This year, a rocket will carry a boxcar-sized module into orbit, the first building block for a Chinese space station. Around 2013, China plans to launch a lunar probe that will set a rover loose on the moon. It wants to put a man on the moon, sometime after 2020.
While the US is still working out its next move as the space shuttle programme winds down, China is forging ahead. Some experts worry the US could slip behind China in human spaceflight. “Space leadership is highly symbolic of national capabilities and international influence, and a decline in space leadership will be seen as symbolic of a relative decline in US power and influence,’’ said Scott Pace, an associate NASA administrator in the George W Bush administration. He was a supporter of Bush’s plan, shelved by President Barack Obama, to return Americans to the moon.
China is still far behind the US in space technology and experience, but what it doesn’t lack is a plan or financial resources. While US programmes can fall victim to budgetary worries or a change of government, rapidly growing China appears to have no such constraints.
In 2006, China sent its first probe to the moon. In 2008, it carried out its first spacewalk. China’s space station is slated to open around 2020, the same year the International Space Station is scheduled to close. If the US and its partners don’t come up with a replacement, China could have the only permanent human presence in the sky.
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