Two Views On a China-US Space Race

An anonmous submitter writes "While there has been recent discussion about China and India engaging in a space race, most people are still focused on a potential race between China and the US in near future. The Space Review recently published a pair of essays on this topic: the first argues that China-US space race is both unlikely and undesirable, given the aftermath of the US-USSR space race thirty years ago. A followup article suggests that a China-US space race is vital, so long as it takes a more commercial, long-term approach than the US-USSR one. Food for thought..."

Comments

We blew it

[Anonymous Coward]

We could've been on Mars right now, but the US Gummint in its infinite wisdom decided it'd be easier not to try, like a bunch of little girls hiding behind Mama's skirt.

God, don't get me started on how we just fscking *blew* the opportunities we've had. Maybe if China starts a space race it'll provide the kick in the pants we need to *do something*, like 9/11 was a wake-up call to do something about Muslim extremists.

Going to the Moon was a grand vision and a goal that inspired everyone. Going to Mars would be too. I'm old enough (41) to remember the way space exploration used to fire peoples' imaginations. What fires them now? Your guess is as good as mine. "Survivor" and "American Idol" maybe, or 50-Cent & Eminem.

And so we're stuck in low earth orbit running a goddamn space hotel, hitching rides back and forth in the Soyuz. Talk about Spam in a can... Meanwhile, PK Express can't get funding (never mind the launch window won't open again for a couple of centuries), the Shuttle itself is essentially composed of 1970s technology, the SSTO projects have all been cancelled, and the new 'environmentally sensitive' insulating foam for the tanks is what caused the Columbia tragedy.

Weep for the future Na'Toth. Weep for us all.

Re:Double Standards

[Jerf]

Because no matter what bombastic rhetoric the left may try to throw at us, the fact is the US is on the whole relatively responsible with that military power, and does not use it to repress people as we would be afraid China will.

Even the inevitable replies yelling about Iraq are off the mark; no matter how you slice it, we didn't off Saddam so that we would have the priviledge of repressing Iraqis.

People in the world do not seriously worry about American planes coming tommorow night, unless they've openly declared themselves to be America's enemies. Ask Taiwan how they'd feel about the Chinese becoming powerful, or many of the other Asian countries. Different stories.

(And to the inevitable whining leftists hitting reply right now: There's a world of difference between claiming perfection, which I'm not, and claiming essential responsibility. Why don't you try a more nuanced worldview on for size, with a few more grays and a few less blacks and whites?)

Just like American colonization

[Peter Cooper]

If on the other hand the "death trap" refers to interactions between people, then maybe it would make more sense as was done in Hitchhiker's Guide to send the trouble makers on ahead.

Or what happened in the 16th and 17th Centuries. All the crazy psychos from Europe wanted to escape because they were being 'persecuted' so they went and pushed the American frontiers. This is why European countries have had no major problems with each other from the 1600s onwards to now.

China is a Brutal Dictatorship

[reporter]

That China is anywhere near the USA in critical space technology ought to scare most people. We're not dealing with equivalent nations. One nation, the USA, is a bastion of democracy and human rights. The government actively enforces civil and criminal laws that safeguard our civil rights. The other nation, China, is a bastion of fascism and savage barbarism. Chinese soldiers routinely torture and kill Tibetan nuns. Chinese doctors routinely harvest organs from victims who are still alive. Please read " Kill and cull: China rejects doctor's testimony". Indeed, the Chinese penchant for deceit and hypocrisy are directly responsible for spreading sudden-acute-respiratory syndrome (SARS) to the rest of the world. If the Chinese had not covered up the SARS epidemic, then we might have stopped the infection before it spread to its Canadian victims.

There's no equivalence. We Americans should try to continue "winning" the space race against the Chinese.

Unfortunately, there are apologists for China. They are really slick. Please read "Us (US) versus Them". The apologists talk about a nation as though it is a person. They present China and the USA as two people. Then, the apologists try to evoke the use of social etiquette between two people. "We should welcome them to the [space technology] club with open arms." is equivalent to "Billy is getting better at baseball. Let's invite Billy to join our game."

Yet, China is not a person. It is a brutal dictatorship, and we should never be lulled into using person-to-person social etiquette to deal with a brutal dictatorship. We should do everything that we can to defeat China both in outer space and inner space.

Note that most of the apologists for China are culturally Chinese. Many of them proceed to becoming spies for China. Please read " Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China". The majority of people who steal American military/space technology to give to Beijing are Chinese from Taiwan (source: Wall Street Journal). There is no parallel for this kind of bizarre behavior.

By contrast, when the Soviet Union was a brutal empires, Russian immigrants who fled to the USA were grateful to us Americans. The vast majority of the Russian immigrants wanted us Americans to defeat the Soviet Union. The Russians viewed the USA as the superior nation with values that should be spread to the rest of the world.

The ethnic Chinese view the USA as being equivalent to China. According to the ethnic Chinese, the USA and China should have the same military/space technology -- "just to be fair".