[新闻] 美国分析家说中国成功发射载人飞船不会导致新一轮的航天竞赛。（英文）

China Launch Won't Ignite New Space Race, Analysts Say
By Brian Berger
Space News Writer
posted: 09:30 pm ET
14 October 2003




WASHINGTON -- Although China has now joined Russia and the United States as the only nations on Earth capable of launching its citizens into space, U.S. analysts following the Asian space program say they don't see a three-way space race in the making.

More than 40 years after the Soviet Union and the U.S. launched its first men into orbit, China has finally followed suit. And like the U.S. and the Soviet Union before it, China has drawn its first corps of space travelers from among the best fighter pilots its military has to offer.

Policy analysts here say they see the launch itself as something of a belated coup for a nation eager to build up its prestige on the world stage. Much like Beijing being picked to host the Olympic Games in 2008, one analyst said, the successful launch of Shenzhou 5 says to the world, "we have arrived."

"The Chinese have long aspired to be a space power," said Dean Cheng, an Asian affairs specialist at the Center for Naval Analysis here. "This is not some 'Johnny come lately' effort but a program that has consistently received support from the highest levels of Chinese government."

The launch of Shenzhou 5, Cheng said, is the first-step in a long-term Chinese space program that is to include a space shuttle, space station and aerospace planes that blur the distinction between launch vehicle and aircraft.

Although China is not exactly open about what it spends on space, Cheng estimates that the Chinese space program receives about $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually. That makes China's space spending comparable to Japan's and several times greater than that of cash-strapped Russia.

But it is a fairly modest budget, he said, compared to the $6 billion a year the European Space Agency spends and the $15.5 billion a year NASA gets. Unclassified U.S. military space programs command a further $8.5 billion a year in federal spending.

China's entry into the exclusive club of spacefaring nations comes as the U.S. is questioning the value of human space flight in light of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy.

"This launch is an important achievement in the history of human exploration," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Tuesday in a release. "The Chinese people have a long and distinguished history of exploration. NASA wishes China a continued safe human space flight program."

O'Keefe, who is currently participating in a White House-led effort to hash out space policy issues in light of the Columbia accident, recently told reporters that China's entrance into the human space flight arena, while historically significant, is not exactly a call to action for the U.S.

Even fervent China hawks are downplaying the strategic significance of the Shenzhou 5 launch and doubt it will prompt the same kind of reaction that Sputnik did forty six years ago.

At a Sept. 30 panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank here, there was widespread agreement that China's human space flight program does not warrant a direct response from the U.S. Of greater concern, panelists said, are Chinese advances in the military use of outer space.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Stokes, a Chinese aerospace analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense, said China's entry into the human space flight arena does not warrant a revamping of the U.S. human space flight program. However, Stokes said the Chinese human space flight program is part and parcel of the nation's broader ambitions in space that have very clear implications for U.S. national security ten to 20 years in the future.

He cited as a prime example Chinese strides in long-range ballistic missiles, a capability that, at least in the case of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, has gone hand in hand with the development of sophisticated space launch capabilities.

Stokes said China also has paid close attention to the critical role space-based assets have played in U.S. military engagements since the 1991 Gulf War and, most recently, the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stokes said he is less concerned about China joining the human space flight club then he is about China's efforts to develop a robust network of military satellites of its own, while at the same time researching ways to take out the other's satellites in the event of a conflict.

Larry Wortzel, vice president for foreign policy and defense studies at the Heritage Foundation, sees the Asian nation's focus on human space flight as a positive development for U.S. national security.

"I think its great for them to throw money at it," Wortzel said during a recent panel discussion on China's space program here. "Every yaun spent on the Shenzou program," Wortzel said, "is a yaun not available to China's military space programs."

Wortzel cautioned U.S. policy makers against knee-jerk reactions to China's burgeoning human space flight capabilities.

"This is more a domestic issue than it is a national security or military issue," Wortzel said. "I hope the utility and viability of the U.S. manned space program will be evaluated on its own merits and that we will not be foolish enough to think that this is like Sputnik in [1957]."

