The stray Chinese missile that Beijing lost control of after successfully delivering the first unit of the Chinese space station may have caught the world's attention for China's ambitious space program.
But the truth is that this step was only the last in a series of steps that Beijing has taken in recent years to prove its presence in the sky and its ability to compete with the United States in a field that Washington has been proud of its monopoly the absolute leadership for decades.
In December 2019 (1) Jing Shuang, Deputy Director of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, announced his country's dissatisfaction with the recent decision by the US administration to establish the "Space Force", which is a military body of the army, saying that "this is A serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, which could undermine the strategic balance and global stability on this matter.
For its part, the US administration had taken this measure under the pretext (2) to protect its interests in outer space, especially after information saying that the Russian and Chinese administration had possessed war tools that could access American satellites, which threatens the security of citizens on the ground, what For example, if weather services or GPS are suddenly stopped?
China has already used a land-based missile before to destroy its own satellite that was out of service, that was in 2007, and these technologies were mainly based on information taken from companies in the United States of America to improve the Chinese satellite system and then developed to serve military purposes, the command Which reaffirmed - from the point of view of the Americans - the importance of the exclusion policy (3) that arose in the 1990s, which prohibits all researchers from NASA from working with or hosting Chinese citizens affiliated with a Chinese state institution or entity.
But the above was only a slight spark in a cold war that raged for several decades, reaching its culmination on July 22, 2020, when China succeeded in launching its promising mission (4) "Tian-Win-1" to Mars. In the same month, two other missions set out to Mars and they are the Emirati "probe of hope", the first in the Arab world, and "determination", the mission of the US space and aviation agency "NASA" to search for traces of ancient life on Mars, but despite the usual noise about the American mission, attention is directed involuntarily towards "Tian -Wen-1 ″, or as it means in Chinese: "questions to heaven."
China launches to Mars aboard the Long March-5 missile (Reuters)
Usually the space missions to Mars start in stages, where you start your first experiments until you succeed in installing a satellite (Orbiter) orbiting the planet to study it and determine the best future landing sites, and then you start working on landing a fixed craft to its surface (Lander), then Mobile vehicle (Rover), but China - for the first time in the history of spaceflight - carries out these three stages in one mission, and for this reason, its success means great progress in technological dealing with Mars.
Therefore, "Tian-Win-1" was considered the most intense Martian work mission, as it carried 13 scientific devices divided between the satellite above and the rover below. This group aims to do a comprehensive study of the climate, geology, environment and magnetosphere of the red planet, which could It helps to answer the question that has long puzzled experts in this domain: Was Mars a habitable planet like Earth someday?
What happened to him?
Will China succeed in this mission?
There is a possibility that it will do so, a possibility supported by previous successes in which China had a head start. For example, the "Chang-E-4" spacecraft (5) was able - about two years ago - to land on the other side of the moon in a precedent that is the first of its kind in History, many chariots have landed before on the face of the moon opposite us, as for the other side that we do not see, its data reaches us through vehicles orbiting around the moon.
This Chinese mission aimed to conduct a precise geological survey of that region, as well as conducting biological experiments to study how silkworms, potatoes, and some other plants grow and develop on this side of the moon, but one of the main goals of the trip is, no doubt, for China to demonstrate its ability In managing and succeeding technically complex operations in which no other country has previously succeeded, in the field of space science, this is a very valuable currency.
In particular, China is interested in the moon, to understand the secret of that, let us consider the successive statements of former US President Donald Trump that the upcoming US flights to the moon will not be for the purpose of exploration only, but for the purpose of searching for sources. When Buzz Aldrin reached the moon, and he was the second man to land on its surface, he said that what he saw was (6) a “wonderful ruin,” which means that he saw nothing, a stretched, barren land, without water, air, or any sources to be mentioned, but Aldrin He was wrong.
For example, in addition to containing the mineral salts on the surface of the moon on a huge amount of oxygen, silicon and ice water, there are aspirations for the possibility of extracting (7) one of the isotopes of helium (helium 3) from the moon, the earth contains only several kilograms of this substance, as for the soil of the moon It is believed to contain a million tons of it due to direct interaction with sunlight over millions of years, helium-3 can help in developing safer, and cheaper by far, images from nuclear reactions, thus saving a tremendous amount of energy.
