DeLay’s resignation announcement came less than a week after he issued a press release and participated in a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing, warning that the US was engaged in a “space race” with China. As DeLay put it in his press release, “The advanced state of the Chinese space program represents a 21st century Sputnik moment. The new space race has already begun, and our only choice is to ensure the full funding of our space program to win it.” He called for a “a special oversight hearing on NASA’s human space program relative to those of our foreign aerospace competitors.” (One wonders if this pending hearing is one of the reasons why DeLay is staying in Congress for the next couple of months.)
But just how advanced is the Chinese space program? At an event at a downtown Washington hotel yesterday organized by Center for Strategic and International Studies, Luo Ge, vice administrator of the China National Space Administration, provided a detailed overview of China’s space program. I won’t go into details here, but there are a few interesting notes:
- Luo painted a picture of a relatively balanced space program, with a focus on space applications (telecommunications, remote sensing, navigation, etc.). He talked far more about those satellite programs than on its Shenzhou manned space program.
- Because of “complicated” budgeting procedures, Luo said it was difficult to put an exact value on the size of the Chinese space budget, but he estimated it at around $500 million/year.
- Luo emphasized that China’s Chang’e lunar exploration program, which features an orbiter, lander, and sample return missions, are all unmanned. He made no discussion of future manned programs beyond the development of an Earth-orbiting “space lab” by around 2015.
- When asked why China was spending money on manned spaceflight and lunar exploration after previously saying that their space efforts were guided by practical applications, Luo said that these programs were considered technology and science missions, and that some other research, including biological and agricultural experiments, had been folded into the manned program.
- Asked about whether China would participate in the ISS, Luo said that China had “always been interested, but we don’t have a ticket yet.”
Reuters has an article about Luo’s comments; the meeting was attended by a number of other journalists, so there may be more coverage of the event to come as well.
The Reuters article has at least one date wrong. It lists 2010 for the debut of China’s Next Generation Launch Vehicle (it still lacks a formal name). The actual date that Luo gave was 2011.
One interesting omission during his talk was no mention of the Hainan Island launch facility.
Reuters also wrote this: “China’s Moon exploration program includes a lunar fly-by in 2007, a soft landing in 2012 and a return of lunar samples by 2017, Luo said.”
However, it did not note that Luo stated very clearly that these were ALL unmanned missions.
It is worth noting that claims that China intends to land a man on the Moon by 2017 are based upon a misunderstanding when people confuse the 2017 ROBOTIC lunar sample return mission with a manned mission. Members of Congress have repeated this mistake. We now have a senior Chinese space official stating for the record that the 2017 date is for a lunar sample return, unmanned.
I’m increasingly surprised by the shallowness of the coverage that the Chinese space program is receiving from spacedaily.com’s Australian commentator. See, for instance: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Storm_In_A_Spacecraft.html
The commentator, Morris Jones, speculates based upon limited knowledge and data. For starters, he was not even _at_ the talk by Mr. Luo Ge (I was), and is making his judgments based upon a Reuters news article. That article was essentially accurate, but did not discuss Luo’s comments in detail or really in context. Thus any conclusions that one draws from the article are going to be a distorted assessment of what Luo actually said.
For Jones to say that the talk was “surprisingly controversial” is not an accurate reading of the situation at all. Ge was actually well-received at the talk, and he did not say anything that other Chinese officials have not already said, either in public or private. Not all of that was reported in the press, but anybody who thinks that China has not previously expressed interest in sending a Shenzhou spacecraft to the ISS is mistaken. And Luo made his remarks about visiting ISS in response to a question. I would rather have honest answers from the Chinese than non-answers. In fact, if Luo had been a Japanese representative rather than a Chinese one his comments would have been equally noncontroversial. There was nothing terribly provocative in those comments at all.
Jones also misread Luo’s statement about “openess.” Luo was not referring to the United States providing information about its space program, but American willingness to engage China–i.e. the United States was more open to China in the 1980s than it is today. And in that regard I don’t think anybody would disagree that the United States was more willing to engage China in the 1980s than it is today. It was also only a single comment during a talk that lasted well over an hour.
