ‘Journey To Mars’ ever since President Obama shifted priorities away from a Bush-era return to the Moon, adding that sending humans to Mars will inevitably include a return to the Moon, as it is the natural base from which to gather resources and learn more about deep-space long-term habitability.

“To that end, NASA has been developing its own new heavy-lifting rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and crew capsule Orion; and in the last few weeks NASA has been studying whether it would be feasible and safe to fly humans on the first flight of SLS and Orion, in an orbit around the Moon, as early as 2019.

“China’s strides in space have occurred at a remarkable pace. In 2003, it sent its first astronaut into space; by 2007, it had placed a spacecraft into orbit around the Moon; and by 2013, it had landed a rover called Yutu on the Moon — the third country to do so.

Meanwhile China launched its first and second manned space stations in 2011 and 2016, with plans for a permanent space station in orbit by the early 2020s.

“The China National Space Administration recently outlined its five-year space plan, which includes landing a rover on the far side of the Moon in 2018 — something that no other country has done before. China says that in 2020, it will attempt to become only the second country to successfully land a rover on Mars.

“As for sending humans to the Moon, a senior Chinese space official said last year that China plans to land people there by 2036.”