Heading for the Stars, and Wondering if China Might Reach Them First

[kskiska]

BEIJING, Jan. 21 — When President Bush outlined his ambitious vision last week for a new era of space exploration, one country in particular was on his mind as he extended an invitation for international cooperation: China.

In the last year, China succeeded in becoming only the third nation to put an astronaut into orbit, definitively signaling that it intends to break into the front rank of space explorers.

The Chinese plan to send more astronauts into space next year, to launch a Moon probe within three years, and are aiming to land an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010, a half decade before the deadline President Bush set for the next Americans to arrive there.

The United States and China now stand at a critical juncture, between cooperation or competition, in what could be a costly and dangerous new space race that extends even beyond China.

Mr. Bush was deliberately reaching out to the Chinese, a senior administration official in Washington said. "The reference to international cooperation was not a throwaway line," said the official of the speech on Jan. 14. "It was an invitation. The president drew a day-night contrast. This is not the cold war."

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/01/22/international/asia/22SPAC.html?hp

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Who cares if China gets there first?

If they aren't going there to militarize space than they are just doing things that we have already done!

If we are doing this because we are afraid of China, than lets just militarize space. WTF does Mars have to do with it?

[daleo]

2. Reference to international cooperation - not a throwaway line?

Well, like it or not, that's how the rest of the world will treat these overtures as long as BFEE is in power. They would have to be crazy not to.

I don't think China going to the moon would have any real effect, other than getting through certain ethnocentric skulls the notion that technical achievements are not exclusively the province of the U.S., or the western world. That would probably be a good thing, as long as it didn't lead to paranoia.