Will China Beat the United States Back to the Moon?
The Stakes in the New Space Race Are High
"I personally believe that China will be back on the Moon before we are. I think when that happens, Americans will not like it, but they will just have to not like it. I think we will see, as we have seen with China's introductory manned space flights so far, we will see again that nations look up to other nations that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid, and they want to do deals with those nations. It's one of the things that made us the world's greatest economic power. So I think we'll be reinstructed in that lesson in the coming years and I hope that Americans will take that instruction positively and react to it by investing in those things that are the leading edge of what's possible."
Most people are not aware of the full scope of the Chinese space effort, which has political, economic, and military components. While there has been no announced Chinese humans to the Moon effort, much of what China is currently or is planning to do in space would tend to point there.
China's manned space effort seems to be designed to steadily increase China's space operations capabilities. The Shenzhou 5, which flew in 2003 with a single taikonaut (Chinese for astronaut), orbited the Earth for just over twenty one hours and proved China's capability to launch humans into space. Shenzhou 6, with two taikonauts, followed in 2005 and remained in space for five days. The crew performed some biomedical experiments while aloft, proving China's capability to maintain humans in space for slightly longer periods while doing science.
Future Shenzhou missions will feature space walks, rendezvous and docking, and longer duration missions. This follows the pattern of America's Mercury and Gemini programs, which preceded the Apollo lunar program and gradually improved America's space operational capabilities.
At the same time as the Shenzhou program, China is embarking on a program of robotic lunar exploration. The first Chinese lunar prove, the Chang'e, will orbit the Moon and conduct remote sensing operations in late 2007. A lunar lander and a lunar rover probe are slated to follow in the next decade. This again seems to follow, in part at least, the American pattern of robotic exploration of the Moon, with the Ranger and Surveyor probes, that preceded the Apollo moon landing.
China can send humans to the Moon in one of two ways. It can use existing launchers to assemble the Moon ship in low Earth orbit before launching it to the Moon. Alternatively it can develop a heavy lift version of the Long March launcher, much as America did the Saturn V and is doing with the Ares 1 and V.
China returning humans to the Moon would be a catastrophic blow to the prestige of the United States. If left unanswered it could be a much greater blow to America's position as a super power. Just as sea power made Britain supreme in the 18th and 19th Centuries and just as air power made America supreme in the 20th Century, who possesses space power will determine who is supreme in the 21st Century.
Returning to the Moon represents the first step in establishing space as a venue of human economic and political activity. The potential of space or lunar based solar power, now being studied by the US military, and fusion power fueled by helium 3 to address the world's energy concerns is incalculable. The Moon is the key to accessing these resources.
The prospect of China, ruled by a totalitarian regime that asserts its power through force and terror, being the first, perhaps the only country to return to the Moon and access its resources, would be a tragedy of historic dimensions. It would signal the beginning of the end of the United States as a super power and the commencement of the Chinese Century.
Clearly, if Griffin is correct and China not only can but will beat the United States back to the Moon, there can be only one response. That would be to accelerate and expand our own program.
We've done it before. We can do it again.
Published by Mark Whittington
Mark R. Whittington is a writer residing in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Last Moonwalker, Children of Apollo, Dark Sanction, and Nocturne. He has written numerous articles, some for the Washington... View profile
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30 Comments
Post a CommentHow can you trust the american. Nope, the american and thier cohorts of liars who are europeans are former coloniser of other countries. Of course the polynesians, and other lesser culture will accept thier supremacy bullshit and be drawn into thier scheme of british american commonwealth. But they could not conquered the confucianist nations of rich culture and civilized mind. And to the confucianist culture which they could not win over, they try to create distrust among them like japan,korea, china in a triangular war. Veitnam was history to which the american had failed miserably. Today of course will be the south korean who just does not how to think. Are the south korean being enticed with beautiful american women, or they being heavily and financially dependent on american for market for thier goods. Which either way, the south korean has falled in the trap of the great satan, the deceiver.
sure,communist china will send thier astronaut to the moon before u.s. Its good because they will testify against american lies and thier stupidity.Thats why u.s is so afraid that keep up the propaganda war against china in every fields and every aspect of chinese life. Damn the american, and thier christian lies. Frist it was the opium,then it unequal trade,then on human hideous right,then on pornography invasions,then on colonisation of those colonies,and forever it is. Nothing changes,american satan will always find an imaginary excuse to destroy other nations.Nothing goods comes from the devil. They are the merchant of dead,merchant of sins in casino industry,and blue movie,merchant of sins in blasphemy news media. And they will remain to be so until thier demise in the 21st century. But before that, they will try to trigger a nuclear war either in the korean peninsular or Iran in the middle east. Be mindfull of these devil.
sure,communist china will send thier astronaut to the moon before u.s. Its good because they will testify against american lies and thier stupidity.Thats why u.s is so afraid that keep up the propaganda war against china in every fields and every aspect of chinese life. Damn the american, and thier christian lies. Frist it was the opium,then it unequal trade,then on human hideous right,then on pornography invasions,then on colonisation of those colonies,and forever it is. Nothing changes,american satan will always find an imaginary excuse to destroy other nations.Nothing goods comes from the devil. They are the merchant of dead,merchant of sins in casino industry,and blue movie,merchant of sins in blasphemy news media. And they will remain to be so until thier demise in the 21st century. But before that, they will try to trigger a nuclear war either in the korean peninsular or Iran in the middle east. Be mindfull of these devil.
CHina could beat us back to the moon,just by coping our techology from the Gemini and Apollo program and upgrading it, I would say by or before 2020 CHina will have orbited the moon like Apoolo 8 did in 1968 and have a man on the moon ,America will return to the moon later on then advance ahead of CHina on ward to Mars with a nuclear engine and ion drive get there in 2 months and not 6 months trip time ,Mars normally would be a 2 year round trip mission ,much to long for a manned mission,if we develop our engine technology then a mission wouldnt take so long and CHina wil be left in the dust back at the moon,anyone can copy our spoace program if they have the time and money and upgrade,America is a innovation culture.
America is a great country ..... thanks to other ????????????
I think this is stupid, why is Nasa racing to the moon? We already went there 6 times and theres nothing new. All we need to do is build a space station and that's it.
China is a great country. I have met many Chinese, and they also impressed me a lot.
The below posts are irrational and uneducated posts. The United States has been to the Moon, the "conspiracy" theorists have been proven wrong a long time ago. This proof was not provided by NASA, mind you, but by foriegn governments such as the U.K., Germany (the old East Germany monitored our Lunar transmissions), and Russia. Japan's JAXA recently sent hi-definition photos from their lunar orbiter of a descent module (with American flag). Also, the U. of California's Astronomical lab currently bounces lasers off of the mirrors purposely set up by our astronauts back in the 1970's. This is used to measure the Moon's distance. Any other questions refer to NASA. They have finally set a web link to answer these worthless questions, which probably cost the taxpayers a few million $.
Also, remember the United States launches more people per mission, and more missions per year, than China has since their space program started 5 years ago. Also, read about the Orion CEV.
It's funny how NASA had the technology to go to the moon in 1969 or whatever,Now it is 2008 and NASA still can't make it back to the moon until 2020 (very interesting). I think it is very clear NASA has never walked on the moon.Check out all the websites that have caught their lies
It looks like that if Hillary Clinton is elected President, NASA's exploration program will be gutted to pay for other priorities, making it far more likely that the next person on the Moon will be a citizen of the Peoples' Republic of China.