Jones also acts as if there is something mysterious or sinister about China’s Next Generation Launch Vehicle. But it comes at the same time that both Arianespace and the US have migrated to larger launch vehicles. China simply needs to have more capacity if they want to be capable of launching the largest satellites. Also, Jones states that the availability date of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle is 2010. That date was misreported by Reuters. The correct date is 2011.
The thing that struck me about Luo’s presentation was that they have a rather balanced program with satellites in many different categories–earth observation, science (such as solar and terrestrial physics), planetary exploration (the Moon) and human spaceflight. I wish Luo had talked more about their human spaceflight plans, but his goal for the talk seems to have been to demonstrate that China has a broad space program, not a narrowly focused one. China’s space program now looks much like Japan’s.
Luo Ge’s presentation can be found here:
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/060403_china_space.pdf
Allow me to add a long comment:
During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency acquired substantial evidence about the state of the Soviet manned lunar effort. I have written about this in detail:
“The Moon in the Crosshairs: CIA Intelligence on the Soviet Manned Lunar Programme, Part 1 – Launch Complex J,” (with Asif Siddiqi), Spaceflight, November 2003;
“The Moon in the Crosshairs: CIA Intelligence on the Soviet Manned Lunar Programme, Part 2 – The J Vehicle,” (with Asif Siddiqi), Spaceflight, March 2004;
“The Secret of Complex J,” Air Force, July 2004;
“In the Shadows of the Moon Race,” Spaceflight, November 2004;
“From the Shadows to the Stars: James Webb’s Use of Intelligence Data in the Race to the Moon,” Air Power History, Winter 2004.
Some of those articles have appeared on the web (the Air Force magazine one, for instance), and others have appeared on the web in other form. But I suggest going to Spaceflight’s website and ordering back issues containing the articles I wrote with Professor Asif Siddiqi, who is widely acknowledged as the foremost scholar on the Soviet manned space program.
I have also presented papers on this at the International Astronautical Federation and the American History Association, but they were not as extensive as the articles. I have another upcoming article on just how accurate American intelligence on the Soviet lunar program was. It covers both the middle of the intelligence effort (1964) and the late intelligence effort (1968-1972), when the CIA was confident that the Soviets were well behind in the lunar race.
It turns out that intelligence on the Soviet lunar program was excellent, although hampered by the lack of a human source inside the Soviet space program, and limited by lack of Soviet openness. The amazing thing is how closely CIA analysis mirrored Soviet actions. When the Soviets were confused and disorganized, CIA analysts were puzzled, because they could not figure out whey the Soviets were obviously spending so much money and not making more progress beating the Americans to the Moon. What they did not realize was that bureaucratic infighting and political indecision was holding the Soviet program back. But they were remarkably accurate at determining realistic Soviet lunar landing timelines. In fact, the truly startling thing is that by 1965-1966 the CIA probably had a _better_ sense of when the Soviets could realistically attempt a lunar landing than the Soviets had themselves. Soviet managers were lying to their superiors about their ability to make the dates they had set. The CIA knew the real dates.
The White House knew that the Soviets were racing, so did Congress, so did NASA. The public was told about Soviet capabilities up to a point, but could not be shown the evidence because it was classified.
Today it is far harder for China to conceal something like that for numerous reasons. They cannot really conceal it from the U.S. government. The signs would be ambiguous at first, but at some point they will become very clear. Second, they would have a hard time concealing it from the American public. During the 1960s the US intelligence community had satellites that had resolution of 2 feet. Today we have commercial imagery satellites with resolution that is better than that. If you want to know what China is up to, take out your credit card and call Digital Globe.
Finally, as my colleague Jim Oberg has noted, China is much more open about its space program, including its human space program, than the Soviets ever were. Efforts to paint them as highly secretive do not stand up to scrutiny. Yes, they keep secrets. But it is remarkable how much information they make publicly available. For example, Mr. Luo’s presentation slides are here (warning-9 megabyte file):
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/060403_china_space.pdf
Note that all of the claims that China intends to “beat” the United States to the moon are based upon a report that China is planning a manned lunar landing by 2017, one year before the American goal of 2018. This claim was made again in Congress a week ago.
But if you look at Mr. Luo’s presentation, page 41 shows China’s lunar plans, including a ROBOTIC sample return mission in 2017. I was there when Mr. Luo stated that those lunar missions are “all unmanned.” Those plans have previously been mistranslated as a manned mission.
