Mao asked for the Moon and now he will get it

Chairman Mao never lived to see a Chinese lunar mission but Beijing plans to honour him by sending Moonrock from Chang’e 5, its latest space venture, to his birthplace. The chief designer of the Moon mission, which blasted off on Tuesday, said lunar samples would be sent to the province of Hunan as a tribute to Mao. ‘‘Chairman Mao once wrote [in a poem] that we can travel through the skies to embrace the Moon,’’ Wu Weiren, 67, said.