China Orbits Shenzhou 4 as Nation's Space Strategy Evolves
China has successfully rocketed into space an unpiloted Shenzhou 4 spacecraft, perhaps on a final shakeout test before a Chinese crew flies the craft into Earth orbit next year, according to Chinese media reports.
This latest mission sets the stage for China to join a highly exclusive club - the third nation after Russia in 1961 and the United States in 1962 to propel a person into Earth orbit.
China's ever-growing space prowess, experts believe, could lead to a "welcome aboard" invitation to participate in the International Space Station project, as well as additional ventures.
Other Western space analysts, however, raise a cautionary flag regarding the budding dragon in space.
Right stuff, China style
Shenzhou 4, according to state run media, shot skyward atop a Long March 2F booster at 11:40 a.m. EST (1640 GMT) Sunday. Site of the liftoff was from a sprawling complex at the Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center of Gansu Province in northwest China.
Since late 1999, China has orbited Shenzhou spaceships, vacant of any crew, but gaining experience in building and lofting the space hardware necessary to keep people alive in orbit, as well as hone ground controller skills in running human spaceflight missions.
Widely reported by Chinese news outlets is the selection and on-going training of some 14 astronauts -- often called Taikonauts -- individuals that have been picked from thousands of pilot candidates.
The state media also reported Sunday that before the launch some of the Chinese astronauts entered the spacecraft for a brief period of training.
According to earlier reports, Shenzhou 4, meaning "Divine Vessel 4", is outfitted with new search and rescue gear, and other safety systems. This equipment is being flown to fully-qualify its use during next phase, crew-carrying Shenzhou flights. Additionally, like Shenzhou 3, capsule seats are stuffed with mannequins.
A few weeks ago, Chinese news sources said that, among a host of Shenzhou 4 spaceship experiments, 100 peony seeds would be onboard. As a space seed cultivation experiment, scientists are interested in the corolla of flowers grown from seeds once taken into the space, exposed to both microgravity and radiation bombardment.
Speculation grows
It is clear that China's space engineers have been busy perfecting their crew-carrying spaceship. Indeed, right off the mark, the Chinese are flying a second-generation spacecraft contrasted with the first single-seater Russian and American vehicles that took to the air in the 1960s.
In a paper presented at the World Space Congress last October, Guoting Wu of the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering reported that space engineers there have come up with a new kind of reentry material for Shenzhou vehicles. This heat-resistant shielding offers a 35 percent reduction in weight contrasted to materials used on Russian spacecraft.
Even before China's first space travelers ascend into the heavens, the country's space planners are reportedly plotting out their own space station, a new heavy-lift booster, and eyeing destinations beyond low Earth orbit.
Now as Shenzhou 4 whirls around Earth, and each orbit moves closer to the moment when China steps into the human spaceflight arena, speculation grows about that country's 21st century space intentions.
Political barometer
For some analysts, China's step-by-step action plan to harness human spaceflight is expected to unlock the door to partnerships with other spacefaring nations.
"Cooperation in space has a long history of acting as a political barometer of relations between countries," noted Joan Johnson-Freese, Chair of the National Security Decision Making Department at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island.
China has made "significant technical progress" in manned spaceflight since 1999, Johnson-Freese told SPACE.com. "Considering the improved political relations between China and the United States since 9/11, it would not be surprising to find China an increasingly frequent and extensive participant in cooperative space programs like the International Space Station," she said.
Johnson-Freese said that participation in space science programs is a time-tested first step that can then be extended to the manned program. "The domestic political benefits to the Chinese would be relatively high, while the domestic political cost to the United States would be minimal."
Tourist-class Shenzhou flights?
Steven Pietrobon, an independent analyst of world space efforts, said China joining the ranks of nations capable of independent human space travel is good news. He is chief of Small World Communications in Payneham South Australia.
"I think this is a good development for the exploration of space. It has been over 40 years since another country besides the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States entered crewed spaceflight," Pietrobon said.
To date, the Europeans and Japanese have been taking rides on American and Russian spacecraft and have not developed their own operational spacecraft, Pietrobon said, although both have tossed chunks of money at their own space plane designs: the Europeans on Hermes and the Japanese on Hope.
Pietrobon said there could be an enterprising outcome to the introduction of crew-toting Shenzhou spaceships.
