http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/opinion/02FRIE.html

Jim Oberg made some interesting points in his Senate testimony on Tuesday and also in a talk he gave at APL on Friday. One of the things he noted was that so far, China’s human spaceflight program has been largely incremental. They stretch fuel tanks, add solid boosters, upgrade equipment, etc. If they are going to send humans to the moon, they will have to take larger strides. Will they do that? I proposed that it might require some prodding on our part and that it might be a good idea for us to get them to spend more and more of their money on this rather than ballistic missiles.

Mr. Smith also wrote:
“Indeed, like a rusty car with a brand new 12-cylinder engine, China’s economic engine may be too much for the archaic chasis to handle. I suspect China will have much more to deal with in the coming years which will be of greater importance…”

This is a valid point. I have seen one article from a couple of years ago indicating that China’s economic development may be overstated. Simply put, China may be cooking the books and stating higher growth rates than really exist. In addition, although their east coast is dynamic and growing (which is visible to foreigners), much of the rest of the country has not experienced much growth at all. I imagine that this can present lots of distortions but also lots of problems–people leave the rural center to go to the affluent east in search of jobs, but this creates strains in both places. In addition, we should wonder if this kind of growth is really sustainable.

But Mr. Smith’s comment poses another question for my proposal of encouraging China to spend more money on human spaceflight: could we inadvertently create dangerous strain on an already strained system? This harks back to the claim that the Strategic Defense Initiative “broke the back” of the Soviet Union (a claim that I do not accept). The problem is that while you want your adversary to go away, if they collapse they can be more dangerous than they already are. So perhaps America’s goal should be to urge the Chinese to pursue sustainable peaceful development.

That said, I’m not convinced that this is a real problem. The real problem is China spending money on missiles and other weapons pointed at Taiwan. What the moon race could do is help divert money already aimed at military/nationalistic pursuits.

If the Chinese population believes we in the West look down on their backwardness (such as NASA’s comments that their space program is not technologically mature, therefore no real cooperation) a sense of cultural pride could well motivate the citizens to accept poor gains in standards of living as the price needed to be paid to repay Western arrogance.

If I were a leader in Beijing, I would fan such flames of cultural pride and the mistakes of the Ming Dynasty as a cynical but effective tool for stifling internal discontent with standards of living.

At $2.5 billion per year, it is highly unlikely China will pursue human missions to the Moon any time soon, if at all. Indeed, like a rusty car with a brand new 12-cylinder engine, China’s economic engine may be too much for the archaic chasis to handle. I suspect China will have much more to deal with in the coming years which will be of greater importance…

As for American alt-space? Once one is built, China and Ukraine will be building copies within a decade thereafter, maybe sooner.

“Whatever it takes”? They’re currently doing very little to do that, at least nothing effective. US will dominate LEO through the military space program–NASA is irrelevant. As for the rest of the solar system, private enterprise will leave all government space programs in the dust once it takes off.

> > And Bill, you have far too much respect for the space bureaucracies of other nations. We don’t need them to have a real space program, and in fact the Russians have proven to be an anchor, at least the way we chose to do business with them.

What I have respect for is the idea that Putin and Chirac (and the Chinese) understand that dominance of space is essential for national security in the 21st century and they will do whatever it takes to assure the US does not have perpetual unfettered domination of LEO and celestial resources.

Today we are winning, yes, by a healthy margin.

But there is this little story called “The tortoise and the hare” and while we US-ians are sanguine and chant “Bush is the Man, Rah!” and “Bush can do no wrong! – – Hey!” the ESA cuts deals with China on Galileo and Putin arranges for Soyuz to be launched from a spaceport built on the equator by our supposed NATO allies.

The “Great Game” of the 21st century will be about who will write the laws for the property ownership of celestial resources. We assume it will be Americans. Why should we assume that sanguinely?

Another long term question is what language will be more prevalent away from the Earth in 2492 (the millenial anniversary of Columbus): English or Mandarin?