ON CHINA AND INDIA IN SPACE

FUTURE SHOCK

This Bloomberg article titled "China Launches Lunar Probe, Aims to Land Man on Moon" caught my eye today:

"Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- China launched its first lunar probe today, marking the start of a three-phase space program to land an astronaut on the moon by 2020.

The Chang'e I probe, named after a mythical Chinese deity who lives on the moon with her pet rabbit, lifted off on board a Long March 3A rocket from the Xichang satellite center in southern China."

India has similar ambitions over the next few decades, and they'll likely follow the Chinese lead a decade or so later.

Most Americans reading the Chinese story are likely to have the following reaction first, "How nice...they're following our lead, taking over half a century to do in 2020, what we did back in 1969". 

After all, Captain James T. Kirk, "future son" of Riverside, Iowa, started taking the starship Enterprise for a spin around the galaxy, in his Star Trek back in 1966, over 40 years ago (image source). 

Star Trek of course went on to be wildly popular the world over, shaping our image of ourselves in the distant future.

As I read stories about the space ambitions of countries like China and India, I can't help but think how our image of ourselves in Space is shaped not only by history, but our Science Fiction, which assumes that Americans will be the leading pioneers in space for centuries to come.

Movies like  2010, A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, and Alien, amongst so many others, have shaped a global image of Americans leading the way in space exploration well into the 21st and 22nd centuries.

As an example, here's a Wikipedia synopsis of how the first (1979) Alien movie gets started:

The Nostromo, a towing vessel hauling an enormous ore refinery and 20 million tons of raw ore, with a crew of seven (including Captain Dallas and Warrant Officer Ripley) has set out from the mining colony Solomons on its return to Earth in the year 2122."

That it was an American enterprise in space was in no doubt.  In the terrific sequel Aliens, directed by James Cameron,

"...the Company sends Ripley, a group of United States Colonial Marines, and Carter Burke to investigate LV-426 aboard the vessel Sulaco."

All these movies of course, have a politically correct mix of crew from around the world, but the Captains are always American.

I couldn't help think what the likelihood would be that the first space "towing vessel hauling ore" would be Chinese, 115 years from now in the real world.  Witness how the country is already scouring the planet for it's raw materials and commodies needs today.

What is the likelihood that the real space exploration ships are helm-ed by Chinese and/or Indians with a smattering of crew from around the world, including Americans?

It is said that history is written by the victors, and so is our vision of the future.

This idle musing is not to recommend that we scramble to get our Space act together and re-energize our space program.

After all, our historic multi-billion dollar accomplishment in 1969, driven by JFK's clarion cry after Sputnik, was a result in large part, of our global economic leadership as a nation in the 1960s.  And that despite the expense in blood and treasure of a major war in Vietnam.

Our future accomplishments in Space are really going to be determined by our population and economic leadership in the decades to follow.  That should be priority one and where we should really be scrambling.

Otherwise our future generations are likely to be reveling in the adventures of Captain Jin T. Kiang, exploring space on the starship Qi Ye*.

*  Mandarin for Enterprise.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

Probably because of his domicile, Arthur C. Clarke ofter populated his spaceships with Indian (Sri Lankan?) captains - e.g. Robert Singh of the Goliath - "Hammer of God". In 2061: Odyssey 3, the leading space tycoon is Chinese - William Tsung - the builder of the space liner Universe. Also in 2010, the 2nd spacecraft headed to Europa was the Chinese "Tsien".

I tend to think that the US is in danger of repeating the Chinese mistake of abandoning its ocean going trade ships in the early C15th ceding global power to Europe. Despite all the heroic rhetoric, the US has effectively dismantled its space science program, wasted effort on building a space shuttle that did little, the white elephant called the ISS and is struggling to return to the moon over a time frame longer than the time it took for Glenn to achieve orbit to the time Armstrong put his boot on the moon.

It really wouldn't surprise me if a weak US abandons most space travel due to budget constraints and that China or India turn out to dominate space in the next century if they gain economic ascendancy.

[Dennis Chan]

We can leapfrog them again by privatizing NASA. There will be an incredible boom in aerospace industry if that happens.