A taikonaut emerges from China's Shenzhou 7 spacecraft after a successful orbital flight
Some critics fear that by abandoning a goal to return humans to the lunar surface by 2020, President Obama is ceding a new, undeclared moon to up-and-coming space powers such as China.
John J. Tkacik, a retired Foreign Service officer in the State Department, outlined the Chinese threat last month in an op-ed for The Washington Times:
Senior Chinese space officials have told their state media that China could be on the moon by 2022 at the outside. Other authoritative Chinese space engineers see a moon landing as a next step in the Tiangong program that will launch three Chinese space stations into Earth orbit between 2011 and 2015. In 2008, NASA scientists told the Bush White House that, with the technology currently available to the Chinese space program, Chinese cosmonauts could be on the moon by 2017….
This combination of financial wealth, educational excellence, advanced technology and a penchant for plundering intellectual property has enabled China’s space program to develop swiftly. In 2003, China’s gained entry into the exclusive manned-space club previously restricted to the United States and Russia. By 2008, Chinese astronauts were taking space walks and buzzing tiny “BX-1″ nano-satellites around their space capsules, a technology that puts them on the cutting edge of “space situational awareness” that America’s military space assets still lack.
Beijing’s political and military leaders alike foresee “competition” in space with the United States. They certainly plan to seize the high ground of low-Earth orbit and then will likely move to the even higher ground of moon landings perhaps before this decade is out. Judging from the past behavior of China’s state-owned aerospace firms especially in their unseemly eagerness to proliferate ballistic missile technology to rogue states, it is unlikely that Mr. Obama can count on much “cooperation” with China in space – except on China’s terms.
It’s difficult to assess the seriousness of this threat. China has actually moved rather slowly and methodically on human spaceflight, with only a handful of space flights to date. And although Chinese space policy is opaque, there’s no real indication that the leadership has approved anything like expensive human trips to the moon. (Nor is there any certainty that the time lines put forth by Chinese space leaders for such voyages are realistic.)
None of this means that China couldn’t take a large leap forward and accelerate their space program in the decade ahead. According to Tkacik, the program could be done using four Long March V rockets that are now under development. No additional heavy-lift capability would be required.
However, having the technology available to theoretically make trips to the moon is one thing; actually spending the money on developing the hardware, doing the mission planning, and making the flights is another. The Russians have been in that situation for 40 years now. They could have flown Soyuz vehicles around the moon at any time.
The value of leaping to the moon in 10 years also is questionable. Some skeptics say that it would be the equivalent of putting lags and footprints on the lunar surface as did the Apollo program. That would not be all that useful without a solid (and costly) plan to actually do something there.
On the other hand, the recent discovery of water on the moon could make real estate quite valuable for anyone who can claim it. The lunar regolith also contains large amounts of minerals and elements that could be worth a fortune once commercial operations can actually mine them.
One person who doesn’t seem worried about the Chinese threat is NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. He sees the future of human spaceflight as an international venture that the United States will help to lead, not a competition between nation states. The Obama Administration has directed to space agency to deepen its international cooperation, with partners in the “critical path” to mission success, Bolden said.
People worry about who’s going to be on the moon first. there’s no question. there’s six flags on the surface of the moon today….All six are U.S. flags.
Am I concerned that China may have a flag on the surface of the moon soon? Not really. Am I concerned that Argentina or Brazil or Russia or somebody else? I’m not concerned because they’re going to be joining six American flags. And so my approach to all this in a true international partnership, when one succeeds all of us succeed.
That’s my military mind. You know, we don’t like fighting wars, contrary to popular belief. So we spend a lot of time in what we call engagement. The reason I love being at NASA is that I am able to engage our international partners in a way that I could only do when I was in the military.
On this point, Bolden appears to be in broad agreement with ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain, who last week said that China, India and South Korea should be invited into the International Space Station program. Such a move would be a stepping stone to involving these emerging space powers in programs to send humans beyond low Earth orbit.
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