The moon - a gigantic leap for the Chinese who spy a business opportunity in space

Chairman Mao, like the British and the Americans, was stunned when the Soviet Union launched the space age in 1957 with Sputnik 1. "How can we be considered a great power?" he asked. "China cannot even put a potato in space."

But now Chinese scientists have promised the ultimate great leap forward: a Chinese astronaut in orbit by 2005, a manned landing on the moon by 2010 - followed by a permanent lunar base to exploit the new high frontier of commerce.

"China is expected to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010 and will establish a moon base just as we did on the North and South Poles," promised Ouyang Ziyuan, head of China's moon exploration programme as he launched the country's national science and technology week in Beijing.

After its first man in space, China plans a space laboratory, a lunar orbiter to look for valuable elements and minerals, robot landings on the moon - and then the human touchdown.

The price of space exploration is enormous. Russia and the US - the only two states to have achieved manned flight - are struggling to keep their brand-new investment, the international space station aloft. Britain abandoned its own plans for a launcher 30 years ago, and until recently refused to join Europe in developing the successful Ariane series of launch rockets.

But China has a long tradition in physics, mathematics and engineering, and its doctoral graduates have been welcomed in the US and Europe for decades. A centrally directed state, it can throw huge resources at technical problems, and it has been able to learn from 40 years of pioneering triumphs and mistakes by the USSR and the USA.

Space flight is a gamble and the stakes are high. If successful, China could have founder membership of the world's most exclusive club - a second home on the moon - as well as a powerful hand at the strategic bargaining table.

It could also partner a new generation of space entrepreneurs in a game of ultimate high finance. Groups in the US and Russia have always had plans for new industries in space. But to cash in, they first need a foothold on the moon.

China has been putting payloads into orbit since 1970, with the first launch of its Long March rocket. Since then, it has made 73 launches, 62 of them successfully. It has been putting up western satellites on a commercial basis for more than a decade. There have been setbacks. A Long March rocket with a telecommunications satellite aboard exploded on launch in 1995, killing six people. The following year another launch put a $120m Chinese satellite into the wrong orbit.

Since the beginning of the 1990s China has signalled its plans to move cautiously into manned flight. Engineers began building a space centre in Jiuquan City, in Gansu province, and in 1992 a Hong Kong-based news agency quoted an official as saying: "The launch and retrieval of the first space shuttle will take place in the new space centre and the bases in its vicinity. It will take about 10 years to accomplish this grand project."

Two Chinese "taikonauts" - went to Moscow for space training in 1996. The first spacecraft built for manned flight, Shenzhou - or Divine Mission - went up without any humans aboard, into test orbit around Earth in 1999.

In 2001, China sent a monkey, dog, rabbit and snails into space aboard Shenzhou II. And a test in March of the Shenzhou III unmanned spacecraft, with dummy astronauts aboard, was hailed "a major step forward in China's ambition to send a man in space".

Many of these developments were conducted in secret. Normal Chinese practice is to move with caution. But Prof Ouyang's statement was given national publicity yesterday on the Communist party People's Daily website. President Jiang Zemin has recently shown his personal enthusiasm for the space programme. The Beijing science and technology week is staging an exhibition at the China Century Altar - symbol of the nation's hopes for the future. Space exploration is its central theme.

Two designers from the Shenzhou III project told the conference that 12 astronauts were now undergoing intensive training. One more unmanned space flight is planned before the first manned launch.

Experts say that the Shenzhou spacecraft already provides China with a space vehicle capable of mounting a lunar programme. Previous proposals have suggested that the country's latest rockets would launch a total of 39 tonnes, including a 28-tonne Shenzhou lander.

A geologist by training who worked on China's underground nuclear tests, Prof Ouyang is a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has already predicted that one of China's greatest achievements in the 21st century will be to set up a "moon city" fuelled by power from the sun - with any surplus beamed to a collecting point on Earth.

Just as the US sought psychological ascendancy with its manned lunar programme, so the Chinese leadership is being tempted by the symbolism of lunar conquest. The Chinese official news agency said last year that a moon probe would be useful in "raising national prestige and inspiring the spirit of nationalism".

Chinese scientists also predict that Mars will be the next target after the moon. A "Mars Explorer" is now on show in Beijing, modelled on Nasa's Mars Ranger.

Manned spaceflight is now the sign of a technologically backward culture. The only reason we needed men to get into orbit and to the moon, is (aside from international political goals) because we didn't have the required computing power to do things remotely.

We now do, and it would be the height of absurdity to send a man to Mars, when we could send dozens of sample retrieval missions, not to mention taxpayer-pleasing Imax cameras for a virtual reality experience far more vivid than watching grainy images of an unemotive astronaut stepping onto the moon.

Also, there is no justification for governments to use forcibly-extracted citizen property to fund such projects. I understand the communists not caring about this principle, but I hope that our government gets some sense.