The matter goes beyond the moon’s barrier. Mars, for example, contains a huge amount of water. As for asteroids relatively close to Earth, many of them may contain large amounts of “platinum minerals” (8) such as platinum, palladium, rubidium and iridium, in addition to huge quantities of what we call Rare earth elements "(9), a group of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium and lanthanides, are used in the manufacture of almost everything from batteries and electronics to petroleum refining and energy production.
But the moon remains the closest feast, which everyone aspires to bite off a piece of, and China does not intend to let the United States win the lion’s share in this battle in any way, so the promising Chinese moon program "Chang-e" was named after its name. The moon goddess in ancient Chinese myth, the woman who took the elixir of immortality and rose to the sky, but she grabbed the moon and did not want to go away any longer, because she has a lover on earth.
China held on to the moon just as in the myth, and since 1999 it has succeeded in launching with rapid and steady steps towards it. It started with the "Shenzhou" (10) mission group that aimed to reach astronauts outside the Earth's atmosphere, and China actually launched the first manned vehicle in 2003, then Then it moved to the "Chang-e" mission group (11), of which "Chang-e-4" is part, and soon China is preparing for manned flights to the moon, so that it will be the second country in the whole world to put astronauts on the surface of the moon.
However, China not only wants to succeed in competing with the United States of America to "occupy" the moon or any of the planets with scientific missions, but rather wants everything else.
In a clearer sense, China aspires to be a "space superpower in all respects", and therefore it aims to acquire a space infrastructure that qualifies it to take more stable future steps to fully control this range.
To understand the depth of these intentions, think about the Chinese space station, which opened (12) its doors to official work only two years ago, and invited the countries of the whole world to conduct experiments on board, and by the year 2019 17 countries were already conducting experiments inside the station, and the interesting thing to contemplate about this was that China had already requested to join the International Space Station about two decades ago, but it was prevented from that due to American objection trying to ensure that there is no meeting of the Chinese with American technology, the International Space Station will be out of service in 2024, and then the Chinese station will be the only one that is still in service!
The matter even extends to the ranges of geopolitical conflicts with the United States of America, take, for example, the Baidu Navigation System (13) satellite (Beidou), which China celebrated its completion last year: 35 satellites in different types of orbits around the Earth accurately (declared) to determine the location on the Earth. At a range of about 2.6 meters (up to ten centimeters according to some speculation), this system makes China the fourth country in the world to have the full technology in this range.
This advanced system of satellites has several basic functions, as it provides research services related to spaceflight, as well as civil services such as personal positioning and transport services (aircraft and ships), but the most important thing is the military services of course, because one of the main supporting capabilities for For modern armies is a constantly updated global navigation system, and Pakistan (14) was the first country to use this system for military purposes in 2019, this represents a clear political threat to the United States of America, because its enemies are not necessarily the enemies of China, in fact you will usually find that they are its friends.
If you decide to compare what China or any other country has achieved with the achievements of the United States of America in the field of space technology now, you will undoubtedly notice a big difference in favor of the Americans, as the infrastructure that began in the fifties is still able to push the space project strongly and give it a lot of momentum, But the problem is that China's achievements in space projects are accelerating, indicating a clear future superiority over the United States of America. To understand this idea, let's consider the number of Chinese missile launches.
In order for China (15) to reach 100 missile launches, it took 37 years from the moment of the rise of the first Chinese satellite in 1970 to 2007, but to achieve a hundred other launches, China needed only seven and a half years (in 2014), and early in the year 2019 China launched its 300th rocket into space, which means that it only took four years to launch a hundred missiles, it is a tremendous acceleration!
Therefore, a simple overview of space projects during the next five years only will give us a clear idea of a clear advantage of China, which has already recently achieved the largest number of space launches (39 versus 31 for the United States), and it is believed (16) that by the year 2025 China may be the first A country in the world embarks on building a research station on the surface of the moon.
This, of course, is a clear political message. It is the same message that the Americans sent to the Soviet Union in the Cold War, while the latter was clearly ahead in developing missiles for the purposes of the rise to space, as the United States - in about ten years - the battle is resolved in the manner of "coming from behind", and it is achieved. An unprecedented advance in this range goes beyond just going up into space and pushing the first human to the moon.
