[A-List] China: new space race

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

This is going to put the wind up the US political and strategic
community. It's disappointing, however, that this should be intended to
"inspire the spirit of nationalism". So much for internationalism.


The moon - a gigantic leap for the Chinese who spy a business
opportunity in space

Beijing takes giant leap into space with plans for lunar station

John Gittings in Shanghai and Tim Radford
Tuesday May 21, 2002
The Guardian

Chairman Mao, like the British and the Americans, was stunned when the
Soviet Union launched the space age in 1957 with Sputnik 1. "How can we
be considered a great power?" he asked. "China cannot even put a potato
in space."

But now Chinese scientists have promised the ultimate great leap
forward: a Chinese astronaut in orbit by 2005, a manned landing on the
moon by 2010 - followed by a permanent lunar base to exploit the new
high frontier of commerce.

"China is expected to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010
and will establish a moon base just as we did on the North and South
Poles," promised Ouyang Ziyuan, head of China's moon exploration
programme as he launched the country's national science and technology
week in Beijing.

After its first man in space, China plans a space laboratory, a lunar
orbiter to look for valuable elements and minerals, robot landings on
the moon - and then the human touchdown.

The price of space exploration is enormous. Russia and the US - the only
two states to have achieved manned flight - are struggling to keep their
brand-new investment, the international space station aloft. Britain
abandoned its own plans for a launcher 30 years ago, and until recently
refused to join Europe in developing the successful Ariane series of
launch rockets.

But China has a long tradition in physics, mathematics and engineering,
and its doctoral graduates have been welcomed in the US and Europe for
decades. A centrally directed state, it can throw huge resources at
technical problems, and it has been able to learn from 40 years of
pioneering triumphs and mistakes by the USSR and the USA.

Space flight is a gamble and the stakes are high. If successful, China
could have founder membership of the world's most exclusive club - a
second home on the moon - as well as a powerful hand at the strategic
bargaining table.

It could also partner a new generation of space entrepreneurs in a game
of ultimate high finance. Groups in the US and Russia have always had
plans for new industries in space. But to cash in, they first need a
foothold on the moon.

China has been putting payloads into orbit since 1970, with the first
launch of its Long March rocket. Since then, it has made 73 launches, 62
of them successfully. It has been putting up western satellites on a
commercial basis for more than a decade. There have been setbacks. A
Long March rocket with a telecommunications satellite aboard exploded on
launch in 1995, killing six people. The following year another launch
put a $120m Chinese satellite into the wrong orbit.

Since the beginning of the 1990s China has signalled its plans to move
cautiously into manned flight. Engineers began building a space centre
in Jiuquan City, in Gansu province, and in 1992 a Hong Kong-based news
agency quoted an official as saying: "The launch and retrieval of the
first space shuttle will take place in the new space centre and the
bases in its vicinity. It will take about 10 years to accomplish this
grand project."

Two Chinese "taikonauts" - went to Moscow for space training in 1996.
The first spacecraft built for manned flight, Shenzhou - or Divine
Mission - went up without any humans aboard, into test orbit around
Earth in 1999.

In 2001, China sent a monkey, dog, rabbit and snails into space aboard
Shenzhou II. And a test in March of the Shenzhou III unmanned
spacecraft, with dummy astronauts aboard, was hailed "a major step
forward in China's ambition to send a man in space".

Many of these developments were conducted in secret. Normal Chinese
practice is to move with caution. But Prof Ouyang's statement was given
national publicity yesterday on the Communist party People's Daily
website. President Jiang Zemin has recently shown his personal
enthusiasm for the space programme. The Beijing science and technology
week is staging an exhibition at the China Century Altar - symbol of the
nation's hopes for the future. Space exploration is its central theme.

Two designers from the Shenzhou III project told the conference that 12
astronauts were now undergoing intensive training. One more unmanned
space flight is planned before the first manned launch.

Experts say that the Shenzhou spacecraft already provides China with a
space vehicle capable of mounting a lunar programme. Previous proposals
have suggested that the country's latest rockets would launch a total of
39 tonnes, including a 28-tonne Shenzhou lander.

A geologist by training who worked on China's underground nuclear tests,
Prof Ouyang is a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He
has already predicted that one of China's greatest achievements in the
21st century will be to set up a "moon city" fuelled by power from the
sun - with any surplus beamed to a collecting point on Earth.

Just as the US sought psychological ascendancy with its manned lunar
programme, so the Chinese leadership is being tempted by the symbolism
of lunar conquest. The Chinese official news agency said last year that
a moon probe would be useful in "raising national prestige and inspiring
the spirit of nationalism".

Chinese scientists also predict that Mars will be the next target after
the moon. A "Mars Explorer" is now on show in Beijing, modelled on
Nasa's Mars Ranger.