from the u.s china trade war
a controversial security law in hong
kong
building in the south china sea to
china's global infrastructure projects
there is undeniably a cold war-like
battle for influence on all fronts
and that includes space we're in a space
race today
just as we were in the 1960s and the
stakes are even higher
although china hasn't come close to
achieving what the us has
they're catching up since 2018 china has
launched more rockets into orbit than
any other country
in 2019 they became the first to land a
rover on the far side of the moon
and in 2020 china released the last
satellite in their global navigation
satellite system
called baido china's answer to the
us-made gps
like china's big infrastructure projects
here on earth their goals are to get a
foothold in space technology that will
drive profit
make them independent from u.s
technology get an upper hand in military
operations
and show superiority on the world stage
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with joe biden in the white house
experts think space spending could slow
although the democratic party has stated
that it will continue the goal of
sending americans back to the moon and
beyond to mars
we are launching humans to the moon for
the first time
since 1972
and that might not be a bad thing while
a cold war scenario has dangerous
political and economic implications
a race to the cosmos like any good
rivalry could be a huge benefit for
space
and other industries
if you think that the u.s china
competition is going to be
not just a clash of strategies but a
clash of systems it's going to be a
contest over whether
american-style liberal democracy or
chinese-style authoritarian capitalism
is best suited to the demands of the
21st century then it's entirely possible
that you could see the united states
make investments in infrastructure and
education
and technological innovation and basic
research that it wouldn't otherwise make
as a result of that competition
in 1957 the soviet union shocked the
world by putting the first ever
satellite into space
sputnik won october there is real
military significance to these
launchings
the satellite's unanticipated success
brought on the american sputnik crisis
a period of public fear and anxiety in
western nations
about the perceived technological gap
between the united states and soviet
union
and so the national defense education
act of 1957
uh is passed in response to sputnik and
it includes major investments in a
variety of intellectual pursuits that
were considered
critical to staying ahead in the cold
war and so the rise of entire
industries like aerospace the rise of
entire
regions like silicon valley or orange
county semiconductors the internet
a variety of other things that we
associate with the rise of the
information age
were originally conceived as part of the
military industrial complex
in the 1950s and 1960s and let me say
that our scientists and engineers
in offering their services of government
in this field have been generous
patriotic and promised
and nowhere was government spending more
apparent and highly publicized as the
space race of the time
in the eisenhower years and then kennedy
years
the us started pouring money into the
space program by
i think mid 1960s the us was spending
about four percent of its total budget
on space it was the largest percentage
of the budget spent on space in american
history
and the intense rivalry allowed for some
of the biggest accomplishments humanity
has ever seen
including the first living animal to
enter space by russia
the first man to enter space by russia
and the first probe to land on the moon
also russia and so that led to a huge
surge in u.s spending on the space
program which culminated in 1969 with
neil armstrong and buzz aldrin stepping
on the moon
the moon landing is considered a
conclusion to the space race
and as u.s soviet relations improved
space spending waned
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i think that one of the reasons that the
us has not been as focused on space is
because the end of the cold war
since the apollo program the nasa budget
has hovered around 0.5
to 1 but in the last few decades the
world has seen the rise of a new power
china while governed by an authoritarian
regime like the ussr was
china also has far more economic
strength and greater
resources than the soviet union ever did
and that worries the us the president
has already signed into law the largest
nasa budget since the days of the apollo
program there is very much an
ideological
challenge it's sort of a contest over
which sort of system
democracy or authoritarian capitalism
will win the day in the 21st century and
i think what american officials
fear is that the chinese will not be
content
to have second tier status in a world
that is led by the united states
and its allies
but space isn't simply a show of
technological strength like it was
during the cold war
the space industry is now worth an
estimated 345 billion dollars
with technology that we use every day
depending on it
like gps china started launching an
alternative to the american system
called baido
in 2000 the recently completed version
is 20 centimeters more accurate than gps
by some estimates china's baido space
program
brings prestige and practical benefits
the prestige from announcing their
arrival
as a power in space similar to the
prestige which the u.s
achieved from its first moon landing the
practical benefits
