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

Bring it on

[bravehamster]

Anything to helps to get the human race off of this death trap of a planet is a Good Thing(tm). In the long run I don't really care if they're Chinese, Indian, American, or even French. If everything goes tits up here on Earth (and when you talk about long-term that becomes a statistical certainty) we damn well better not have all our eggs in this supremely fragile basket. Just MHO.

Re:Bring it on

[apsmith]

Somewhat incoherent comments there (though I agree with some of your points) - but just on the moon-mining business:

I don't want any country mining the moon. It's far too close to the earth. We could end up exploding the moon.

uh... do you have any idea how big the Moon is? It doesn't look that big in the night sky, but that's because it's very far away: the distance is 30 times Earth's diameter. Total mass is about 1% of Earth's - do you think we're anywhere close to having mining/explosives technology that could effect anything on that order? The biggest mountains on Earth are maybe 100,000 times smaller, and even our biggest nukes and our mightiest construction techniques could barely scratch them. If we ever do get powerful enough to do the sort of damage you're suggesting on the Moon, I'd much rather have it put to peaceful use there than to the more likely war-mongering here on Earth... but it's not going to happen for 1000's of years, and personally I find mining the Moon to be the most likely way for us now to ensure our descendants of that era can survive stupidity of that magnitude.

Space is big

[f97tosc]

Healthy competition is good.

It is only unfourtunate if China and the US try to do exactly the same thing, and don't share their experiences.

If they set different, ambitious goals it can extremely fruitful for mankind. And there seems to be no shortage of interesting projects.

Tor

Us (US) versus Them

[amerinese]

The articles seem to have opposing points of view, but let me add a perspective that says they're both the same. I needlessly mention that we live in a highly interdependent world, yet still, we maintain a tribal mentality--it's always us versus them, in this case the US versus China. Both essays, regardless of their conclusions pits the US against China, but why need that be the case?

The United States purpose in the world is not to remain the sole superpower and go around and do whatever it wants. Today, our position in the world as the sole superpower is indeed unique. Instead of going around trying to squash the competition, why don't we try to improve the plight of other countries, and if other countries become both powerful and good, we should welcome them to the club with open arms.

Practically, with China, this means not letting greedy coorporations dictate foreign policy, and even more important, considering China a strategic _partner_ for the future, and not this bullshit strategic _competitor_. In an interdependent world, there are no enemies, only parts of yourself that you can improve.

Re:Us (US) versus Them

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Instead of going around trying to squash the competition, why don't we try to improve the plight of other countries, and if other countries become both powerful and good, we should welcome them to the club with open arms.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy. Give grants or loans? Well, that feeds dependency and often goes to the hands of dictators or warlords. Build factories? Your being "economic imperialists" and using the people for cheap labor. Take out murderous dictators? Your trying to "conquer the world". Do nothing? Your being selfish "isolationists". Heck we can't seem to get it right even when we try to feed starving people (see Somalia).

The problem is that very few people in this world want to "cooperate". Most people are out for themselves. And most people generally have to succeed or fail for themselves. That is why restricted competition works so well in this world.

Practically, with China, this means not letting greedy coorporations dictate foreign policy, and even more important, considering China a strategic _partner_ for the future, and not this bullshit strategic _competitor_.

There is nothing that corporations love more than peaceful cooperative foreign policies. The less barriers the more trade and the more markets to sell goods to. There are a heck of alot more corporations selling butter than selling guns.

Brian Ellenberger

What race?

[mlg9000]

China is about to do what the US/Russia did in the 1960's. Even then there are pretty much using a copied Russian design. They aren't developing any new technology. How is that impressive? I'll be much more impressed if someone manages to get a commerical fight into space by years end. They don't have the budget of a government like China's so they've had to do some real inovation. China hasn't had an original idea since gunpowder.

This race wouldn't be like the last one.

[roumada]

Nuts like Rumsfeld would rather have nasa working on ways to shoot each others' spacecraft down. I'd worry that given the current administration, a space race wouldn't have exploration as a goal (or even a wanted side-effect).

Double Standards

[silverbolt]

China's ascendancy as the sole superpower, helped along by her space activities, would be a horrific development, threatening freedom and world peace. Even without reference to China's lunar ambitions, the military implications of Shenzhou should give one pause. The integration of technologies achieved by Shenzhou , including recoverable satellite capability, implies the ability to hit targets in the United States with nuclear warheads with a great deal of accuracy. Also the same low-power propulsion technology used to adjust a spacecraft's orbit could also be used to alter the path of offensive missiles, helping them evade proposed US anti-missile defense systems

I will try to say this without being a flamebait. It is fine for USA to have space technologies with many military applications, or to have the ability to hit targets around the world accurately. But if another country does this, it threatens world peace.

Why ? Is it because we are the only country with "God" on our side ? :-)

in this case, it had better not...

[alizard]

The technology you are using to put your ill-formed thoughts onto the Internet mainly comes from semiconductor devices invented for the first aerospace applications where weight and space were at extreme premiums.

The nation benefiting most from the technologies that comes from successful space projects (of course I don't mean the Shuttle, that would have been a success if closed out 10 years ago) will be the nation that makes the projects.

If America wants to buy its new high tech from China and India and exit the superpower business shortly afterwards, they should ignore the space programs both countries are planning.

It's about time we got a new technology driver other than the consumer sector, the idea that space is back in that role could be a very good thing.

Re:is there really a race?

[bj8rn]

Look at it as a race between Achilleus and a turtle. The turtle gets head start, so that he's already run half the way when Achilleus finally wakes up and starts running. When Achilleus has run half of the distance, the turtle is already at half the final half (Achilleus ain't actually trying). And so on. And Achilleus can never catch up with the turtle because every time Achilleus gets to a point where the turtle has been, the turtle is already gone. Ergo, there's no movement and where there's no movement there can't be a race (how can you race when nobody's winning?).