Well, I for one welcome the competition. Anything to get our government going again on space exploration. However, space is ours by right of discovery. We got there first. Well . . . the USSR DID put the first grapefruit in orbit. But the Soviet Union no longer exists. Therefore, the USSR can't claim rights to anything, no more so than can the Holy Roman Empire claim rights to anything today.

Elect me president, my fellow Americans, and I guarantee you, there'll be NO REDS IN SPACE! And that includes Europe.

a permanent lunar base to exploit the new high frontier of commerce.

It appears they intend to do exactly that. There have been several threads in the past week on this topic, and while a few are in denial, China is making tremendous progress in space activities.

However, space is ours by right of discovery. We got there first. Well . . . the USSR DID put the first grapefruit in orbit

I assume that you're talking about getting to the moon first, right? As I'm sure you know, the Soviets managed to put a man in orbit before us (Yuri Gagarin). Before we'd even made any suborbital "cannonball" shots (i.e., Shepard and Grissom) for that matter.

It's not clear that the Chinese can actually do this. I don't mean go to the Moon; I mean make it pay.

Basically, they have two options to make a lunar base pay for itself -- mine the water ice at the poles for rocket propellant (who's the market? They need a low Earth orbit distribution infratsructure to market their lunar rocket fuel to Earth-orbiting customers) or lunar surface power generation (lunar SPS), which requires a quite enormous infratstructure of solar cell arrays, beaming stations, collection satellites, and Earth-surface distribution systems.

Barring either of these two, the only reason for the Chinese to build a lunar base is to "feel good about themselves" as a nation (i.e., "We're modern, we're technological, and by golly, we're as good as the USA!!"). Frankly, I'm skeptical. But good luck to them.

Space is the endless frontier. The Solar System is the New World without the natives. Exploration and colonization are about land, resources, energy, and immense wealth. There were plenty of critics at the time of Lewis & Clark when the plains were shown as "The Great American Desert" on maps. Critics called Alaska "Seward's Icebox". Maybe you can't imagine the technologies that will enable us to build space colonies, but such technologies will come as surely as the progress of civilization.

I'll second, and third, that! Except for the "no natives" assumption, that is... We don't know that for sure, yet :-)

I am not opposed to space colonization, but simply opposed to government boondoggles. We have plenty of room on earth for all the population growth conceivable. And the least hospitable places on earth are far more hospitable than the friendliest extraterrestrial place in the solar system.

Real vision involves seeing that one particular dream scenario makes almost no sense under any conceivable future.

When colonizing space is cheaper and more efficient than colonizing the Mojave desert, then it will happen with private enterprise. Meanwhile, let's not make space exploration a monument to grand government.

Think about this. If we end up mining material from the moon and bringing it back to Earth, we end up reducing the weight of the moon and increasing the weight (and thus the gravitational pull) of Earth. Eventually, if enough moon material is transferred to Earth, the moon may eventually get sucked out of its orbit and smash into the Earth!

No, I want us to claim all of space, not just the moon. And enforce it. I'm serious. Low orbit, high orbit, Mars, you name it. What are they going to do if we blow them out of the sky, go to war with us? And I'm not saying that just to be imperialistic about it (except I would mightily enjoy rubbing the world's nose in it); we can't afford to have our enemies over our head. The USSR has no claims. It doesn't exist.

The UN wants to be a world taxing authority. Well, I say we tax THEM for the privilege of receiving Leave it to Beaver reruns.

I'm of the mind that mankind must eventually populate worlds other than ours for the sake of our very survival. Eventually, this planet will die and I believe that it would be in our best interests to have "colonies" elsewhere when that time comes. Twould be a pity IMO to have mankind die out because we chose to stay at home and not explore. But, I do understand your point. Manned spaceflight is presently hyperexpensive. Hopefully, one day, that will not be the case.

Well, considering that the Nazis were the first to get a man-made object into "space"... I don't think we can claim any "space firsts" other than being the first and only ones so far on the moon. The Nazis got their V2 out of the atmosphere first, the Soviets got a satellite up there first (Sputnik), they orbited an organic first (Laika), they were first to get an object to escape velocity, they were the first to land an object on the moon, they orbited a human first, they orbited a woman first, they performed the first spacewalk, they performed the first multiple person flight, etc.

However, space is ours by right of discovery. We got there first. Well . . . the USSR DID put the first grapefruit in orbit. But the Soviet Union no longer exists. Therefore, the USSR can't claim rights to anything, no more so than can the Holy Roman Empire claim rights to anything today.

USSR as a single state is not here, yes. Soviet government is not here. But all research and manufacturing institutions are here, as well as schools that trained all specialists.

Or you claim that GOVERNMENTS make space flights possible? Too LIBERAL for LibWhacker.

True enough, but the former Soviet Union and the former Third Reich can assert no rights whatsoever over any territory today. The dead own nothing. The first one to the top of the mountain and who still remains standing at the end of the battle is King of the Mountain. That's us. I don't care if the whole world whines about it. We should claim it and we should enforce it. We are in a position to do so, or soon will be.

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