Will China Beat the United States Back to the Moon?

The Stakes in the New Space Race Are High

Recently, during an address on the space economy to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the space age, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made the assertion that China would beat the United States to the Moon. His remarks follow:

"I personally believe that China will be back on the Moon before we are. I think when that happens, Americans will not like it, but they will just have to not like it. I think we will see, as we have seen with China's introductory manned space flights so far,
 we will see again that nations look up to other nations that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid, and they want to do deals with those nations. It's one of the things that made us the world's greatest economic power. So I think we'll be reinstructed in that lesson in the coming years and I hope that Americans will take that instruction positively and react to it by investing in those things that are the leading edge of what's possible."

Most people are not aware of the full scope of the Chinese space effort, which has political, economic, and military components. While there has been no announced Chinese humans to the Moon effort, much of what China is currently or is planning to do in space would tend to point there.

China's manned space effort seems to be designed to steadily increase China's space operations capabilities. The Shenzhou 5, which flew in 2003 with a single taikonaut (Chinese for astronaut), orbited the Earth for just over twenty one hours and proved China's capability to launch humans into space. Shenzhou 6, with two taikonauts, followed in 2005 and remained in space for five days. The crew performed some biomedical experiments while aloft, proving China's capability to maintain humans in space for slightly longer periods while doing science.

Future Shenzhou missions will feature space walks, rendezvous and docking, and longer duration missions. This follows the pattern of America's Mercury and Gemini programs, which preceded the Apollo lunar program and gradually improved America's space operational capabilities.

 
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I think this is stupid, why is Nasa racing to the moon? We already went there 6 times and theres nothing new. All we need to do is build a space station and that's it.

Posted on 08/30/2008 at 10:08:48 AM

China is a great country. I have met many Chinese, and they also impressed me a lot.

Posted on 08/06/2008 at 7:08:23 AM

The below posts are irrational and uneducated posts. The United States has been to the Moon, the "conspiracy" theorists have been proven wrong a long time ago. This proof was not provided by NASA, mind you, but by foriegn governments such as the U.K., Germany (the old East Germany monitored our Lunar transmissions), and Russia. Japan's JAXA recently sent hi-definition photos from their lunar orbiter of a descent module (with American flag). Also, the U. of California's Astronomical lab currently bounces lasers off of the mirrors purposely set up by our astronauts back in the 1970's. This is used to measure the Moon's distance. Any other questions refer to NASA. They have finally set a web link to answer these worthless questions, which probably cost the taxpayers a few million $. Also, remember the United States launches more people per mission, and more missions per year, than China has since their space program started 5 years ago. Also, read about the Orion CEV.

Posted on 06/20/2008 at 5:06:46 PM

It's funny how NASA had the technology to go to the moon in 1969 or whatever,Now it is 2008 and NASA still can't make it back to the moon until 2020 (very interesting). I think it is very clear NASA has never walked on the moon.Check out all the websites that have caught their lies

Posted on 01/08/2008 at 2:01:39 AM

It looks like that if Hillary Clinton is elected President, NASA's exploration program will be gutted to pay for other priorities, making it far more likely that the next person on the Moon will be a citizen of the Peoples' Republic of China.

Posted on 10/05/2007 at 11:10:00 AM

i dont get it

Posted on 10/01/2007 at 6:10:00 AM

The moon's been done. The USA has had a continuous sentient presence on Mars for over 1300 Martian days! It's the most amazing human exploration achievement since the moon landings, but because NASA and politicians have their egos wrapped around flyboy astronauts, the Mars Exploration Rovers mission doesn't get the credit it richly deserves. Unmanned exploration of space is where the payoff and spinoffs lie.

Posted on 09/24/2007 at 12:09:00 AM

The moon's been done. The USA has had a continuous sentient presence on Mars for over 1300 Martian days! It's the most amazing human exploration achievement since the moon landings, but because NASA has its ego wrapped around flyboy astronauts, the Mars Exploration Rovers mission doesn't get the credit it richly deserves. Unmanned exploration of space is where the payoff and spinoffs lie.

Posted on 09/24/2007 at 12:09:00 AM

I apologize for missing Tibet. I don't want to defend China. I'm just concerned that so many people around me are so scared of boogie men. The end result is that people will have less satisfying lives.

Posted on 09/23/2007 at 10:09:00 PM

The US space program distorted space economics and set back organic private space development by decades. We're just starting to recover. The PRC program is looking to be more of the same government dominated and market distorting poisoned pills. Private space ventures will happen and they'll likely carry all sorts of national flags along with them. As usual, somebody's going to do something stupid and shoot somebody and the governments will follow the private developments.

Posted on 09/23/2007 at 5:09:00 PM

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