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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..."
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.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Competition spawns innovation, right? Maybe the Chinese can spur NASA on in a way similar to the Russians, you know, light a fire under their butts...
You need a license to have a dog, but any fool can have a child!
The article talks about China using the spinoff tech of their space program to improve their ICBMs. Well, sure, of course...but what nobody's considering is the military effect of a permanent moonbase. With a mass driver. Read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress if you don't know what I'm talking about.
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
> nothing to see or do really. move on to other things,
> and stop romanticising the big void.
Obviously you've never met Eccentrica Galumbits, the triple breasted whore of Eroticon Six.
Maybe they are racists?
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
...that the space elevator was the new way to go? Except for the massive production of the required carbon tethers it all seems feasible and why not give it a try? If it works out the race will be won.
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.
U.S has placed robots on Mars, Venus and landed a satellite on Eros the asteroid but China has yet to place a man in space. This is hardly a race, yet.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
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.
Neither one of those articles mentions the race among Jupiter's moons between the Chinese spacecraft Tsien and the U.S.-Russian spacecraft Leonov, and how the Tsien crash-lands on Europa and gets devoured by a huge green bloatbeast from the alien waters, and how the Leonov meets up with an old American spacecraft and oh god I need to get outside. Open the front door, Hal.
The coolest voice ever.
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).
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 ? :-)
Dude, that was hilarious. I hope you get some moderators that have a sense of humor.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Public ignorance is no reason to stay away from space. Knowledge is there for those who seek it and realistic programs can be made. What are we going to gain from sitting on our hands, drawing up slow and cautious nothings like he accuses NASA of? Blah!
Oh yeah, knocking NASA for all our space woes is pathetic. It's not NASA's fault hydrogen peroxide and even model rocket engines are hard to get your hands on. There are plenty of other large slow, careful offices making sure we sit on our hands so no one gets hurt.
A space race is a good thing. VonBraun got to live half of his dreams because we were afraid of the USSR. He and many others showed us a cheap way to the stars on top of mild steel rockets. It's not his or NASA's fault we terminated those programs and now have to rely on USSR boosters for heavy lifting. Did NASA kill Nerva? I don't think so. The blame lies squarely on those who want to take things slow and careful.
China has a hard time keeping it's submarine fleet from sinking, but that won't keep them from putting rockets up. They don't care as much as we might over a few heroic, and needless, deaths. Fine, bring it on.
Why do we need to go to space? Because the Earth is limited. People need the resources space , which is limitless, has to offer. We can go get those resources or we can sit on our hands and fight over petty differences, like who owns Jeruselem suburbs, and wait for the next large scale extintion event to settle everything for us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Another point which shows a lack of understanding (or intentional obfuscation) of the US space program is this,
Ummm, NASA only developes manned launch vehicles, specifically the space shuttle. All the unmanned launch vehicles (Titan, Atlas, Delta, Pegasus) are developed and maintained by private companies which compete for launches. With the EELV program, the government (mostly the Air Force) has taken a much more hands-off approach in the development of these launch vehicles (Delta IV and Atlas V). Further, shuttle is mostly maintained by private companies; for the Orbital Space Plane in development, the intention is to build the manned section of the vehicle to sit atop one of these Heavy Lift Vehicles.Finally, the government is still heavily involved with these unmanned vehicles, but it is the DOD, not NASA, that funds their development. NASA's budget is about $15 billion, have of which is for their manned and unmanned programs (the rest is for aviation stuff & general research). The DOD space budget is also $15 billion, $0 of which supports ISS or the shuttle. The DOD has funded the developments of just about every launch vehicle for the last 30 years, with the obvious exception of shuttle.
And the shuttle is a remarkable piece of technology, the likes of which we may not see again for 20+ years. A heavy-lift, man rated vehicle which launches as a rocket and lands like a plane. It's had some obvious problems, but NASA took a big bite (given the constraints imposed from the outside by non-engineers and DOD officials) and came up with a great system. Sadly, NASA has not had the chance to apply a lessons-learned to build a Shuttle II. Maintenance is too expensive, and our materials are much better now than 30 years ago,so Shuttle II would be 2-3X less expensive than Shuttle I. Reduce it's lift capability in half, and it'd be much more capable of fulfilling its core requirements.
injecting some market force into the space race sounds great, but the fact is, the field is wide open to anyone to develop a launch vehicle w/o government help. Many have tried and failed. A big reason the government has funded the development of every lauch vehicle in the US is simple-- it's not cost-effective to develope one without government help. When Teledisic wanted to luanch 243 satellites into low-earth orbit, do you think anything prevented them from going outside NASA? When Iridium and Globalstar launched their constellations, do you think NASA was involved in any way other than ensuring the safety of those on the ground?
There's so much more to space in this country than 99% of the population realizes. It is largely private, and guess what-- we've had more success with the pure NASA and DOD programs.