China Launches Its First Piloted Spaceflight
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
Cape Canaveral Bureau
posted: 09:15 pm ET
14 October 2003




CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- China reached a milestone in human history today with the launch of its first piloted spaceflight into Earth orbit.

Blasting off from a remote space base in the Gobi Desert atop a Long March 2F rocket, a single Chinese astronaut named Yang Liwei is on his way to circle the planet every 90 minutes aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.

As a result, China has become only the third nation on Earth capable of independently launching its citizens into orbit. The former Soviet Union was first in 1961, followed by the United States in 1962.

It is expected the three-part capsule, whose more modern design is largely based on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, will make 14 orbits and remain in space for about 21 hours before executing re-entry and a parachute landing onto Chinese soil.

Liwei, 38, is an avid ice skater and swimmer, according to Chinese news media. He was raised in the northeast province of Liaoning and is the son of a teacher and an official at an agricultural firm.

Whatever the outcome of the flight, Liwei already is a hero to the Chinese people.

But if successful, observers say the communist nation will have demonstrated improved technological competence and scored a propaganda victory in the world community. How the rest of the planet actually reacts remains to be seen.

When the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961, and having already lofted the first artificial satellite in 1957, a full scale Space Race to the Moon was begun with the United States in an effort to prove which economic and political system was better.

And clearly, one of China's aims is to enhance its prestige, said Dean Cheng, a China space specialist for the CNA Corporation in Arlington, Va.

"By the very fact that it is a space power, China already has set itself apart from most other nations, and certainly all the other Asian states," he said in a recent forum on China's space prowess.

China's space infrastructure, its array of launchers, its space industries, Cheng said, and now a piloted space mission, "place them above even the Japanese, in terms of demonstrated space capabilities. Instead, they are in the same category as ourselve and the Russians."

And with NASA's shuttle fleet grounded because of the Feb. 1 Columbia tragedy, China's new capability appears at an interesting time. Moreover, the U.S. military is likely to keep a close eye on future developments.

In fact, according to a Pentagon report released in July, China's space program will result in making them a greater military threat.

"While one of the strongest immediate motivations for this program appears to be political prestige, China's efforts almost certainly will contribute to improved military space systems in the 2010-2020 timeframe," the report to Congress said.

The report quoted a Chinese naval captain, Shen Zhongchang, as writing: "The mastery of outer space will be a requisite for military victory, with outer space becoming the new commanding heights for combat."

Another view, expressed before the launch, comes from The Times of India, which in an editorial Monday called the Shenzhou 5 launch a "joke."

"It would be better to call it China's Late Creep Forward, given that Beijing is attempting to showcase a four-decade-old technology. If this is China's idea of arriving, then it's come at a time when the other two spacefaring nations have left it light years behind," the publication said.

The mission began at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0100 GMT Wednesday), which was early morning at the Jiuquan Space Launch Center in Inner Mongolia. A last minute decision to not broadcast the launch on live television prevented millions from seeing the 19-story-tall rocket climb toward space.

Media reports suggested that Chinese president Hu Jintao, as well as his predecessor Jiang Zemin, were to be at the launch site to witness the shot in person. Both men have supported the efforts begun in 1992 that resulted in today's launch.

Although specific details were not immediately released, it likely took about 10 minutes for the Long March 2F to carry the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft into orbit. Shenzhou is Chinese for "divine vessel."

The Long March 2F is a two-stage rocket equipped with four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters. An escape tower attached to the Shenzhou spacecraft topped off the launch vehicle.

The spacecraft is capable of holding up to three astronauts, which some are calling "taikonauts" based on the English translation of the Chinese word for space. Others are using the word "yuhangyuan," which means travelers of the universe.

Flying alone for this first mission, Liwei was among 14 astronauts who have been training for several years. Some of the pilots spent time at Star City near Moscow, where Russian cosmonauts prepare for their missions.

Although the Shenzhou spacecraft is based on the Soyuz design, it is slightly more advanced and uses more modern computers to manage operations and navigation.