Moscow (CNN) -- The Russian space agency on Monday postponed the launch of a new manned mission to the International Space Station due to last week's accident in which an unmanned cargo craft was lost, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

CNN: Russia postpones new manned space station mission

On June 16, China sent three astronauts into space on its first manned docking mission, a significant step towards its plan to build a Chinese space station in 2020.

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Many sceptics will undoubtedly question why any country would choose to invest in future space exploration, including a manned mission to Mars, while there are so many unsolved problems on our planet, from HIV to malaria to poverty.

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And, for those space-cadets who still dream of a manned mission to the planet, there is also the Mars radiation environment experiment.

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But now they could become humankind's next destination in space, if a new proposal for a manned mission to an asteroid comes to fruition.

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This will be a manned mission, and will deliver two cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station.

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Our second goal is to develop and test a new space craft, the crew exploration vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014.

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Some space experts have said that any manned Mars mission using existing rockets probably would need to have a capsule dock with some type of booster in orbit.

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