Slashdot Log In
Asia's Space Race: China vs. India
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jun 22, 2003 01:18 PM
from the let's-not-fight-it-out-please dept.
from the let's-not-fight-it-out-please dept.
securitas writes "London-based military historian and commentator Gwynne Dyer writes about Asia's developing space race with plans from China and India to land people on the Moon, previously mentioned on Slashdot in China's case. In April India announced it will send an unmanned probe to the Moon by 2005 and a manned mission by 2015. Critics say it's a waste of time and money for India to pursue the goal. Meanwhile, Russian space experts are quietly helping China in what is seen as a growing alliance and a somewhat alarmist op-ed piece from the Washington Times worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Right (Score:3, Funny)
What we really needs is another Space Race (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
One good thing.... (Score:5, Funny)
US in the new Space race (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US in the new Space race (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:US in the new Space race (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Then why don't they do that in Pakistan? Bush scare tactics work better when the enemy is still at large.
Parent
Re:US in the new Space race (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway a space race is coming, the US will certainly be involved, because China is the last great evil. These mideastern conflicts are tiny compared to what would happen if China were feeling froggy, and that fear will drive us just as it did in our space race against Russia.
Parent
Re:US in the new Space race (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if there's enough private funding for US private enterprise to enter this race. Assume the cost to
Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:no china and india in space (Score:3, Interesting)
When it comers to weapons I would support a world wide planetary ban on anything not man portable. that won't happen of course, but that's the level I think humans are at socially, technologically we are far more advanced of course, but realisitcally, we are just medievals with better technology. For all practical purposes h
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think the lesson here is that we need to hope that they don't work together. Why did the space race in the middle of the 20th century accomplish so much? Because the US and the Russians were competing. Why is this talk of Indian and Chinese space programs spurring discussion and worry about the space program in the US? Because they signify new competition when we haven't had any in so long. What we need is competition, not cooperation; just like in business, the best situation is when there are lots of fairly equal players all at each other's throats, and monopolies (either through a single country dominating, or multiple countries working as a team) kills progress.
Parent
Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
Space exploration is not "good for people", and won't be any time soon. It's good for the _species_, in the very long term (once self-sufficient colonies are established), but if there's one thing humanity has consistently demonstrated, it's that this is not a major motivation to them.
Joe Average will gain no direct benefit, and debatable indirect b
Useful stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a great fan of the idea of China and America carving up the moon between them, though.
The major problem of the world in every century (Score:3, Insightful)
Powers comes and goes. Napoleon rises, and falls. Bismarck rises, and falls. The franks, then the prussians, the list goes on and on, now it comes to america, who knows if the next one is China?
Yet i don't think china could gasp the key to victory here by having space mission that denotes quite a bit of nothing in military terms (forget the whole lot on spy satellite, they are of no significant use on a direct confrontation of two nuclear-powered countries). To me, I would be more impressed and scared off by the change to democratic (NOT the democratic party but rather democratic society-type form, i.e. humanitarian, [n.b. vegetarian eats vegetable.. so humanitarian eats.. oh nevermind.]) or there is a significant change in the government structure and the way people do business (i.e. guanxi or so.)
enough offtopic, but here's what I want to say on space mission for china.
<div tone="sarcastic">
For india, I think that they better feed their crowd better before the birth mortality rate goes back to the 1930s standard. (THAT'S flamey.)
</div>
Re:The major problem of the world in every century (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese and Indian people are just as smart and educated as any other, and a whole lot less comfortable and hungrier for achievment. Sit back, relax, and you'll watch them eat your lunch.
Parent
Not as smart as any other... (Score:3, Informative)
From http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
China:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 81.5%
male: 89.9%
female: 72.7% (1995 est.)
India:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 52%
male: 65.5%
female: 37.7% (1995 est.)
Russia:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 98%
male: 100%
female: 97% (1989 est.)
USA:
Literacy:
definition: age
The policies of MAD (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been true, but has any nuclear enabled nation been overtaken in combat? Nope.
You are absolutely correct that power comes and goes but the combo of ICBMs and Nuclear weapons means that there's a much greater certainty that the "nuclear club" will establish what Europe calls a multipolar world: many powers competiting for a greater good (like in this article) and hopefully not starting WWIII.
Once we're all happily armed with nukes it will only be internal unrest that chan
Re:The major problem of the world in every century (Score:3, Insightful)
um...do you have your head in the sand ? [secondharvest.org]
Pay Attention to the Differences Concerning Food (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes some Americans are too poor to buy food. But the food IS there. The US Government provides subsidies to farmers who's products go unbought because of a global food GLUT. The issue isn't food availability, its food affordability.
