We invitation you to read the study on technological competition between the United States and the People's Republic of China. This publication addresses the impact of technology on geopolitical competition between the United States and China. The publication consists of texts of many people, including Krzysztof Kurdyła, who examines the US and China arms race in space.
Report published on an open Creative Commons licence Recognition-Non-commercial usage 4.0. It is located on website www.nlad.pl. Funded by the National Institute of Freedom – Centre for the improvement of civilian Society under the Government civilian Organisation improvement Programme for 2018-2030.
We encourage you to read a text.
Krzysztof Kurdyła will be able to meet during the 7th Technopolitical Forum in Łódź.
Kurdilla: On orbits, on the Moon, on Mars – United States and China in a space duel
A decade ago, China was treated as a contender to second place on the list of cosmic powers. Russia was the target, treated by most observers as a technological older brother, or possibly a mentor of the mediate State. In the meantime, it was already apparent that the level of technological advancement in many places Beijing left Moscow far behind, and in any places even over Washington.
Today, there is no uncertainty that Russia, at its own request, has fallen out of the cosmic power race, and only the United States and China stay in the ring.
This duel imposes on the increasing geopolitical conflict between the 2 powers and their networks of alliances. Given the importance of space for the safety systems of today's states, the atmosphere of the cosmic race is as hot as in specified strategically crucial areas as semiconductors.
This chapter aims to bring you closer to where each of these countries is presently in space and where they are going in the close future. How does the specificity of political and economical systems affect the dynamics of the improvement of their cosmic resources? Are there serious inflamed points on this road? Or possibly in a fresh version of the conflict between powers, like in the Cold War, space has a chance to play a stabilizing role?
Game of Thrones
When he docked the Atlantis ferry in July 2011 from the global Space Station, the Americans had no manned replacement for him. In order to be able to proceed sending astronauts to an orbital laboratory, they had to pay Russians to replace their outdated and uncomfortable Soyuzes. Meanwhile, a fewer months after this event, the Shenzhou 8 ship docked at a tiny Tiangong-1 station. In 2012 Shenzhou 9 had already repeated this with taikonauts on board.
China was celebrating. Just a fewer months earlier, U.S. home of Representatives typical Frank Wolf pushed the bill known as Wolf Amen and blocked Chinese efforts to access the global Space Station.
However, the charter turned rapidly and erstwhile the taikonuts boarded their own station, brought there by their own ship, the Americans were already hostages of the Russians.
By the way, this bill, created for fear of stealing American space technology, was 1 of the first major announcements of an upcoming geopolitical storm. However, at the minute she left, she went to ORBITS, PRINCESS, MARSIA... for a circumstantial period in which the Americans found themselves in a serious technological turn, and China was just gathering the fruit of earlier investments. Assessing who was the leader at the exact moment, for the untrained eye ceased to be obvious
On the 1 hand, the Americans at the general technology level were inactive the undisputed leader, but due to the build-up of faulty decisions and financing problems, their flagship programs were scattered erstwhile again. The 1 who was expected to take them back to the Moon, Constellation, collapsed under the weight of terrible assumptions, winding up the spiral of costs and delays.
The shuttles were closed erstwhile due to terrible costs, two, after the Columbia crash – fears of losing another crew were besides big.
One of the most serious problems was besides the progressive dependence of Americans on Russians, which is frequently forgotten by making specified allegations against China. Meanwhile, not only did NASA astronauts gotta fly from Bajkonuru, these are the most crucial American rockets of that time, Atlas V, which amounted to most military missions, utilized the RD-180 engines purchased in Roskosmos. The decision to leave them was made far besides late, only after Russia's first attack on Ukraine in 2014.
One consolation for the Americans was that a fewer months earlier, he successfully docked a fresh private cargo ship Dragon, besides carrying a private Falcon 9 rocket. It was built by SpaceX. This young man of the space marketplace besides promised that in a minute her rockets would become reusable, he besides undertook the task of building a manned pod.
However, it should besides be noted that the American space establishment treated the company as a reserve option for conventional industry, which meantime had more and more technological and qualitative problems.
These extend to this day – Boeing Starliner, awarded in the same manned ship building program, despite twice the higher contract inactive did not gain operational status.
However, China amazed everyone again in 2013, as shortly as Chang’e had successfully made their debut on the Moon, placing an unmanned lander there. Moreover, the Yutu rover, who besides carried out his tasks, was part of this mission. but for the Chinese, no country's art went so well the first time.
Five years later, the mediate State surpassed its first mission, achieving something no 1 had always done before.
They landed with the Chang’e Lander 4 and rover Yutu-2 on the invisible side of the Moon. This mission besides required the peculiar orbit of the Queqiao-1 relay satellite.
Vigilant observers of the space marketplace besides noted that by the end of the decade China was increasingly able to boast the largest number of orbital flights, ahead of both the fresh leader - Russia and the occupying United States since the 2nd years.
So if at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. China was only considered to be a contender to 2nd place, so at the end 1 could begin to wonder if they were trying to deposal Americans [...].
