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China fired up to join superpowers in space

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Monday, November 22, 1999, San Jose Mercury News

WASHINGTON -- With the sudden successful launch this weekend of a rocket capable of putting people in orbit, China is about ready to go out of this world to flex its muscles as a superpower.

China has nuclear weapons, but nowadays even tiny Pakistan has the bomb. With a human space program, China will push its way into the more exclusive people-in-space club that now has only two members: Russia and the United States.

The Chinese government announced Sunday that it launched an empty spaceship named Shenzhou on Saturday that could -- and would -- carry people to space. Experts say that could happen as soon as the end of next year.

Even as it kept critical details of the event secret, the Chinese government on Sunday began working to harvest publicity gains. Accounts of the flight, and the reported excitement and pride it inspired among the Chinese people, practically took over the evening's television news.

While the 21-hour flight may have caught much of the world by surprise, engineers in and out of China knew this was coming and said it was perhaps a month later than expected. Its 7-year-old human space program had been aiming for an October launch to commemorate the 50th anniversary of China's Communist revolution, experts said.

``They wanted to show the world they are big and powerful, and they succeeded,'' said Sven Grahn, a Swedish space engineer who has followed the Chinese space program and broke the news of the launch on his Web site (www. users.wineasy.se/svengrahn/).

Chinese officials say they don't plan on letting up.

In the 21st century, ``the Chinese government will attach more attention to the development and application of space science and technology and speed up the development of the space industry,'' Luo Ge, foreign affairs director of the China National Space Administration, told the International Space Business Assembly in Washington earlier this month.

Unlike when the Soviet Union first flew Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, America has little to fear, and lots to gain, from a Chinese entry into the world of spaceflight, experts said.

``This is a win-win-win situation for all the space programs in the world,'' said James Oberg, an engineer, author and space consultant in Houston.

With the Russians' human space program falling apart and delaying the construction of the over-budget International Space Station, maybe NASA and its partners could look to China to replace the Russians, Oberg said.

The Chinese space program's biggest interest seems to be in joining the space station project, rather than going to the moon or establishing an independent station, Oberg and Grahn said.

But Phillip Clark, a British space consultant and expert on China's rocketry program, doesn't think NASA will allow China to join a space station team because of political reasons. He sees China building a small station of its own in about three years and aiming to send people to the moon about a decade after that.

Oberg believes that in two years, China's rising program will equal Russian's sinking one.

Grahn agrees: ``The Russian space industry is being reduced to the level where the Chinese are, according to size. And the Chinese are willing to spend money and the Russians aren't.''

But Grahn thinks the Chinese's advances may spur Russia to do more.

The first manned Chinese spaceflight will likely carry two, maybe three, astronauts in a craft that resembles the Russians' Soyuz spaceship, experts said.

``The spacecraft is a Russian spacecraft with Chinese characteristics,'' said John Pike, space policy director for the Federation of American Scientists.

The Chinese space program will probably cost around $2 billion, about the same amount NASA paid (in current dollars) for the 1960s Gemini program, Oberg said. And the Chinese don't have to start from ground zero.

``This is not an expensive thing to do if you've had a mature program like they have,'' Oberg said.

China invented the rocket almost 900 years ago, but the current Chinese space program started in 1956 with 30 young scientists and about 100 college graduates, some of whom didn't even know ``exactly what missiles were,'' according to a Chinese government publication.

The first Chinese-made missile was launched in 1964 and the first Chinese satellite in 1970.

Three years ago, the major Chinese rocket -- the Long March -- kept failing, sometimes killing people in nearby villages. That gave Chinese rockets a reputation for unreliability that the Chinese fixed by increased focus and testing, experts said.

The weekend's launch marked the 17th straight successful launch of the Long March rocket, and the 59th launch overall. The spacecraft was attached to a new version of the Long March rocket.

Although the Japanese and French made noises a decade ago about sending people into space, don't expect them to join the Russians, Americans and Chinese, experts said. The only other nation that may start a human space program is India, Oberg said.