So yes the US is quite capable of feeding itself, and then some.
There's good to come out of space. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is good news for everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is good that India and China are competing through science, and not through arms. Honestly, I don't see how this could be a bad thing for anyone. India and China will both make new scientific discoveries, and seeing them get into space may inspire the EU, the US and Russia to increase their space efforts.
I know lots of people are going to complain that India should be focusing their efforts on improving their living standards rather than going on wild adventures. But I don't think the one has to distract from the other. India actually has enough food to feed herself, its just a problem of social structure and education. And it is not as if the resources used for going into space make that great of a impact on the ability of India to educate its population. In economic terms, there isn't that great of a cost of space missions, because the resources that go into them can't really easily go anywhere else.
Re:This is good news for everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
While China and Russia get closer the United States and India will as well. Or maybe India and Japan.
Re:This is good news for everyone. (Score:4, Insightful)
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.
I don't mind helping a poor person who gets into trouble get out of trouble. However giving a poor person an endless supply of food doesn't help that poor person get richer. He may eat, but he will never contribute to socity. He ends up being a drain on resources that I would prefer to spend other places.
The theory of space programs is they require jobs to achive. So you hire and pay some smart people, who then have money to hire other (not so smart?) people to do things, and your ecconomy improves. India has plenty of smart people who don't have good jobs, so a space program will help them out. Once they get bootstraped out of the situation they are in, they can drop the space program and go to things they would rather have. (or not, there is nothing wrong with a space program other than the money it costs, and they might come up with a good reason to keep it)
Parent
Re:India has a Caste System Society!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with your assessment that caste system is bad, I think the sentence "Any intelligent person should not look respectfully at India as a country until the caste system is snuffed out in every form". Rememer, USA has had won two world wars, built the best highway systems in the world, built the bomb, and sent men to moon -- all before it was OK for blacks to sit in the same row seats as whites in a bus.
So, while there are some things that are bad with India, it should not be used as a reason for denying her some other good things.
S
Parent
Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)
China is too risk adverse to become a major player. They'll probably get to the moon. Then the first major accident after that (loosing face) will have them scale back to the "Floating in endless circles" model the US uses.
And when China gives up, India will bow out soon after.
Space will be conqured by people, THEN the governments will follow.
So, India should concentrate on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that what they said about America?
Ever recall "Whitey on the moon"?
India has just as legitimate a reason to go into space as China. Aside from needing the room, they have just as much right to push into the ultra modern age as the rest of us.
Jeesh, what a bunch of racist banter.
At least the US isn't threatened with nuclear war with India over Taiwan.
It is pretty alarmist (Score:3, Informative)
That's just plain FUD. The US and Soviets EVA'ed for years and years before they ever did any space-based construction work.
From Skylab to Mir the majority of space stations were assembled by docking modules togeather with minimal EVA for bolting things on.
Ed White's Gemini EVA took place 20 years before Shuttle missions started EVAs for fixing equipment in orbit.
What is this guy on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can any one point to where this one came from?
The number of H-bomb warheads in circulation demonstrates that there is not exactly a world shortage of tritium or ability to produce it; certainly as the US wasn't afraid of polluting the Colorado River, and the UK of polluting the Irish Sea, I can't imagine that the Chinese would be too worried about the side effects of massive tritium production.
Conclusion: this is an attempt to frighten paranoid hawks into believing that the Space Race must be resumed to prevent the Chinese from laying claim to all those tritium mines on the Moon. Whereas, actually, we might be better off with some serious international negotiation on space, perhaps even some cooperation. While articles like this one reinforce Chinese paranoia about US intentions, (the author makes it clear that the US must not lose domination in space) we all surely have more to gain by trying to defuse the potential tensions in advance. Which might mean that Dubya has to rethink his approach to ripping up international agreements, but would that be a bad thing?
Re:What is this guy on? (Score:5, Informative)
He3 is on the moon is great quantity because the surface of the moon soaks up all the particles in the solar wind, which includes a good bit of He3.
Parent
Re:What is this guy on? (Score:3, Informative)
He3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, D+T is still far easier. He3+_D_ is about on par with D+D, and more importantly produces an energetic _proton_ as the decay product. He3 will not fuse with p, as that would give you something like Li4 (no dice).
