Will America Hand Space Dominance to China?
Via Gatestone Institute, Popular Science
China will be launching satellites almost every other week starting next March. In one instance the gap in next year's frenetic schedule of launches will be only five days.
This year, through the end of September, China launched 29 satellites, more than any other nation. The U.S. was a close second with 27.
Beijing aims to widen its lead. Most observers worry that the Chinese regime is determined to get to the moon before U.S. astronauts return there, but another troublesome development is that China will quickly be filling up orbits with satellites.
With a presidential candidate who has not been all that communicative, Americans may want to think more about space policy. In short, there are growing concerns that a new administration will, with the best of intentions but an utter lack of common sense, hand space leadership to the Chinese.
Observers believe that, going forward, US space policy will not differ much from the current one. Yet a new administration could make crucial differences in emphasis that will have far-reaching consequences.
Take last December's establishment of the Space Force, the sixth branch of the American military. No one thinks anyone will reverse that long-delayed and much-needed move.
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Yet American space warriors still worry. Brandon Weichert of The Weichert Report said in an interview with Gatestone that there might be a move to "staff the Space Force with people inimical to its mission."
Space Force's mission is to fight wars in space, but are all Americans fully committed?
Some believe the US space program should emphasize climate change research. If there is no overall increase in space spending, there will be less money for, among other things, defending American assets in space.
There are many American assets to defend. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database, the U.S. owned or operated 1,425 of the 2,787 satellites in orbit as of August 1. . . . Full Article By Gordon G. Chang @ Gatestone Institute
China's Race To Space Domination
Before this decade is out, humanity will go where it’s never gone before: the far side of the moon. This dark side—forever facing away from us—has long been a mystery. No human-made object has ever touched its surface. The mission will be a marvel of engineering. It will involve a rocket that weighs hundreds of tons (traveling almost 250,000 miles), a robot lander, and an unmanned lunar rover that will use sensors, cameras, and an infrared spectrometer to uncover billion-year-old secrets from the soil. The mission also might scout the moon’s supply of helium-3—a promising material for fusion energy. And the nation planting its starry flag on this historic trip will be the People’s Republic of China.
After years of investment and strategy, China is well on its way to becoming a space superpower—and maybe even a dominant one. The Chang’e 4 lunar mission is just one example of its scope and ambition for turning space into an important civilian and military domain. Now, satellites guide Chinese aircraft, missiles, and drones, while watching over crop yields and foreign military bases. The growing number of missions involving Chinese rockets and taikonauts are a source of immense national pride.
“China sees space capability as an indication of global-leadership status,” says John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “It gives China legitimacy in an area that is associated with great power.”
China’s estimated space budget is still dwarfed by NASA’s, which is $19.3 billion for this year alone. But China’s making the most of its outlay. This past year, it had 19 successful space launches—the second-highest number behind Russia’s 26, and ahead of America’s 18. The decades ahead will see a range of Chinese missions that will match—and maybe even surpass—previous NASA exploits, including quantum communications satellites and a crewed mission to the moon in the early 2030s.
By landing on the moon, China isn’t just joining an exclusive two-nation club. It is also redefining what space means—militarily, economically, and politically—in the 21st century. There are plans for heavy-lift rockets, manned space stations, and one of the world’s largest satellite-imaging and -navigation networks. Meanwhile the U.S.—particularly where human spaceflight is concerned—is hardly moving at all. “I don’t worry about China suddenly leapfrogging us,” says James Lewis, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C. think tank. “I worry about us being distracted and waking up to realize that they have a much more powerful position in space.” Full Article By Clay Dillow, Jeffrey Lin, and P.W. Singer @ Popular Science