YOU just had to look at the menu to see there was something different about this space mission. Gone were the peanut butter and jelly tortillas, the turkey salads and butterscotch pudding. Instead, astronaut Yang Liwei dined on freeze-dried shredded pork with garlic sauce and fried rice, washed down with tea. China had arrived in space.
Its historic first human space flight ended safely on 16 October when the 38-year-old air force officer landed on the grassy plains of Inner Mongolia.
To send Yang into space, no technological breakthroughs were needed beyond those the US and Soviet Union made four decades ago. Yet the mission marks a shift of the balance of power in space.
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China hailed the achievement as a symbol of its rapid technological progress and promised another manned flight before the end of 2005. Official congratulations flooded in from NASA and the European and Russian space agencies, and many governments around the world.
Now that the applause has died down, everyone is asking what China will do in space next and, more significantly, how the US will respond to its arch-rival’s achievement. China wants to collaborate in space. The US does not. But with the European and Russian space agencies building ever-closer ties with the Chinese, it may be the Americans who are ultimately left out in the cold.
China’s dream of conquering space began in the 1950s, when its government implemented a 12-year science and technology plan that included rocket science, radio electronics, and computer and semiconductor technology. Soviet advisers helped the Chinese briefly in the late 1950s, but withdrew in 1960. And although China’s unmanned programme flourished after its first satellite launch in 1970, its plans for a manned mission floundered.
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 finally provided the chance China had been waiting for. In 1994, a cash-strapped Russia indicated it was willing to sell space technology to China, and in 1996 agreed to hand over one of its Soyuz manned capsules.
On 20 November 1999, China launched its first capsule, Shenzhou-1, into orbit and recovered it the next day. Shenzhou-2 followed in January 2001, making 108 orbits in six days. Shenzhou-3 was launched in March 2002, reportedly carrying a dog, a rabbit and a monkey, and Shenzhou-4 – capable of carrying humans – completed its mission in January this year.
China’s confidence was high enough to send its first taikonaut (taikong is Chinese for outer space) into space on what was just the fifth flight of the craft. With the exception of the space shuttle, previous manned craft have not flown with a crew until they have proved themselves on around a dozen flights.
Even so, the Chinese government revealed few details of its first manned space flight before the launch – probably because its commercial satellite programme suffered a series of embarrassing failures in the 1990s. It even kept the identity of the taikonaut a secret until four hours before lift-off. And neither the launch nor the re-entry was televised live because of fears that the mission could end in disaster.
China’s ambitions don’t stop with putting a man into space, however. Its plans include building a space station, or a series of them, followed by unmanned exploratory missions to the moon and beyond. “Exploring the moon is the first step in exploring deep space,” says Luan Enjie, director of the China National Space Administration.
Experts are taking many of China’s plans seriously. Although the Shenzhou design was originally dismissed by many as being a mere copy of Soyuz, the Chinese have made significant improvements to the technology. “Shenzhou is not so much a copy of the Soyuz as the next evolutionary step,” says Dean Cheng, an analyst with the defence company CNA Corporation of Alexandria, Virginia. Both craft consist of three linked modules: a propulsion module that carries the rocket motors and support equipment, an orbital module that provides room for work while in space, and a smaller re-entry module that separates from the craft for the return to Earth. But Shenzhou is estimated to be about one-eighth bigger in all dimensions and has much more electrical power thanks to a 20-square-metre solar array. It also has four separate engines, instead of the single engine and backup used on Soyuz.
Significantly, the orbital module has its own solar panels and guidance systems, allowing it to remain in orbit as an autonomous satellite now that the crew module has returned home. For the second human mission, now scheduled for 2005, this could provide a target for rendezvous and docking practice and, over time, several modules could be linked as part of a developing space station.
According to a lecture last February by Zhang Houying of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the next step is the launch of some kind of space lab in 2007, which could be occupied by two or three astronauts at a time. And the Chinese are confident enough to predict an unmanned mission to the moon by 2010, and perhaps to Mars by 2020.
Sibing He, an expert on China’s space programme who teaches at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou, points out that the country already has expertise in all the necessary fields, including satellites, launch vehicles, ground control and tracking. The plan “does not appear outlandish, or even excessively optimistic”, he says.
But other experts are sceptical, saying the plans are incredibly ambitious by any standards, and that China’s resources are limited. The estimated $2.2 billion it has spent on its space programme so far is less than half what the US spends on the shuttle alone every year. And there’s no escaping the fact that China needed significant help from the Russians, in terms of technology transfer and astronaut training, to get where it is today.
China has made its interest in international cooperation in space very clear. For example, Shenzhou uses the same docking port as Soyuz, allowing the craft to dock with both the International Space Station and the space shuttle.
“China has been asking the US for some time about joining the ISS programme,” says Charles Vick, a space policy analyst at GlobalSecurity.org. But the reception from the US could not have been colder. And NASA couldn’t collaborate even if it wanted to. The White House has frozen all space cooperation with China until it complies with the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
They are taking the ban seriously. Scientists from China are often denied visas to visit the US, including teams who wanted to visit the International Space Congress in Pasadena in 2001, and the World Space Congress in Houston in 2002. The state department even brought charges against two US companies that used Chinese rockets to launch their satellites earlier this year, for allegedly passing China space technology that could also be used for ballistic missiles.
But China is unlikely to join the MTCR, which it has criticised as being discriminatory. Instead, it is actively pursuing collaborations with the European and Russian space agencies, with considerable success. The Chinese Space Agency is already working closely with ESA on the Double Star project – two satellites due for launch next year that will study the effects of the sun’s magnetic field on Earth. And on 19 September, China entered into a formal agreement with the European Commission to participate in developing the Galileo satellite navigation system – a direct competitor to America’s GPS system.
When it comes to cooperating in human space ventures such as the International Space Station, ESA spokesman Franco Bonacino told Â鶹´«Ă˝ that although NASA is the principal partner, ESA was not against China’s participation. “Given time and good political will, it may possibly happen. I would welcome a Chinese taikonaut aboard the ISS.”
That attitude has the Americans worried. “The US is no longer able to block China’s access to technology,” Cheng told a recent seminar in Washington DC held to discuss the threat China’s space programme poses to US national security.
With the success of Shenzhou-5, recognition that it may be impossible to keep space technology from the Chinese, and the US shuttle still grounded, there has perhaps never been a better time for China to put its case for cooperation to the US. But a thaw in relations seems unlikely. NASA cannot even discuss collaboration until China meets international demands for the non-proliferation of weaponry.
The American response could well determine whether China’s achievement marks the arrival of a new member of the manned space club or the start of a space race. Sibing He is concerned that without cooperation between the US and China, both are likely to accelerate the military aspects of their space programmes. “The increasing militarisation of space has become a pressing issue,” he says. “This will only be avoided if international cooperation takes place instead of competition.”