Shenzhou 9 Sparks Renewed Debate On Space Race With China

MarkWhittington writes "With the flight of the Shenzhou 9, which includes the first docking between a Chinese spacecraft and a prototype space station module, a renewed debate has arisen over the implications of Chinese space feats. China is planning a large space station by the end of this decade. It has expressed the desire to land people on the moon sometime in the next decade. Scientists, foreign policy experts and journalists debate whether China has supplanted the U.S. as a space power and whether that matters. 'In reality, the implications of China's move could be a much cooler third option: a new space race between the Chinese government and U.S. startups. While China is 50 years behind the U.S. government, they are much more comparable to U.S. companies. It was only a couple of weeks ago that SpaceX made history by becoming the first private company to successfully dock a space module to a station in orbit. This means they are roughly 10-15 years behind the Chinese government, but they could gain fast.'"

Comments

Is China even behind at all?

[mpoulton]

"While China is 50 years behind the U.S. government..."

Um. No they aren't. The US government did these same things 50 years ago, but is no longer capable of easily repeating its past feats. The first US moon landing program took less than 10 years from conceptual announcement to a giant leap for mankind. How long would it take for the US to do the same thing again? I'm not confident we even could. I'm not sure we could even replicate China's docking-to-a-station performance in 10 years, now that we've abandoned all of our previously successful manned spaceflight programs.

Re:Is China even behind at all?

[frosty_tsm]

I won't be counting out the USA with such a broad brush

Remember, when they sent out the astronauts to the moon, the computing power of the entire space module is less than a 386 chip

Today, even a not-so-smart phone has computing power much more than the 386

In other words, if USA wants to go to moon today, it no longer has to do it from scratch

Correct, but modern engineering is plagued by over-engineering, design by committee, and (when the government is involved) pork. For example, Congressional funding for NASA and the military specify which districts the components are made in. We also demand better safety and testing (which takes time) where sometimes the gadgets broke. Safety isn't a bad thing. But in 1969 we were willing to risk 3 men's lives with a reasonable probability they would 1) crash 2) get stranded or 3) overshoot the moon and keep going (all of which results in them dying).

There was a time when the right mix of brains, creativity, and guts came together. Since then, we've gotten smarter but (with respect to NASA) less creative and more risk-adverse.

Re:Is China even behind at all?

[c0lo]

We don't need to go back to the Moon. We went there, planted a flag, and left. There is no reason to go back to the Moon or to Mars. If China wants to waste a few hundred billion dollars on space, let them. That is one expensive flag planting ceremony.

(groan) ^This coming less than 50 years after... :

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Re:Is China even behind at all?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Perhaps more appropriate, his Rice U speech:

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

As soon as the US got to the moon, they rested, they waited. While space will be conquered by those who are moving forward.

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." – XKCD

An echo in an echo chamber is still an echo

[DerekLyons]

a renewed debate has arisen over the implications of Chinese space feats

Well, no. Not really. A couple of pundits and usual suspects lobbing blog entries back and forth at each other, and an article from a third string news service (Yahoo!) does not a renewed debate make... Most because the pundits and usual suspects have never shut up in the first place. If they weren't "debating" China, they'd be "debating" commercial space, or Mars missions, or something else they have no power to influence.
 
It's a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing.
 

In reality, the implications of China's move could be a much cooler third option: a new space race between the Chinese government and U.S. startups.

If it's anything like the last space race (a bunch of sterile stunts), I can't see why anyone with any sense would think it was cool. Not that China has shown any interest in such a race, or in any other manner of giving wood to the space fanboy crowd.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[Anonymous Coward]

The US had plenty of good reasons for barring China from the ISS, the most conspicuous of these being that China would likely not contribute much, if anything, to the program and would end up trying to steal as much technology as they could for their own benefit.

Re:Do you mind ?

[spokenoise]

I do mind. I seriously think China will get up there and stay before the US unless the US pimp it up as a face saver. China will do it for a tiny proportion of the budget with less fanfare and make it work. Eventually. 'To infinity and beyond'

Number of years don't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a dumb statement that china is supposedly 50 years behind with respect to the US. It is an irrelevant statement. Much more important is the fact that China's development is rising rapidly while the development of the US is in decline.

Re:Prediction

[SomePgmr]

He doesn't do much else? Like him or not, I can't think of many people that have done more than he has. And it's not like he sets small goals.

SolarCity, which apparently is the largest provider of solar systems in the US. That would be enough for any person to feel like they achieved something.

Co-founded Tesla Motors, who brought the electric car back from the dead, and last I'd heard, is actually profitable. Also provides powertrain tech to other auto companies. Company is worth over a billion now, the Model S starts production this year and the Model X starts in 2014. I believe they already maxed out preproduction reservations.

SpaceX. Started with $100m of his own money. Has $1.6 billion (minimum) to $3.x billion (max) in contracts for resupply flights to the ISS. Just made history as the first commercial company to complete one of those missions... and it was a nearly flawless one. Equipment to make the Dragon capsule safe for manned flight is in the works (as linked above).