both military and commercial if you want
to target a missile
or a fast food delivery you need a gps
system
with its bado system china has its own
gps capability
in place and so independence from u.s
influence
on that key part of infrastructure in
the information economy
china even opened up the private space
industry in 2014
in the hope of encouraging competitors
to the us private space industry
ispace was the first private company in
china to successfully launch a rocket
and satellite into orbit in 2019
and a company called galaxy space plans
to launch 650 low-earth orbit satellites
similar to spacex's starlink which will
give better
faster internet access to people all
over the world
but it's not all about business
i think that for president xi jinping
the this chinese space program
is hugely important not just for all the
practical applications but also just
for prestige it's important for
president xi to show that
china is a superpower superpowers have
space programs
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china will have to prove that they can
perform the kind of missions nasa has
done
and possibly go even further like
china's recent moon rover
chung iv although it was the third
country to land a rover on the moon
it was the first to land on the far side
of the moon
and china's recently launched mars rover
isn't the first
but it's the first orbiter lander rover
all in one mission
china even has a voyager-like mission in
its initial planning stages
that will do a flyby of neptune and then
out to explore interstellar space
but more importantly china will build
its own space station
which will serve as an essential tool
for tests and research in space
and offer an alternative to the
international space station
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when it comes to innovation china will
have some advantages when it comes to
directing the entire resources of a
state or the entire resources of a
society
towards some particular technological
challenge
ai for instance but the cost of that
is there's less of an open economic and
intellectual ecosystem in china
than there is in the united states
there's more inherent dynamism in a
society where you have truly open
information flows and where innovation
is as much
a bottom-up as it is a top-down
phenomenon and so that's not to say that
the united states is destined to win the
race for ai or 5g or any other
technology i think there's real danger
in a lot of these fields but if the
united states puts forth the energy and
puts forth the investment that's
necessary
in these areas there's no inherent
reason that it can't succeed
because it is a democracy
and there are signs that china's space
program is stumbling
in 2020 a long march 5b rocket scattered
debris over cote d'ivoire
after an uncontrolled re-entry of the
rocket's core stage
this was the largest botch of its kind
in years
so the worry is that china is just not
that transparent when it comes to this
sort of thing so
was this just a one-off was this just
something went wrong
or is this just an example of what might
be happening going forward
the competition may prove to be too much
china is up against not only a space
program with a long
and decorated history but one with more
ambitious missions than ever before
the us is now trying to beat china back
to the moon to build a lunar base
harvest resources and then use it as a
stepping stone to get to mars
this time when we go to the moon we're
going to go to stay with the purpose
of learning how to live and work on
another world so we can take that
knowledge and information
to mars i think that the
sense of urgency that we're hearing from
the trump administration about the need
to accelerate the artemis program to get
to the moon by 2024
i think part of that is because of the
perceived threat from china
right so in that sense i think that
having china as a more serious
player in space could potentially be
good for for nasa good for the american
space program
other nasa projects include a mars
mission equipped with a mini helicopter
to fly on the surface of the red planet
another mini helicopter mission planned
for titan saturn's largest moon
and the launch of the james webb space
telescope an upgrade to the hubble space
telescope
whose photographs changed our
understanding of the universe as we know
it
the ambitions of china and the u.s may
depend on how long their rivalry
continues
if history is any lesson the bigger the
rivalry the further the two space
superpowers are likely to push
themselves
very cohesive the overall goal with
china's space program
i think is to match the united states
china does not want to be subordinate to
the u.s on earth and doesn't want to be
subordinate to the us in space
right now the plan is to try to narrow
the gap
and so if you are looking at this from
an american strategic perspective
the concern would be that china may have
a jump
in the areas of high-tech innovation
that will be most important in terms of
powering
innovation and productivity during the
21st century and that can perhaps be
turned
into advantages on the battlefield i
should say that the jury is really
still out in terms of how effective
china will be
and mastering innovation in these areas
but if china continues to lack
the open informational ecosystem that
we've typically associated
with success and innovation there may
still be significant obstacles
to maintaining the dynamism needed to
spur innovation over the long run
you