[FPSPACE] The Next Space Race? (was Shenzhou 2 Launch

[Dwayne Allen Day]

On Wed, 1 Nov 2000 M.Wade@iaea.org wrote:

> But on the other hand the use of this diorama as one of the main themes of
> the Expo 2000 pavillion (the other was the Three Gorges Dam) should indicate
> that this is indeed an official long-range goal/intention.

I don't agree that a model at a pavillion indicates official policy.  The
people putting together the pavillion display may have simply wanted
something bold and exciting that implied a glorious technological
future.  Past World Fairs are littered with impressive "future plans" that
never turned into anything.  (Or, as one prominent space policy wonk asked
me:  "It's the year 2000--how come my car doesn't fly?")


> At present China appears to me to be the best hope for manned expansion off
> the earth in our (or at least my) lifetime - it is the only space power to
> even consider manned expansion into space beyond LEO as a current national
> goal.

We do not know this.  This model could be entirely unconnected from any
realistic plans.  NASA has long churned out viewgraphs of manned Mars
missions.  Did they represent "current national goals"?  Japan used to
produce flyers of its HOPE spaceplane, complete with windows.  And we know
that the Soviets often displayed models and other objects that bore no
relation to their actual plans (look at the story of the Global Rocket
that was exhibited at a parade *precisely because* Khrushchev had no plans
to build it.  It makes no sense to draw solid lines from such immaterial
starting points.

I think it is a mistake to think of communist authoritarian regimes as
completely monolithic.  We play the old Kremlinology Game of trying to
figure out what is going on based upon who stands next to who at parades,
or turning plastic models into official government policy.  Why should we
assume that a model indicates a high-level approval?  The top leaders of
the Communist Party do not have to approve every pavillion display.


> the lines of Clancy's latest opus, etc -- I have to say it still
> sounds to me like rather chilling echoes of the beginnings of the
> US-Soviet cold war - and an attendant new space race?
> 
> If you think it can't happen soon, just think of the other fracture lines of
> recent history when changes in the international order occurred very quickly
> - 1946 to 1950, 1989 to 1994....

Even if US-China relations were to get much chillier, there is absolutely
no reason to expect a new space race.

I think that this is a common delusion among space activists.  I remember
hearing people say it in the 1980s--speculating (hoping) that a Russian
manned Mars mission would prompt more NASA spending and a "race to
Mars."  I remember hearing people in the early 1990s warning that Japan
was about to take off in space and challenge the US for "superiority" (a
word that used to be common in US space policy documents).  Now we have
China to shake us out of our boring complacency in low earth orbit.

The space race of the 1950s and 1960s--particularly the decision to go to
the moon--was a unique event.  It was a confluence of many factors,
including, most particularly, people.  It is not repeatable.  If China
were to assume a greater space presence, why would we assume that the US
response would be a return to the Moon and a mission to Mars?  Why not
assume that the US would deploy space-based lasers and a missile
defense? (Certainly that would be a greater interest for Republicans.)

And why is a nationalistic space race even desirable, especially if it is
the result of increased tensions in the world?  Yeah, it would be neat to
race back to the Moon.  But would we be willing to pay for this with more
Chinese nukes pointed at Western cities?



DDAY