China is now trying to play the same role against America, and there are two big problems facing the United States of America in this race, the first of which is the intense competition in the labor market. For example, China is proud to point out that the cost of constructing the private space station was only $ 5 billion, while the International Space Station cost $ 100 billion.There is of course a difference between the two stations, but that gives China a greater ability to make cheaper offers to customers of space technology around the world.
The Chinese administration, for example, aspires to reach the market value of the Baidu navigation satellite system to $ 46.5 billion, and in order to attract customers to its space market, it offers a missile system, Chinese innovation and manufacture, very flexible and diverse in carrying capacity so that it can serve customers in all possible ways. According to a report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (17), recent Chinese improvements to its missile system clearly shorten launch schedules, with higher levels of safety and efficiency, and a significant reduction in flight costs.
The other most important problem is related to the extent of interdependence and harmony between the Chinese political administration and the administration of the Chinese space project (18), as it is not only related to the huge and open spending on this project, for political and economic purposes, but also there is this clear and consistent vision between the two sides, which is what It facilitates decision-making and guarantees a kind of safety and control for those working in space. In addition, the Chinese space program is a source of intense national pride and receives all support from everyone. Compare that to the state of confusion in the US administration over this regard.
Starting from the moment Neil Armstrong set his feet on the surface of the moon, saying that it is one step for a person, but a great step for all of humanity, the United States of America declared its complete control over the scope of space science, and all science. We can see the roots of this in the 1950s, when US President Harry Truman said while signing the bill to establish the National Science Foundation (19): “We realized that our ability to survive and grow is closely related to our dependence on our scientific progress,” adding that: “ Moreover, simply keeping up with the rest of the world on scientific matters is not enough, we must maintain our leadership in the world in this field. "
Now let's compare this statement with the last (20) issued by the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, during the Chinese Communist Party Conference in October 2017, in which he explained that China's next plan, which is divided into two basic stages, from 2022 to 2050, These include pushing China to become a "great power in the field of science and technology, especially in the fields of space science and digital technology," explaining that China is pursuing a development strategy driven by research innovation and seeking to get the most benefit from the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence.
Just a few years ago, work began on the largest Chinese radio telescope in history (21) with a diameter of 500 meters "FAST" (FAST). The American ARECIBO telescope was the largest before the appearance of the Chinese telescope. The Chinese hope that the "Fast" can achieve a goal. Greater humankind can pick up messages from intelligent civilizations that are billions of trillions of kilometers away in vast space.
This means a new global message. For example, in all aliens movies that are universally popular, Americans were the first to receive the signals of distant civilizations and the first to deal with the problem by using a hero who protects the whole world from imminent danger, whether this hero is the President of the United States of America himself - in the movie 1996 Independence Day - or any of the supernatural beings in the Avengers movie set led by Mr. Captain America, built himself on true American scientific strength.
But we now know that China has a telescope, and a whole chorus of very advanced space technologies, and it can precede the United States of America, this strongly affects the message of soft American hegemony that has permeated all countries of the world, replacing it with new ones that say that the new superhero is somewhat narrow eyes He speaks Chinese, wears red-dyed clothes, and we might one day call him "Captain China."
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Sources
China attacks US Space Force as threat to peace
The Space Force is officially the sixth military branch.
Here's what that means.
Chinese exclusion policy of NASA
China's first Mars rover Tianwen-1 launches this week.
Here's what it will do.
Chang'e-4 First lander and rover on the Moon's far side
Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon - Buzz Aldrin
Helium-3 mining on the lunar surface
Platinum group
What Are Rare Earth Elements (REEs)?
Shenzhou Manned Spacecraft Program
China's Chang'e Program: Missions to the Moon
Why China can build its own space station?
BeiDou: China launches final satellite in challenge to GPS
China's Pursuit of Space Power Status and Implications for the United States
Why China can build its own space station?
China's Pursuit of Space Power Status and Implications for the United States
CHALLENGES TO SECURITY IN SPACE
China's Pursuit of Space Power Status and Implications for the United States
Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Creating the National Science Foundation
Emerging technology could make China the world's next innovation superpower
Gigantic Chinese telescope opens to astronomers worldwide