Back to the point. China obviously seeks to improve their use of space for commercial and military purposes. They see the US as dominant in space, and I'm sure they would like to have better communication and geo-location capabilities. Going to the moon seems to be more about prestige, and thinking 100 years ahead, not 10 years. Eventually, we will have outposts on Mars and the Moon, maybe even colonies.
As the Europens sailed off into the unkown 500 years ago, so to do the Chinese fly off into the unknown today. The fruits they bear will not be realized for decades, but the eventual impact is undeniable. I say good for China for pushing into a new frontier, and I hope the US also decides to push ahead into the unkown, despite its dangers.
which is, to quoute Dr. Strangelove:
"In order to build such a device, you must first have the will to do so."
They do.
The leaders of a very shame/reputation-conscious society have committed to some very bold statements about technology and progress. Good for them!
For all our wealth and WMD's, it's more than the US has been willing to ventur in decades.
Kremvax
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
It's a priori pretty unlikely that there could even be a second space race between the US and China. You only engage in a space race if you have something to prove; since the United States beat the Soviet Union to the Moon and won the Cold War, the only country with something to prove is China, and as it stands they're way behind in the game. One could perhaps start talking about a renewed space race after a large amount of concerted effort by China -- say, China sets up a space station, goes to the Moon, and has plans for a manned mission to Mars -- bu that could only happen after a decade or more of successes by the Chinese.
I don't understand why people keep saying this. Launching stuff into orbit is excesively expensive. there is no way to relieve a meaningful amount of the population pressure this way. The only viable way would be with a space elevator/cable, but that's still far off; till then it's just not economically feasible. (and... imagine the pollution it would cause, sending millions of rockets into orbit... nah.)
We're a stable democracy and China isn't. As an American I wouldn't lose any sleep at night if all of Western Europe had the power to blow me off the earth. Because they're stable democracies, which means the masses of people generally run the show.
I DO worry about countries where the people that live in the country don't have a say in how it operates though, because you're more likely to end up with a rogue nut in power that stupid enough to pull the trigger and there's no one to stop him.
A china man, indian, and american are a super team for space race, all of them together. Why have 3 seperate moon races when we can do it together on just one trip?
I suggest you read Slashdot
Why do we need a space race? To get the US to put up or shut up. After Johnson, every Republican administration has cut every penny they can from civilian NASA - or don't y'all remember how Newt and his Grinches tried to kill the Station in '95? Billions for SDI, and nothing for civilian uses of space.
With a race, maybe we can clean up NASA's management - the current structure, according to folks on the inside at KSC, has more managers than techs...and some of those managers don't even have engineering degrees. And, yes, I *do* have the evidence to back this up.
mark
*sigh* its this "us vs. them" mentality which depresses and scares me. i live in England, but do i want what's best for England? nope. do i want whats best for Britain, or Europe, or even "The West"? nope. i want whats best for HUMANITY... why is there so much competition about this sorta thing? to gain a military and economic advantage? why are people so damn selfish? why does anyone want their country to succeed at the expense of others? as far as i can see, any form of nationalism is just a tribalistic throwback from our evolution, and is more of a hindrance to progress now than anything else... why can't countries SHARE their tech? and everything else, for that matter? it would sure make it a lot easier for us to do stuff like establish permanent bases on the moon, because we wouldn't all have to research the same stuff... ahh well, call me a naive hippy dreamer if you like, but i think a completely nation-less utopia would a nice base to build scientific research on...
Does anyone remember the waves of economic fear that ripped through American culture when faced with the Japanese Juggernaut of the 80's? If the fears of the day had come to pass we'd all be working for Shogun overlords, eating rice, and speaking a patois of several asian languages. Fortunately, the Japanese imported american work ethics and their economy went to pot.
China is a little different though. First of all, they have about 7 times the population that Japan did. Most of them have yet to join the world economy to any significant extent just yet. China has vast natural resources of its own instead of being forced to import everything. Finally, their government is not exactly friendly to the U.S..
Yes, it's time for a new wave of xenophobic fear! Time for diplomacy. Diplomacy being the fine art of saying "Nice doggy." until you can find a big enough stick.
Competition is good. Look at all the technology that came out of competition between the free world and the communist block... You can't follow up to this post without using several hundred innovations that resulted from nationalistic competition.
Now if we could figure out how to compete without having wars and stuff...
-- $G
Just an off-topic note, we didn't mess up in Somalia until we did two things:
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
Yep, no major problems. 30-years war, Napoleonic wars, Franco-Prussian war, WW I and II, enslavement of eastern europe by the Soviets. Dozens of other conflicts.
Hard to imagine a more peaceful time, really. Damn good thing those troublemakers left though, so they could come back and save your asses twice and hold off the Soviets for 50 years.