Of course there's Paypal (formerly his X.com). I imagine he did alright on that deal... which was no small feat.

Sure he talks big, but the dude is only 40 and has already done a lot.

Re:renewed space race (1950 america)

[c0lo]

Nasa is not a provider of real jobs, .

This would qualify as either totally dumb (the poster didn't know better) or flamebait/troll (that is: ignoring on purpose the reality for the sake of controversy).

Poe's law would offer an explanation why the mods chose the second.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[YttriumOxide]

Umm ... Last time I checked Russia is a communist country too

It's clearly been a LONG time since you checked... it's been a Federal Republic with a multi-party representative democracy since the 25th of December 1991...

You could of course argue back and forth that they're not a very good democracy, but that's a matter of each person's own opinion.

Re:Prediction

[Spy Handler]

None of his other businesses matter very much... sure they're successful and making money, congratulations, but really, if Paypal and Tesla never existed, we'd just be using Google Payments and driving Nissan Leafs, no big deal.

On the other hand, SpaceX is a game-changer and completely different from anything else that came before. They're shaking the space industry to its very foundations and I think if they're successful with the Falcon Heavy, nothing will ever be the same again.

Obligatory Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[wickerprints]

This should put things in context: "We Stopped Dreaming"

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6b4_1337136397

And despite all the criticisms of the details of NDT's claims, I strongly believe that the underlying theme remains valid. Americans did in fact stop dreaming. The pursuit of science, engineering, and technology, the VALUATION of these things as a foundation for a competitive, progressive, and forward-looking society, is now almost entirely lost upon the American public, replaced by willful superstition, fear, and ignorance. Replaced by doubts about man-made climate change, irrational religious fervor for creationism and other Biblical dogmas, and indeed, an active distrust and suspicion of scientific and critical thinking.

This is not about what China is doing, folks. This is about what America once did on the belief that anything was possible, and about what America no longer does because that attitude has been replaced by a sense of complacency.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[progician]

I find this astronaut, cosmonaut and taikonaut so embarrassing for fuck sake. It's the same fucking thing. A person is space (or anywhere for that matter) isn't defined by the nationality but what she/he does and in what quality.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[progician]

If you ask me, I don't refer to China as a communist place (note that being a communist country is a contradiction), but as a state-capitalist country, meaning that the state is the major owner of the national resources and therefore the biggest capitalist of them all. Never the less, you can see how the Chinese capitalism is compatible with the "Western" version of it, given that China is bailing out the EU, also developed private industry and so on.

Capital can be concentrated or highly distributed, but as long as the society runs on the principles of market available property (public or private does not matter, since if nobody else, Chinese government can sell national assets), on the internal mechanism of investment, exploitation and market valorization, than we're still talking about the roughly the same social organisation, that is, capitalism.

Monopolization is a natural process within capitalism, so even the so called free markets lasts only as long as the state power regulates the economy (anti-trust laws, anyone?). But as political and economical power always tend to merge because people with considerable wealth are commanding over larger amount of economy, hence they rule over larger proportion of people, directly or indirectly, the state is always central to the capitalist system, either in the framework of the western style indirect market manipulation, or with being in charge directly over the economy, like in China. These are different politico-economic management styles, not entirely opposite social organisations. Monopolization can take charge through economic power, or political. But the end-result is the same. As an anecdotal side note, I'm from a country, which was considered as socialist/communist for 40 years, until 22 years ago. I've seen both management styles, through the transition and now living in the west, and I have to tell you, that the ideological differences are just rather covering up the converging features of the two political and economical management, than actually creating differences on a social level.

Not about technology

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

This isn't about technology. It's about national will. To quote Londo Mollari in Babylon 5, we've become decadent, obsessed with arts and trinkets. Gone is Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" too. The USA is a nation of pussies now. Everyone wants a handout, and no one wants to contribute to an endeavor greater than themselves. It's all, gimme gimme gimme. We could've been on Mars by 1980 easily. Instead now we can't even get to low Earth orbit. It isn't because we don't know how. It's because our own navels are much more interesting. Yes, I'm disgusted.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[zach_the_lizard]

Communism is an economic system, whereas democracy is a political system.

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[luis_a_espinal]

Communism is an economic system, whereas democracy is a political system.

Not in parrochial American lingo, it is not. Here we proudly chew a blade of grass or wheat and with clenched teeth we call communist whatever doesn't fit our simpleton pick-up truck world view. Why do you use sound logic and bring up historically accurate hippy facts? Why do you hate America?

Re:It's a space "RACE" because that's what US want

[MasaMuneCyrus]

The US had plenty of good reasons for barring China from the ISS, the most conspicuous of these being that China would likely not contribute much, if anything, to the program and would end up trying to steal as much technology as they could for their own benefit.

Learning for their own benefit is fine. NASA is very open to helping others learn. The specific reason that China was not allowed into the project, though, is because there are laws in place since the Tiananmen Square massacre that prevent exporting military technology and arms to China. Space technology very much helps the military, and there are very good reasons why most western countries still do not arm China with the most advanced weapons and rocket technology on Earth.