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.

This can only be good

[couch_potato]

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!

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

Re:Ummm...

[bj8rn]

why does the US insist on racing everyone for everything?

Maybe they are racists?

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.

Re:What race?

[mangu]

Well, of course, Americans didn't create any new design either. It was the German engineers brought from the V2 project who designed the rockets that went to the Moon. After the German engineers and scientists retired or died, NASA became the bureaucratic mess it's today.

But... but...

[Faust7]

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.

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.

A little naive and a little alarmist

[fname]

Well, I read both articles. The first seems naive in its complete analysis of why China may be going into space. Of course they have a military interest, just as the US had and continues to have. The second article begins by being a bit alarmist with talk of China developing the ability to accurately hit the US with nuclear weapons. What!?! Geeze, China already has long range missiles, and I'm sure their guidance systems are top-notch. Bringing up the spectre of nuclear war only serves to undermine the entire article.

Another point which shows a lack of understanding (or intentional obfuscation) of the US space program is this,

The problem is that the United States is not following a free market approach in space flight. NASA is still insisting on running its own space line, rather than going to the private sector for launch services, for example.

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.

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?).