| | Congratulations to the Chinese for launching their second manned space mission today, Shenzhou 6. It is a significant accomplishment. There is a helpful and fairly detailed history of Chinese manned spaceflight, written before the launch, available from GlobalSecurity.org.
While here in the U.S., some folks still seem stuck interpreting the event in terms of a Cold War space-race paradigm, I think we need to see the big picture. There are basically two space "worlds", today, with US-Russian-European-Japanese cooperation being one, and the Chinese and Indian programs making up the other. To this second grouping should likely be added Brazil, though they suffered a major setback in 2003 with the launch pad explosion at Alcantara.
Though President Clinton's decision early on to redesign the station and get the Russians involved was problematic in many ways, one benefit that may pay off big in the long run is it got most of the world's space programs to agree on docking standards, pressurization, etc. This result will likely end up being the greatest legacy of the ISS. Nevertheless, the two most populous nations have never been part of the ISS program.
Since China is reportedly developing some sort of simple station, we can only hope they will use the same interfaces, etc. It would be really nice (and safer) if all the world's manned space vehicles could dock with one another.
At the same time, we need to see that China and India's programs have been going on for many years, and showing fairly steady progress. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up competing between themselves in years to come, but economic realities mean that big-budget crash programs really aren't likely. Instead, it's time to grasp that both these countries are long-term players, who realize they must make more modest but steady investments to see results. This is, in fact, why they must not be underestimated.
Truthfully, the only way to really get anywhere in space is to have a long-term, well thought-out research program. Any successful program will have to build a foundation and then keep building on top of it. China and India appear to both be using funds carefully, but steadily moving forward. In another decade or two, they may have progressed a lot farther than many expect. |
| | Posted 10/12/2005 2:30 PM - 93 Views - 2 eProps - 2 comments
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