Houston Chronicle October 11, 2003
China set to launch a manned spacecraft
By Mark Carreau
China is poised to join the United States and Russia as the only global powers capable of launching humans into space, a feat that Western experts say would signal a growing technical and military prowess.
A successful mission, especially China's public demonstration of militarily useful technology, will send ripples of concern around the globe, even if it doesn't reach the crescendo that occurred after the Soviet Union sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space, achieving the first human spaceflight on April 12, 1961.
"This is very much a propaganda mission," said Charles Vick, who monitors space policy developments for GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank in Alexandria, Va. "It in effect says to the rest of the world, `We are a world power, period, end of discussion.' "
Without specific reference to the upcoming launch, China's foreign ministry attempted to dispel concerns about the flight's military implications in a statement posted Thursday on www.sina.com, the country's main Web site.
"China has been developing space technology purely for peaceful purposes and will never participate in any arms race in outer space," the ministry statement said.
Nonetheless, the venture will bring China new capabilities that can be applied to missile guidance, anti-satellite warfare and space-based tracking of submarines deployed by world powers.
"There are obviously military spinoffs for the program," said Mohan Malik, a specialist in China and Asian geopolitics at the Pentagon-funded Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. "But the most important factor, of course, is that China wants to signal its arrival as a great power on the international stage."
Chinese officials said a launch attempt will be made between Wednesday and Friday from the Jiuquan Space Center in the country's northern region near the Gobi Desert. The manned mission will last 14 orbits, or 21.5 hours. The Chinese government, which has been secretive until the past few days, has not provided final details about the number of "taikonauts" who will be on board. The spacecraft can carry up to three people but is expected to carry one or two on the mission.
"If they are delayed, it will be because of the same kind of delays we experience -- something technical or the weather," said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert in national security decision making at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., who has tracked China's emerging space program for 20 years.
The precedents for using human spaceflight to project power were established during the long Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.
American Alan Shepard's pioneering Mercury mission on May 5, 1961, followed Gagarin's flight by less than a month. Locked in a nuclear standoff, the two superpowers chose to engage in a decadelong moon race, won by the United States. The contest brought global prestige, technical advancements and scientific discoveries to both nations, a lesson not lost on the Chinese, who have stated plans to gradually build a human capability in Earth orbit by establishing a space station and eventually sending explorers to the moon.
"They read the Apollo playbook and saw it was beneficial," said Johnson-Freese, who believes China's leadership intends to use space to enhance its standing within the nation's borders as well as beyond.
"They are sending multiple messages," she said. "It's a rallying factor for the people and with the leadership to build legitimacy and credibility for their government. Along the way, it employs a lot of people in skilled jobs. It gives a boost to science and technology and education -- all things we got from Apollo."
A mid-October launch would coincide with the conclusion of a major Communist Party Central Committee meeting and follow the 54th anniversary on Oct. 1 of Communist Party rule in the nation of nearly 1.3 billion.
China watchers say a successful leap into the final frontier by China could trigger a public celebration in the capital's Tiananmen Square, where the military brutally quashed a pro-democracy uprising in 1989.
In its own region of the world, China's mission would trump such rivals as India and Japan, which have developed capable rockets and satellites but shied away from the more risky challenge of launching their own explorers. On a larger scale, the launching of taikonauts will send the message that China has joined the United States and Russia in one of the world's most exclusive pursuits.
"They become part of an exclusive club, which has remained exclusive for more than 40 years," said Johnson-Freese.
The timing of a Chinese space spectacular comes at a particularly awkward time for the United States.NASA's shuttle fleet is grounded through at least mid-September, as the space agency struggles to recover from the Feb. 1 Columbia accident. The grounding has forced the space agency to suspend the assembly of the international space station, the long-standing centerpiece of U.S. exploration efforts, whose participants include Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.
At the same time, the United States has barred China from participation in the space station project over violations of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 1987 multinational agreement to restrict the export of space technology that could be used to deliver weapons of mass destruction.
Additionally, China's mission threatens to upstage plans for the Saturday launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the space station with a three-man Russian, U.S. and European crew. With the shuttle sidelined, Russia's smaller Soyuz crew vehicles and Progress cargo capsules offer the only means of transporting people and supplies to the 240-mile-high orbital outpost.
Nevertheless, several key officials within NASA have wished the Chinese well.
"They are developing a capability -- this can't be understated -- to accomplish something that only two other nations on the planet have ever done. That's a rather historic, hallmark achievement," noted NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
"I wish them luck because putting people in space is a dangerous, difficult thing to do," said Wayne Hale, who was named to revamp and lead NASA's post-Columbia mission management team. "As an agency, we believe human spaceflight is a worthwhile endeavor for humanity. So we wish the Chinese luck as they start into the arena."
China has been assisted greatly by Russian know-how.
Derived from Russia's Soyuz capsule, China's roomier Shenzhou V, or "Divine Vessel," spacecraft will climb into orbit atop a Long March 2 rocket and descend with its passengers by parachute onto the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, following the pattern established during four unmanned flight tests from the Jiuquan Space Center.
At least some members of China's small taikonaut corps have been trained in Star City, Russia's equivalent to the astronaut training facilities in Houston.
Vick of GlobalSecurity.org believes that the mission will include a range of activities of military significance. Those may include efforts by the first taikonaut or taikonauts to demonstrate their expertise at using powerful cameras to gather images of the Earth's surface and other instruments to intercept telecommunication signals. Like its flight-test predecessors, the Shenzhou V mission is expected to leave in orbit an unmanned module equipped to gather spy photos and communication intercepts.
The Chinese can be expected to repeat the feat with a longer mission in several months, Vick predicted.
© Copyright 2003, Houston Chronicle
