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Space Race: The Sequel
China’s recent declaration that, in partnership with Russia, it intends to send an astronaut to Mars confirmed their entry into space exploration with a big bang. From down here on Earth, it looks like a new space race is beginning to brew.
China’s first space walk is scheduled for later this year and will mark a milestone in China’s budding space program. Their efforts are a source of national pride, as underlined by the words of their first astronaut, Yang Liwei. “I will not disappoint the motherland,” he said before boarding the capsule in 2003. “And I will gain honor for the People’s Liberation Army and for the Chinese nation.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) has set itself the goal of putting someone on Mars by 2030. The ESA is also given to inter-space-agency alliances, as evidenced by their work on Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Suzaku and AKARI probes. And of course, where would space exploration be without the Americans, who started this fuss when President Bush announced his intention to go to Mars during the 2004 presidential election?
All this international talk makes for a much more crowded space race than last time. As the dust settled at the end of the Second World War, a battle of ideologies began between the U.S. and Russia, with democracy pitted against communism. The Cold War extended to the heavens, making them a proxy for political domination on Earth.
The Russians won the early rounds, sending Sputnik into space in 1957. The Americans played catch-up, but initial efforts failed to make it anywhere near space and were labelled “stay-put-nik” by the American press. But billions of dollars later, in 1969, the Americans emerged as victors when Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon.
Since then, the U.S. has cut back on its space program – even scrapping the final Apollo missions to save money. Back in the 1960s, 5% of the federal budget went to space technology. Today, that figure is around 1%. Since the Columbia disaster in 2003, the space shuttle has launched only four times, compared with 11 times in the two previous years. President Bush pledged to build a Moon base by 2020 to explore other planets, but that campaign promise isn’t being met. NASA’s latest spending review included funding for just one lunar flight, of $60 billion. Compare that to the $7 billion which would fund 17 shuttle missions. Leaving near-Earth orbit is a costly business without much incentive.
So why race? Wouldn’t it be more economical to join forces to send humans to another planet? On the face of it, perhaps, but without competition there is no push to succeed, like running an Olympic 100 meters with only one runner. But with the massive costs involved – the U.S. estimates sending a man to the Mars will cost more than $1 trillion – seem to dictate that collaboration is the only way to get there.
Still, cooperation doesn’t sit well with America’s capitalist roots. Witness their refusal in recent years to sell to China, or indeed any other country, the intellectual property for technology developed on the International Space Station. How will they keep up in the race without emptying their already oversubscribed coffers? It will have to involve some pride-swallowing somewhere in the U.S. senate, either sharing their knowledge with other countries or watching with gritted teeth as rivals in the East go where no man has gone before.
