By Bernhard, editor of Moon of Alabama
Astronauts salute the Chinese people after they enter Tianhe, the core module of the Chinese space station, on Thursday. After the Shenzhou XII spacecraft successfully completed a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the orbiting Tianhe module, the crew entered the orbital capsule. JIN LIWANG/XINHUA
There was a time when the U.S. was open to international cooperation in space. It gained prestige and influence from these projects. But fear of competition from China and Russia have led to attempts to exclude these countries from international projects.
In May 2011 Congress banned scientific cooperation with China:
A two-sentence clause included in the U.S. spending bill approved by Congress a few weeks ago threatens to reverse more than three decades of constructive U.S. engagement with the People's Republic of China.
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Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), a long-time critic of the Chinese government who chairs a House spending committee that oversees several science agencies, inserted the language into the spending legislation to prevent NASA or the Office of Science and Technology Policy from using federal funds "to develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement or execute a bilateral policy, program, order, or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company."
The European Space Agency as well as NASA were at that time favoring future cooperation with China on the International Space Station and on a planned Mars mission.
Since then other laws and sanctions have made the continuing cooperation with Russia on the International Space Station more difficult.
Banned from international space projects in which the U.S. is involved China went its own way. Ten years later it put a lander on the far side of the moon where the rover Yutu, the jade rabbit, is now pounding moon stones in his mortar to look for the elixir of life.
Last year China sent Tianwen, Heavenly Questions, and another rover named Zhurong, a god of fire, to Mars. It landed there in February:
"Tianwen-1 is going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter," mission managers wrote before launch in the journal Nature Astronomy. "No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way. If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough."
A week ago Zhurong, the fire god, took a selfie and sent it back to earth:
The camera, originally fitted to the rover bottom, was released by the rover at 10 meters south of the platform and captured the video footage of the rover returning to the platform and took the selfie. The camera then used a wireless signal to transmit the pictures and videos to the rover, which beamed them back to Earth via the orbiter.
"China will publish the related scientific data in a timely manner to let humankind share in the fruits of the country's space exploration development," said Zhang Kejian, head of the CNSA.
Yesterday China's space agency announced another success as three astronauts arrived at Tianhe, the Harmony of Heavens, which is the first module of Tiangong, the Heavenly Palace space station:
Three Chinese astronauts have entered the core module of China's permanent space station to embark on their three-month mission, becoming the module's first occupants and pioneers in one of the nation's grandest space endeavors.
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Tianhe, the biggest and heaviest spacecraft China has constructed, is 16.6 meters long and has a diameter of 4.2 meters. The craft's weight, at 22.5 tons, is equal to the combined weight of 15 standard size automobiles. It has three parts－a connecting section, a life-support and control section and a resources section.
Meanwhile the International Space Station develops more and more technical problems and is becoming obsolete. Russia is now thinking of building its own one. It may alternatively add its own modules to the Chinese station.
Russia and China will also cooperate to build a permanent station on the moon:
China and Russia have agreed to jointly construct a lunar space station that will be "open to all countries," the China National Space Administration said in a statement on Tuesday.
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A statement from Russian space agency Roscosmos said the two organizations planned to "promote cooperation on the creation of an open-access ILRS for all interested countries and international partners, with the goal of strengthening research cooperation and promoting the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in the interests of all mankind."
The attempts to keep China and increasingly also Russia away from international space projects have only led to them starting competing projects. These are likely to gain more countries to cooperate with them.
The exclusionary policy of the U.S. has not been successful. In the end it resulted in a loss of influence over future projects for which China and Russia are inviting everyone but the U.S.
Humanity would be better off if we avoided such splits.
Posted by b on June 18, 2021 at 17:00 UTC | Permalink
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It is a purely racist reaction to the rise of China. Even now, go to sites like zerohedge and you'll find foaming mouthed rants against China, belittlement of Chinese achievements, and openly racist desires to eradicate the Chinese. Given the relative competence of China and America, China is much better off with Amerikastani sanctions that forced it to develop its own capabilities. Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jun 18 2021 17:07 utc | Hitler finds out about the Zhurong Mars rover's success: Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jun 18 2021 17:09 utc | I'd love to see joint cooperation between China, Russia, and Iran that would get the DC Axis of Evil tied up in knots. ------------------------------------------------------ The U.S. govt narrative keeps peddling how the natural origin story was PC in the hip, science community and was always void of scientific evidence by quoting dubious science writers like Nicholas Wade. The Lancet Journal is a particular focus of their wrath, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext I scanned the Lancet Journal and found at least 5 scientific references supporting the natural origin claim. The only reason I could see why someone would claim that it was void of science is that all of the papers were authored by Chinese scientists. Really? Chinese scientists are to be dismissed out of hand without even reviewing their work, if not racist, it certainly is not scientific. The entire point of publishing is to allow for review, not for fiat rejection. 2nd narrative: Cleavage in spike proteins again promoted by Nicholas Wade, the astounding discovery of cleavage areas in the spike protein that makes Sars2 especially infectious to humans. I scanned the WHO report ... https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the-virus Now I do not have an opinion or technical expertise to come to a conclusion. My point is that the govt narrative is clearly false and meant to evoke an emotional reaction. They make it sound like these cleavage areas prove gain-of-function and they are being totally ignored by the scientific community, they are evil traitors, burn them at the stake. In summary, our govt is hitting the press by making claims about past scientific work to evoke an emotional response and are willing to lie about it. ------ Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jun 18 2021 18:29 utc | 8 Red Ryder @1-- Where are China and Russia "significantly behind overall"? Does the Outlaw US Empire or ESA have a heavy lift rocket? If not, how will it return to the moon? Then we have the realm of Atomics--fission and fusion--where the Empire lags very far behind as my recent commentary and discussion of that topic have shown. Most significantly, where will NASA find the funds to return to the moon or build another space station--the privateers are mere glory hounds that aren't really going anywhere. Perhaps the biggest constraint on the Outlaw US Empire is its Neoliberal ideology that doesn't do any long term planning, which is precisely what must be done with a space program; thus the issue of funding for NASA--its reachable goals in the mid-1970s were trashed with Neoliberalism's ascendency over industrial capitalism that began the downward slide of its political-economy that's resulted in the ongoing crisis that began in 2007. As b's article shows, the main problem resides within the Outlaw US Empire's Congress where very damaging language can be slipped into massive budget legislation that's never completely read and goes unpurged. The same is true with illegal sanctions on Iran that must be removed if the JCPOA is ever to be revived. Congressional zealots like Frank Wolf do more damage to the nation in their fanatical attempts they believe are made in its defense. And thanks to the Anti-Communist and Anti-Iranian Crusades, it's extremely difficult politically to attempt to get such idiocy removed from the books where they'll remain and damage the domestic economy as well as international relations. |
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Humanity is the last thing on the US agenda. Full Spectrum Dominance is their mission. Space dominance has been an imperative since 1957. Both China and Russia are significantly behind overall. However, both are gaining with critical technologies which will help both leapfrog in the coming years. And, for the Lunar Missions, China and Russia are coordinating their major Lunar Base project.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Jun 18 2021 17:06 utc | 1