So anybody claiming that China intends to do this must present evidence. Hard data. Do they have it? No. All they have is claims that it “could” happen. But that is NOT evidence.
In fact, the claims of a “space race” are based upon data that is easily checkable and refutable. The problem is that few people bother to check the data and confirm its accuracy.
Thank you Mr. Day for your always excellent analysis.
I want to add one comment. For anyone seriously interested in these issues, Mr. Sidiqqi’s Challenge to Apollo should be required reading.
One of the truly fascinating things about the “space race” as revealed after the Cold War was how diverse the Soviet effort was. There were numerous “Designers” who appeared, up to a point, to be largely autonomous, all pursing their own vision. It was we, in contrast, who had the monolithic plan and national effort that we usually think of as Soviet. It was as if we had half-a-dozen or more Werner von Brauns, each in charge of a fully autonomous center, each courting the political favor of the moment.
Mr. Siddiqi implies it was the process of wasting their resources on a handful of more-or-less simultaneous human moon projects that cost the Soviets the race. In this light, it is worth recalling who actually made it to the moon and comparing that to the chaotic mess of unfinished projects we’ve indulged in since.
The Chinese effort does not appear to have the chaotic disorganization of the Soviet effort. Nor is it comparable to the Apollo box that too many American analysts are trying to force it into. I would guess — and this is only a guess — that it is something uniquely Chinese, shaped by their ancient culture. In that light, I would expect to see something very practical, deliberate, careful, patient, and extremely detailed — just like Chinese art and politics.
In taking the best of relatively low-cost Russian technology, improving it, and in maintaining a careful and deliberate pace, that is indeed what we seem to be seeing (it’s too early to see how detailed and complex the end result will be).
It also is too early to see where this might lead. However, it is worth recalling the story of the tortoise and the hare!
— Donald
D Day has this one right – there is no race. It’s simple fear-mongering of the type we see used to justify all manner of policies these days. And it’s bound to backfire as people get wise. This is, after all, one reason why Bush’s approval ratings are just about where Nixon’s were when he resigned. People get annoyed when they find they are being lied to consistently.
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I agree with the “lied to consistently” part. And the statement about fear-mongering has a significant degree of truth to it, but it ignores the reality of what really drives democratic politics.
Because we are a democracy, our policies are driven by the “masses”, which means every politician will be trying to persuade those masses to support them.
Scientifically, it has been proven that people (even highly intelligent people) are more susceptible to fear based messages, than other types of messages.
We are wired that way.
Business leaders are taught to couch their “change initiatives” in terms that generate fear among the complacent bureaucracies they are trying to change. “Fear of the competitor” has been proven to improve performance.
We are wired that way.
Often, the most effective political initiatives are “fear-based”. That is why politicians (of all political persuasions) look for them. (NOTE, the best leaders do speak to our better natures, but that is not the subject here.)
Some examples:
“They will increase your taxes”
“They will take your Social Security”.
“They will take away your civil rights.”
“They will get us in a nuclear war.” (Think of LBJ’s famous commercial against Goldwater.)
“They will destroy the environment.”
“They will ruin your health care.”
“They will let your jobs go overseas.”
“They will let the terrorists in (from over our borders)”
“They will mess up the war on terrorism. (e.g., help the terrorists”
“They will spy on you.”
“They will take away a women’s right to choose.”
“They will kill more babies with abortion.”
“They will get us in another war, and kill more of our young adults.”
“They will lose jobs in our community.”
“They will let the foreigners come in and …”
“They will screw up disaster relief, and don’t care if you die.”
“They will let the commies take over.”
“They will take away your cost-of-living-adjustment.”
“They will take away your hard-earned retirement.”
“We need to mandate better safety standards in cars to save our children.”
“We need to end the death tax” (although this applies to 1% of the population, a much larger percentage of the population thinks it will apply to them.)
“We need an interstate highway system for **national security**.”
“We need to build a 5-layer wall at the border for **national security**.”
“We need more money for NASA, to eliminate the human spaceflight gap, for **national security**.” (don’t laugh — Senator Nelson has said this several times in the last couple years)
“We need money for ESAS and the CEV, and if you don’t give it to us, in about 20-40 years the leaders of the free world will speak Chinese.”
– Al