D+T is easy but produces a boatload of neutrons, which carry away most of the reaction energy. As these aren't confined by the reactor's magnetic field, you're stuck letting the shielding material heat up and drawing power off of it with a heat engine. The reactor vessel itself rapidly degrades due to intense neutron radiation.
You also need to produce a steady supply of T, but you can breed that from a lithium blanket, or just surround the reactor vessel with heavy water and let it breed from D.
D+D fusion is a bit cleaner than D+T, but much harder to achieve. It produces He3+n half the time and T+p the other half. The T will react very quickly to produce He4+n, which carries away most of the energy in the neutron. If you don't have a long confinement time, you're stuck with this. If you do have a long confinement time, the He3 will burn with D to produce He4+p, which carries away a lot of the energy in the p, which stays confined, heats the plasma, and is otherwise nice.
Summary for D+D: Only decent if you can keep it confined for a while, still releases half its energy as neutrons, much harder than D+T.
He3+D is slightly easier than D+D, but still in the same ballpark (much harder than D+T). Most importantly, He3+D gives He4+p, so almost all of your energy ends up in charged particles. The problem is that you get D+D happening as long as there's D in the plasma, so you have to run a reactor with much more He3 than D, and still get neutrons coming out - just much less than with D+D. This means your reactor vessel lasts at least 10 times longer, your plasma heats itself, and you can use higher-efficiency methods of tapping power if you want to.
The problem is that He3 is rare, and trying to breed it via D+D just gives you a D+D reactor, with its neutron problem.
If there's a lot of He3 on the moon and it's relatively easily harvested, it may be a viable source of fuel. I have my doubts about this being practical (I think we'd be better off filtering it out of natural helium, though that's not a picnic either, as it's much rarer than deuterium).
Parent
Bruce Sterling on the India-China space race (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce Sterling talked about the India/China space race in his May 2003 Wired column [wired.com]. Some extracts:
"Nobody in the Western press takes much notice of India's space aspirations, because by Yankee standards it doesn't make sense for India to have any. Yet India launched its first missile in 1963 and its first cosmonaut in 1984. Nobody in the West thought the country would ever go nuclear, either. That was a blunder in judgment. [...]
"Why is Gandhi's homeland trying to reach the moon when people sleep on the streets in Calcutta and AIDS gnaws the country's flesh? For the same reason the US sloughed off poverty programs to fund Apollo in the 1960s: global prestige.
"India doesn't need long-range missiles to nuke neighbor and archrival Pakistan. For a war that intimate, bullock carts would do. The Agni III is aimed straight at world public opinion. The India-Pakistan PR skirmish is already almost over, and India is clearly winning. Every great power sweats bullets over Pakistan's bomb, but India's somehow makes that country worthy of consideration for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. [...]
"Since India demonstrated its bomb in 1998, the Chinese have been increasingly uneasy. China reacted to the detonation with angry demands that the international community keep India contained. When that got nowhere, China helped Pakistan go nuclear. In retrospect, that was a scary, destabilizing misstep. But now India and China are poised to continue their rivalry on safer high ground - beyond Earth's atmosphere.
"Nuclear India versus nuclear China is Kennedy versus Kruschev, and Reagan versus Gorbachev, all over again. Now, as then, a space race is a sexy alternative to nuclear annihilation. [...]
"Who will become top dog in South Asia? That's an open question, and there aren't many good ways to answer short of a useless massacre. A space race offers a good solution. It's a symbolic tournament that tests competing political and economic systems to their limit.
"A decade after the end of the Cold War, good old-fashioned space programs still matter. Not for exploration's sake, but to settle new cold wars. If you doubt it, imagine this scenario: It's 2029, and a lunar mission lands at Tranquillity Base. A crew of heroic young Indians - or Chinese - quietly folds and puts away America's 60-year-old flag. If the world saw that on television, wouldn't the gesture be worth tens of billions of rupees or yuan? Of course it would."
Re:Bruce Sterling on the India-China space race (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree on both counts. Rakesh Sharma was India's first cosmonaut (much like Kalpana Chawla being the first Indian-born astronaut), and yes, while not to take points out of the Chinese, I have a lot of respect for Chinese scientists, it does seem to me that China is ripping Soviet technology off.
Incidentally, it's ironical that you were talking about clean, cheap electric power, that is exactly what Rakesh Sharma apparently researched on [geocities.com], while aboard the Soyuz capsule.
