Is China Really a Threat to the U.S. in Space?

Are you ready for a new space race? One might be looming, considering China launched its Shenzhou 9 mission the same day the U.S. Air Force's X-37B spaceplane landed in California. With the X-37B's payload classified, it's not clear whether the spaceplane's landing was to avoid the Shenzhou spacecraft in orbit, though there's no shortage of speculation online that the two events are related. Which brings up the big question: Does China's emerging space program pose any sort of threat to the United States?

The Shenzhou 9 mission is only the fourth manned launch of the Chinese space program. It's a modular spacecraft consisting of a descent module, an orbital module, and an instrument module. If this sounds similar to the Russian Soyuz, well, that's because it its. The Chinese space program may be relatively new to manned missions but it's rooted in the Soviet space program of the Cold War.

Not long after it was established in 1949, the People's Republic of China entered into the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance with the Soviet Union. This gave China powerful technological backing; when the US threatened to attack China with nuclear bombs during the Korean war, the country developed its own missile based on the Soviet R-2 rocket.

The Sino-Soviet treaty was dissolved in 1960, but China retained its Soviet-gained knowledge of modern rocket power. On April 24, 1970, China put a satellite into orbit making it the third nation to launch its own hardware; a second satellite followed on March 3, 1971. On March 15, 1971, taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) joined the space program, but none would fly for decades.

Shenzou 9 successfully completed docking operations in orbit.

It wasn't until 1992, when Project 921 was authorized, that manned spaceflight gained traction in China. The project lay the foundation for both sending taikonauts into orbit and China's eventual space station. Based on Soyuz technology, the Shenzhou program began with an unmanned then animal flight before sending the first taikonaut into orbit in 2003.

Progress has been slow but steady since then. Only three manned Shenzhou missions have launched since – one in 2005, one in 2008, and one last week – but the country has made progress with its space station. The Tiangong 1 module, a prototype of the eventual space station the nation hopes to have as a permanent orbital outpost, was launched into orbit last September. Over the weekend the Shenzhou 9 docked autonomously with the station before the crew moved in for a ten day stay taking 660 pounds of supplies with them.

The mission brings up the obvious question of why China is building its own space station when there's one already in orbit with "international" in the name. The short answer is because the U.S. doesn't want to work with China in space. China applied to participate in the ISS with its Shenzhou spacecraft offering astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts another way to travel to and from the station, but the U.S. said no.

The X-37B is one of most secretive space planes in the U.S. arsenal.

Members of Congress took issue with China's space program's close affiliation with its military. "Some of our international partners may not be aware that the Chinese "civilian" space program is directly run by the People's Liberation Army," said Frank Wolf in a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, adding that the Chinese have been stealing space secrets for decades. "Any effort to involve the Chinese in the space program would be misguided, and not in our national interest," he concluded.

Head of the Russian space agency Vladimir Popovkin took a different stance saying that his program's "doors are wide open." The day will eventually come when China will join India as new players in the ISS. What this means, given Russia's history with China, is impossible to predict.

How, if at all, does the X-37B fits into this? Well, there's further speculation that low Earth orbit is an extension of the policy argument between China and the United States over Taiwan – China wants to own the island while America has been supporting the nation in its fight for freedom. Some have suggested that the country that dominates low Earth orbit will somehow have an advantage in the ongoing dispute. If there is truth to this, the X-37B's landing before Shenzhou reached orbit could have been intentional. But it could just as easily been a coincidence. The mission was coming a close and engineers had a landing window between June 11 and June 18. June 16 was a clear day in California.

Whatever the odd triangle between China, the United States, and space exploration is, it's clear that the roots of space technology in politics is inescapable. Just like NASA was created to deal with the Cold War threat of the Soviet Union, China's push into space might be more from a political need than a need to explore. But for the fans of space exploration, China's technological advances are exciting. The possibility of another nation and another space agency bringing its experience to bear on the big problems of extending our reach as humans and adding to our knowledge of the world around us is exciting. We are, after all, on this planet together.

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