"It would be interesting to see if fee-paying tourists would be launched by the Chinese. The Chinese had no qualms about launching Western satellites, and if there is a large profit to be made in launching tourists, that would be a good development for the space tourism industry. Competition with Russia may even see a lowering of the cost of a ticket to space," Pietrobon suggested.
Gaining big-player status
Cracking off yet another unpiloted Shenzhou flight sets the pace for how soon the world will see Chinese space pilots in orbit.
"Clearly the Shenzhou manned spacecraft prototype is the program's pacing item," said Charles Vick, a strategic military and space programs consultant, based in Fredericksburg, Virginia. "If this launch and mission of Shenzhou 4 are entirely successful," he told SPACE.com, "the fifth launch could be expected to be manned as early as next September 2003卋efore China's October revolution day."
Whether the successful introduction of a separate manned space program by the Chinese will have any political or program impact on the United States and international space programs "is problematical at this time," Vick noted.
Vick senses there are several foreign policy strings attached, sure to guide any American handshakes with China on future space cooperation.
"Regardless of whether China is truly helping with the war on terrorism, the possibility of cooperation between China and the United States vis-a-vis the International Space Station program remains improbable until China has demonstrated consistent enforcement of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT). And that has not been done to U.S. satisfaction," he said.
On the other hand, Vick said that various space experiments sponsored by China could be approved for cooperative program introduction. But to gain big-player status, that has to be hard earned over time.
"China for the time being has yet to demonstrate the experience in manned flight -- the reliability, the standards -- required to be part of the ISS program?and entirely separate of MTCR and NNPT requirements," Vick said.
Military message
China's pursuit of human spaceflight is anchored in addressing more than scientific challenges, said Larry Wortzel, Vice President and Director, Davis Institute of International Studies at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
"Beijing's space programs are designed to support intercontinental and submarine launched ballistic missile targeting programs as well as other defense-related space programs," Wortzel explained. "There is a certain amount of prestige involved in such programs--but I attribute their interest in a military rather than a civil agenda."
Wortzel points to the book Gao Jishu Tiaojian xia de Xinxi Zhan (translated: Information Warfare Under High Technology Conditions), published in 1994 by the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) "military science publishers," he said.
"The writings of three PLA officers discuss China's need for 'high-technology, space-based, information warfare weapons of mass destruction' that can wipe out an enemy's missile systems and intelligence and communications satellites," Wortzel said. "I suspect that such ideas are going to be put into practice in China's manned space program," he added.
Chess-like strategy
In assessing China's evolving space program, taking lessons from chess playing is advisable, said Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College. She refers to the Chinese game of Wei Qui in a just completed manuscript, a personal perspective on China's manned space program.
Wei Qui is the Asian equivalent of chess, commonly called "Go" in the West. The game has 256 pieces with which to strategize, versus 16 in chess.
"That type of planning perspective, in the context of a country with a 5,000 year continuous history, exemplifies the dramatic difference between China's idea of long-term planning as opposed to that typical in the United States," Johnson-Freese explains. The Chinese clearly have committed to the goal of space development, she writes. At whatever rate funding permits, that objective will be factored into the precarious balancing act the Chinese regularly practice.
"China's manned space program is about China's determination to regain what it considers as its deserved place in global, and by default, regional politics," Johnson-Freese concludes.
Shenzhou Scorecard
November 19, 1999: Maiden voyage of Shenzhou spacecraft. Unpiloted craft loops Earth 14 times, carrying out no major space maneuvers before landing in Inner Mongolia the next day. Capsule carried seed experiment in a study of space radiation effects.
January 9, 2001: Shenzhou 2 flight expanded vehicle capabilities. Over 5 dozen experiments spread out within various segments of unpiloted vessel. After weeklong mission, the craft's descent section touches down in Inner Mongolia on January 16 - perhaps experiencing a landing problem. Shenzhou 2's forward orbital module is left in space, replete with its own solar arrays, and is maneuvered several times over a six-month period.
March 25, 2002: Shenzhou 3 carries instrumented mannequin(s) and variety of experiments. Similar in many respects to Shenzhou 2 test hop, the vehicle's orbital module is left in space. Recoverable reentry module parachutes into the grasslands of Inner Mongolia on April 1. Orbital module circles Earth, plunging into atmosphere in November.
December 29, 2002: Shenzhou 4 orbits Earth, perhaps signaling all clear for China's first space travelers to be launched in 2003. |
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