China: The Rising Star
by Jennifer Altavilla
There is no doubt China is the rising star of the developing world. Its economy, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), is second largest in the world, next to the United States. And the fledgling Chinese star is shining even brighter since the country announced a three stage lunar exploration project, culminating with China's first manned lunar voyage sometime shortly after 2017.
China began its space odyssey back on October 15, 2003 when Yang Livei orbited the earth for 21 hours, making China only the third nation in history to send a man into space. Later this year China hopes to build on its success by launching an unmanned ship to orbit the moon. China's first unmanned lunar landing is scheduled to take place in 2012. Engineers at the Shanghai Aerospace Engineering Institute toiled for four years to develop the 5ft. high, 470 pound, nuclear-powered lunar rover, which will be able to dig and analyze soil, transmit video real time and collect three-dimensional images of the moon's surface. The vehicle, which reportedly travels 328 miles per hour also has the ability to negotiate incline and is fitted with automatic censors to prevent it from bumping into obstructions. Dedicated researchers are in the process of building a state-of-the-art lab that mimics the low gravity, temperature extremes, and cosmic rays of the moon for the sole purpose of testing the lunar rover so that it will be perfectly suited to the severe conditions under which it is going to work.
China, in addition to concentrating on solitary endeavors, plans to team up with France to develop a mini-satellite to monitor, as Space Daily calls it, "solar activity." This "small explorer for solar eruptions," as it is named by MSNBC.com, is set to launch in 2011, the predicted peak of the sun's cycle of solar activity.
However, China's most important partnership, and the one the United States is most concerned about, is that with Russia. China and Russia plan to institute a program of Martian exploration, set to commence in 2009. During the first launch a Russian rocket will lift a Chinese satellite and a Russian exploration vehicle into space and eject the satellite on Mars and the exploration vehicle on Mars' moon, Phobos, where it will take soil samples. This Sino-Russian plan is directly in competition with the United States’ plan to expand exploration on Mars and its moons.
Although, according to MSNBC.com, China intends to use its military-run, rapidly expanding space program to "focus on innovation and sustainability of space science development to better serve the national economy and security, and help build China into an innovative country," the United States is worried that it has ulterior motives, namely to directly challenge American control of space. These relatively new concerns rise mainly from a January, 11, 2007 incident where the Chinese launched a non-explosive warhead into an outdated weather satellite 530 miles above the earth, thus putting into orbit massive debris that could threaten U.S. and foreign low orbit satellites for years to come. Washington saw this anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) test as an assertion of Chinese power, possibly even a Chinese-Russian attempt, as William C. Martel, professor of international security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a former member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, says, "to impose some kind of weapons-free zone that is designed largely to restrict U.S. activities in space."
However, it can be argued that China's desire to check U.S. space power is not unwarranted. At the February 2007 65-nation UN conference on disarmament, the United States refused to consider a treaty banning space weapons. At the Geneva conference in 2002, the U.S. stymied the combined efforts of China and Russia to prevent the development of weapons in space. U.S. envoy at the UN conference of disarmament, Christina Rocca, says the Bush administration's stubbornness stems from the fact that it does not want to "limit its freedom of action or technological dominance of space." The administration would prefer to pursue a course of action that will "ensure that its satellites and other spacecraft [are] protected." Washington denounces China and Russia's space efforts because it believes that the space program is simply a display of military dominance, which it says, according to msnbc.com. is "counterproductive and [could] jeopardize the security of humanity."
The question is, is the United States in fact being counterproductive by not complying with rest of the world and agreeing to a treaty to ban weapons testing in space? The hardnosed stance of the Bush administration is simply encouraging China to work harder on its space technology in order to prove it can compete with the United States. By cutting China off completely, by not even agreeing to a proposed joint moon venture, the United States is doing nothing to protect the space dominance it claims to hold so dear. If the United States truly wants to advocate "use of space for peaceful purpose," as Christina Rocca claims it does, it should look into being a little more cooperative, a little better at sharing and giving some space to China.
