Word on the floor here at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado is look for a shakeup in NASA’s lunar robotics efforts. Both the over-budget Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) for 2008 and follow-on Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP) are trouble-plagued.

Meanwhile, NSS participants heard today from several speakers more concern about the growing China space capability. For example, Jim Kennedy, Kennedy Space Center chief, likened China’s blossoming space skills as the making of another space race akin to the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry in space decades ago.

Luo Ge, Vice Administrator of the China National Space Agency, will speak here on Wednesday, fresh from a Washington, D.C. stop. He reportedly visited Washington, D.C. to meet with NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and get a tour of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Luo also spoke at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Human Space Exploration Initiative. At CSIS, he noted continued interest in China being invited to take part in the International Space Station, even though he said his country plans to launch their own station by 2015.

The Chinese space official, speaking through a translator, said his country will send a first robotic probe to the Moon in 2007, make a robotic soft-landing on the Moon in 2012, and an automated lunar sample return effort in 2017.