ANCIENT LEGEND has it that around 1500 A.D. a Chinese official named Wan-Hu attempted a flight to the moon in a wicker chair. Wan-Hu sat expectantly as 47 torch-bearing assistants came forth to light the 47 rockets secured to the chair. There was a sudden blast, and clouds of smoke filled the air. When the smoke cleared, the man-made rocket chair and China’s first rocket scientist were gone. Chinese space technology has improved since Wan-Hu’s time, but one thing remains the same: The Chinese still yearn to send a man to the moon. And according to Robert S. Walker, former chairman of President Bush’s Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, they will do it within a decade.