China's space programme gathers speed

Some say yes, but it is clearly a race between the hare and the tortoise. The US is the hare which put a man on the moon in 1969 after a few years of rapid development, then failed to build on that achievement. By contrast China has a 30-year programme of space exploration mapped out to the middle of this century,including the establishment of a permanently manned station on the moon by 2020.

Last year China launched Yinghuo-1, a Mars exploration probe,in a joint mission with Russia. It planned tovisit the moon of Phobos and orbit Mars, studying the planet’s atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field. Unfortu-nately it crashed and China’s current ambitions for Mars have taken a back seat to America’s, most recently carrying out a probe of the surface of Mars studying its chemistry and biology with its rover Curiosity.  However this will certainly not be the end of China’s ambitions for Mars, which plans to send a manned expedition there by the middle of the century.

China’s interest in space is prompted by far more than mere curiosity, as space development will lead to tremendous economic, scientific and security benefits. These includes developing new frontiers in satellite and communications technology, providing military security,and gaining access to minerals and rare elements such as Helium 3, used in nuclear fusion, and considered to be the fuel source of the future. While Helium 3 is extremely rare on earth, there are thought to be millions of tonnes of it on the moon. China also had high hopes that Yinghuo-1 would bring breakthroughs in fields such as biology, energy and technology.

Clearly dominance in space will have extraordinary benefits for whichever country achieves it.For now America is still unrivalled as the dominant space power, a pre-eminent position it is likely to retain for many years to come. HoweverAmerica is trimming back its space exploration budgets. For example, NASA’s budget for 2013 has been cut by 20 percent. It also has no firm plans for another manned mission to the moon and the International Space Station is being phased out in 2020. Meanwhile China’s plans, including a permanently manned space station, proceed at a steady pace. 

To succeed in its ambitions, China has tremendous hurdles to overcome. America is able to build on more than half a century of progress and technological development; it already has military and satellite dominance and wants to keep it that way, blocking China from participating in the International Space Station. Even so, many people are still picking that within 20 years or less, the tortoise will win the race.