March 20, 2003
As the world sits on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop (or is that a combat boot?), one
might as well look ahead and to the future. Future historians could very well look back
with interest at a few seemingly unrelated events that have occurred in the past month and that
have been largely overshadowed by the buildup to war with Iraq.
Specifically, those events are the announcement by Chinese state media that a Chinese astronaut
will be sent into space this fall on the Shenzhou V, and the announcement by NASA that it will resume shuttle
operations during the same period. Regardless of whether either side is willing to admit it (I
doubt that many Americans would take seriously the idea of extraterrestrial competition from the
Chinese) a new space race will soon begin, ushering in a new Space Age one hundred years after the
Wright brothers ushered in the Age of Aviation.
And much like people in 1903 had difficulty believing that the Wright brothers had actually
flown a heavier-than-air device, and would have had even more difficulty conceiving of the 767s
that would smash into the World Trade Center ninety-eight years later, 2003's inhabitants might prove to be
incredibly shortsighted. Nothing breeds innovation like competition, even if that competition
will be one-sided to start off.
Right now, China's space program is approximately forty years behind that of the United States.
But the Chinese have two advantages that could allow them to catch up very
quickly: precedents and determination. While the determination is necessarily Chinese, the
precedents are decidedly American (and, to a certain extent, Russian). Even before they've put a
human being in space, the Chinese have a plethora of practical knowledge to draw upon,
insights on everything from the fire hazards of a pure oxygen environment to the necessity for a
dent-proof re-entry shield. Combine this knowledge with China's determination to prove itself as
a world power after centuries of foreign domination, and you have the potential for a bona fide rival
to the American space program within the next decade.
And if America's own progress into space is any example, China's advances could be dramatic. In
1961, America put its first human being into space, sending Alan Shepard 115 miles up on a 15-minute flight.
Eight years later, the same nation had put men on the moon, hundreds of thousands of miles from
Earth. Those who argue that China, with its relatively modest resources, can't hope to match
American achievements, should also consider the example of the Soviet Union. With a GDP less than
a quarter the size of America's, the Soviets achieved a number of "firsts" ahead of their Cold War
rivals, including putting the first satellite into space and the first human into space. China can
also be compared with the Soviet Union in the fact that, as a state which retains a great deal of
control over its media, it's much less averse to the accidents and loss of life that are an
unavoidable consequence of space programs (it's remarkable that the American media has questioned
the future of the U.S. space program after the latest shuttle disaster, as if there will ever be a
shortage of astronauts willing to accept the enormous risks of space travel).
It probably won't be until China puts its first astronauts on the moon that America will take
notice of its new space rival. And it will be then that the Second Space Age, the age of space
colonization, will begin. Much like the Atlantic seaboard that remained explored-yet-unexploited
for over a century after the discovery of the New World, the moon sits waiting for humankind to
colonize it. And the moon would be a natural springboard for the colonization of Mars and parts
beyond by America and its rivals. If for no other reason (and the potential resources of space
could provide reason enough), Americans wouldn't want to see Chinese (or others, such as Russians)
as the only colonists in space.
The twenty-first century could thus see as dramatic a transformation of humankind's geographical
disposition (and thus its psychic disposition) as that witnessed by the seventeenth century. It's
axiomatic that the most just form of competition is the race, a testing of wills and skills in
which the contestants don't turn on one another in a destructive manner. As the most powerful
democracy in history and the only nation to put one of its citizens on another celestial body,
America would do well to continue that tradition with the colonization of space. In this century,
America could ensure that at least some of those destined to roam the stars will be imbued with the
spirit of freedom and democracy.
