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Space: new frontier for US-China competition | Space News

Mangya, China – In an uninhabited area of ​​Qinghai province in China, two people come out of a tent, sometimes turning into a landscape resembling a planet in outer space under a sepia sky.

Wearing large, worn-out space suits, they begin to traverse the barren field. Behind it is a sign that says “Camp Mars,” and above it is a Chinese flag.

Sitting in the far northwestern region of China, Qinghai’s land is dominated by deserts and Yardang landforms – sand-colored rocks and surface surfaces formed by wind erosion – similar to Mars.

The only signs that this is not the only planet that could happen are off-road vehicles carrying dozens of tourists, and photographers consciously make Martian-like portraits of visitors.

Since the Qinghai camp opened two years ago, it has attracted tens of thousands of tourists to live their space dreams and is one of at least half a dozen of them created across the country.

“We’ve always been interested in Mars and we didn’t have a second thought when we heard that there was a camp in Qinghai on Mars,” said Zou Xin’ang, who went to camp with his family for seven hours.

From the box office to Wandering Earth, from a successful space-themed science fiction film to live rocket launch streams, people in China are increasingly fascinated with outer space.

Behind the growing interest lies the Chinese government’s own ambition.

The most populous country in the world did not begin manned space programs until 1992 – until the decades leading up to the former Soviet Union and the United States – when the government passed legislation to formally begin manned space missions.

An exhibition on the development of space exploration in China features part of a rocket model made by a child at the Chinese Science and Technology Museum in Beijing. [File: Tingshu Wang/Reuters]
Visitors to the exhibition walk inside a model of the basic module of the Tianhe space station. The first module of the space station went into orbit last month [File: Tingshu Wang/Reuters]

But although the start date has been relatively late, progress has been rapid.

The country sent its first taikonaut – a term derived from the Chinese word taikong (meaning “space” or “cosmos”) in 2003, and placed its first temporary module in orbit in 2011.

2019 He landed a rover at the far end of the Moon – the first country he has ever done. At the end of last year, he brought it up again The first stone samples from the Moon in more than 40 years.

A more symbolic and significant step was the independent module designed and assembled by the China Space Station (CSS), called Tianhe (“Heavenly Harmony” in Chinese). successfully launched into orbit last month. The basic module provides astronauts ’residence and central control station, and with a few more missions to install the rest of the station’s elements over the next two years, CSS is expected to be fully operational by 2022.

They left China out International Space StationIt is a joint project of the USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Union, so CSS is the second largest economy in the world to extend its impact to the sky.

China envisions CSS as the site of future scientific experiments, including the expected Hubble-class space telescope, which has a field of view 300 times larger than the Hubble telescope, according to state media.

A little farther in the galaxy, China is preparing to land its own Zhurong vehicle At the Red Planet sometime this month.

If successful – and if the landing is very insidious – China will only become the second country to deploy a vehicle on Mars. The Soviet Union almost managed the feat, but after a smooth landing, its landing failed in operation 110 seconds later.

Improved “soft” power

Beijing’s space intentions were set out in a white paper in 2016.

“China wanted to become a space power in all aspects,” he said, effectively challenging U.S. dominance.

People gather on the beach last month to launch the Long March-5B Y2 rocket, carrying the basic module of the Tianhe space station. The space program has been a success for the country’s imagination. [File: China Daily via Reuters]

In a congratulatory speech after Tianhe’s successful launch, President Xi Jinping made it clear that improving the country’s space program was “a key strategic step that would determine China’s future development”.

The steady rise in China’s space power, despite the lack of intensity of the race between the United States and the former Soviet Union in the Cold War, has raised doubts about competition with the U.S. as relations between the two countries have retreated to Earth. the lowest level in years.

While the U.S., Taiwan, and the South China Sea are potentially on the rise, some are concerned that China may use space advances to support its military development.

“The United States is primarily concerned with China’s military space power,” Lincoln Hines of Cornell University, whose work is based on Chinese space policy, told Al Jazeera. “It could potentially negate the US advantage in the context of the conflict.”

However, it remains to be seen how China’s space program will upset the balance of power between the US and China, and experts have warned that China’s space capabilities are overcrowded.

China is currently seeking cooperation in space with several countries, including Germany and Russia, to which it has signed an agreement. lunar space station in March.

Tianhe itself will be smaller than the current ISS, and will retire in 2024, unless its joint sponsors decide otherwise.

The length of the station – roughly 10 years according to China’s chief CSS architect Zhu Zongpeng – is much shorter than that of the ISS, and China was also criticized for allowing the remains of the March Long 5B rocket to carry the basic module into space. to fall to the ground in an uncontrolled fall.

After a re-entry by NASA administrator Bill Nelson, he said in a statement that “it was clear that China is failing meet responsible standards about their space debris ”.

“It’s not clear exactly what China can gain from this, other than having a stronger soft power,” Hines said. “However, by investing heavily in funding in the space program, Beijing also risks reducing its profits in other domains.”

A replica of the Mars lander was on display at a Beijing shopping center in July last year. China is expected to attempt to land the module on the Red Planet this month [File: Wu Hong/EPA]

However, perhaps the target audience for the Chinese space program may not be in the US either, but closer to home.

The spatial success has sparked national pride among the country’s citizens – to the point of discussing developments in the virtual world that go to the space camp.

“We will only build one space station. That is an amazing achievement for the Chinese,” commented a passionate networker shortly after the launch of Weibori Tianhe.




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