That said, I believe all this talk of The Next Great Space Race is all (western?) media speculation; really, I'd be hardpressed to see anyone at Sriharikota (that's India's launch base) itching to compete with the Chinese (or the Chinese competing with us Indians); my impression so far has been that ISRO is all Zen-like in its aspirations. There's an interesting piece on this in Raj Chengappa's Weapons of Peace for anyone interested in Indian science.
Parent
Indian Ventures == PR (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an Indian (note this before you start flaming or modding down) and has been following the Indian space programme and a whole lot of other programmes for quite a while, (and yes, I can claim to understand the Indian psychology more).
In India everything of this nature are 90% for PR and public consumption and 10% realistic projects.
This is a not stupid move either [although, it does end up foul, read on], unlike many Sladhdotters who think that India is stupidly wasting money on space, ocean, Antarctica and a whole lot of crap that are playthings for rich countries, while the people starve.
It is a calculated risk, more money is spent on trying to keep the economy stable, trying to provide decent health etc. (The percentage of GDP spent on defence in India is much less than that of the US.) The problem is that the corruption in this area is a whole lot more than the corruption that takes place in the high-tech stuff.
Okey, to make it short the basic ideas are:
The bottomline is that it is more PR, these vision are not realistic from the financial point of view --India doesn't have the money to pull this off, nor will they be ready to take money from the food-health-economy dept. and put it here, even with domestic private investors, for the simple reason that corrupt dudes would lose the easy buck and money laundering private businessmen will lose a lot of opportunities.
What about the Lunar Treaty? (Score:4, Interesting)
ttyl
Farrell
I'm happy to see (Score:3, Interesting)
But I wish the goal were not space, but cancer, or nanofabrication, or such. It would mean more to the lives of their citizens and eventually the world if they spent the money on bioengineering, medicine, genetic modification of crops, training their people in science and engineering, IT, and such. Space is a less efficient expenditure of resources, despite how cool and prestigious it is. Certain other technical objectives as the goal for the race could have greater rewards than Space.
Why do I get the feeling... (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone have any preference about which billion-plus nation gets their first? I tend to favor India, if for no better reason than their human rights record... Hmm.
Re:just what we need.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt Nasa or and science/space related issues even come close to becoming part of their agenda unless a tradegy happens like the Columbia accident happens.
America will wakeup and rush back into the space arena only when it suits the politicans politically and financially and by then it will be to late. JFK did a good thing by creating the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely. Its a shame that the politicans and american publics support for that program died after that happened.
Parent
Re:More politics than science ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh...your post sounds like the middle eastern population calling us "american devils" and whatnot
Give them the benefit of the doubt. Not everything a communist country does has to be a "politically correct ploy for world destruction."
Parent
Re:More politics than science ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the timeline for Americas ICBM program in comparison for our "Race for the moon".
Seems pretty close, odd part is, it's the same for the former USSR.
Parent
World Power (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of ICBMs is not to actually deploy nuclear weapons, it's to have the ability to deploy them. Consider four classes of countries:
Re:More politics than science ... (Score:3, Informative)
First, China is already considered a "power".
And, they *ALREADY* have rockets that can deliver nuclear weapons with pinpoint accuracy to any spot in the world.
It pretty much leaves the advancement of science as the biggest reason of their space program.
Re:Co-operation is the way to go! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:3, Interesting)
some nations believes (and is true!) that they have better technology than the others, thus any synergy movement would narrow'en the gap between her and the other countries. They believe that better technology = better position in the world.
On the contrary, many nations, which are of lower technological level do have these sort of policy. However, most channels are through institutional (i.e. university-university or researchfacility-researchfacility) base rather than nat
Too many chiefs (Score:3, Interesting)
Too many Chiefs spoil the broth. Or in this case, too many scientists spoil the program. Look at ISS, it is there and it works, but it is expensive and took a long time to get there. (Note that the goal of ISS was never science, but a way for the US to keep smart russian scientists from selling their abilities to "bad nations" after the Soviet breakup)
There are many ways to make a rocket. The principal is similear, but there are many possibal designs. Getting everyone togather tends to result in c
All of humanity working together? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at the UN... way too many conflicts of interest. I dont' think that such a group of countries/rivals will ever work together in such a way for a long time. But then and again rivalry can also be very good. What do you guys think?
Re:Hindu in space. (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, there are other Indians out there who'd like to think we've developed our space programmes as technically-capable Indians, not Hindus, Muslims or any other shit. I, for one, can't see why the alleged Hindu contribution should be seperated from an all-Indian one.
Parent