In January 2019, China became the first country in history to land on the far side of the moon.
Named after the Chinese Moon goddess, the Chang’e 4 lunar lander has brought prestige to China’s Space Program. The future Chang’e 5 mission aims to return at least 2 kilograms of lunar material back to Earth, scheduled for launch in December 2019.
China is also designing a build for the first solar power station in space and hopes it will be a functional and able to produce one megawatt of power by 2030, according to the Chinese state-backed Science and Technology Daily. Additionally, China aims to build its own space station around 2022.
So why is China so ambitious?
There are a number of reasons for China’s ambitious mission to conquer space.
It can be attributed to space being an industry that Goldman Sachs predicted would be worth $1 trillion by the 2040s. It is already valued at around $350 billion, and so that estimate is far from unreasonable. Some optimistic estimates, such as one by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, even put the industry at $2.7 trillion by the 2040s.
China is unlikely ignoring this, especially considering China’s mammoth Belt and Road initiative, which was covered in detail in Statecraft’s previous article.
In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping loosened the governments monopoly on rocket launches into space. Opening the space market to private-sector investment allows Chinese companies such as Spacety, that leads in the niche but profitable industry of micro-satellites, to compete with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
Additionally, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) was rewarded $510 million in 2011. Moreover in 2016, lobbying from researchers led to a further $710 million being allocated to the CAS for the next five years by the Chinese government.
Another reason for China’s ruthless space program is to steer around the control of the Global Positioning System (GPS) by the US Air Force. GPS was originally developed by the military to overcome to limitations of previous navigation systems.
Currently, GPS is free and is an integral part of the global economy. Cargo ships carrying nearly all the world’s goods use it to navigate the sea and pilots use it to fly 8 million people around the world, every single day.
GPS isn’t just for maps, though. Computers all over the world use it to determine the time down to billionths of a second. Everything down to the stock exchange and traffic signal timing rely on GPS.
Moreover, whilst the US government ruled out “selective availability”, India was denied access to GPS data in 1999 in its war with Pakistan, which took place in the Kargil district of Kashmir. Read more about the Kashmir dispute here on Statecraft.
The US has GPS, Russia has GLONASS, Europe has Galileo and China’s ambition to industrialise space has given it the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). When completed in 2020, the system will have 35 satellites in orbit, providing global coverage.
It could be suggested that BDS could pose issues for possible military interventions into the Korean peninsula. China is North Korea's only ally and could provide navigation data to North Korea in the event of GPS being blocked by the US. Read more about the US-North Korea relationship here.
China's Futurism
Yet, landing on the far side of the moon or building it's own navigation system isn't even China's most ambitious project. China's goal to build a massive solar-power station in space takes first place.
The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) is planning to have a working set of solar generators in orbit by 2025. China is hoping to expand the plant to produce a megawatt and gigawatt of power by 2030 and 2050, respectively.
This is a monstrous undertaking. The eventual one square kilometre station would dwarf the International Space Station (ISS) and be the largest man-made object in space.
Yet, whilst free from weather interference in orbit, China would first to need to figure out how to beam the energy back to Earth efficiently. A significant development of robotics and 3D printing are also likely needed to ensure the success of the project.
Furthermore, Global Security cites a 2011-01 article that predicts the need for 620+ launches of their Long March-9 (CZ-9) heavy lift system to construct the orbital solar power plant with 10,000 MW capacity massing 50,000 tonnes.
Space programs are notoriously fragile projects, as the need for billions of dollars for projects that can span half a human life span have to be justified with solid incentives that go much farther than prestige or respect.
A New Space Race?
In August 2018, US Vice President Mike Spence released the plans for a new 'US Space Force', saying it was because 'our adversaries have transformed space into a war-fighting domain already'. Many believed this remark was a glance at China and Russia.
However, Chinese innovation of space technology should not be considered a threat. Whether scientific advancement is under a flag that is red or a flag with stars and stripes, it is still human development.
Viewing a new space race in a negative light undermines the science obtained from the 20th century space race between the US and former Soviet Union. Without it, we would not have GPS, the ISS or even half the satellite infrastructure currently in place.
In a scenario of a 21st century space race, reaching more and more into the cosmos suggests that the sky really is not the limit.
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