Rare glimpse of China's space
program By Pallavi Aiyar
BEIJING - Located on the outer fringe of
the northwestern part of the capital, Beijing's
"aerospace city" does not on first sight appear to
be the gleaming testament to space-age
technological prowess one might imagine. But
inside the blocks of unassuming white-tiled
buildings, one of the world's most sophisticated
space programs is in the process of being
developed.
In the middle of the aerospace
city is the highly secretive Beijing Aerospace
Command and Control Center (BACCC) - the
decision-making nerve center of China's
spaceflight testing. When Indian Defense Minister
Pranab Mukherjee was taken on a brief tour during
his visit to China at the end of May, it was
projected as a
major confidence-building
measure on China's part.
Normally, the
BACCC is strictly off-limits to the media.
However, a trip organized for foreign
correspondents gave a rare opportunity for a
glimpse into China's space development, which has
been in the international limelight since Yang
Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut to travel
in space aboard the Shenzhou V spacecraft in
October 2003.
Spaceflight command and
control is an enormous two-gallery room that would
be the perfect movie set for a Hollywood
extravaganza like Apollo 13, were it not
the real thing. Four large, luminous split screens
dominate the room. The two screens in the center
display a map of the world against which the
trajectory of a spacecraft is tracked. The others
present a snapshot of the inside of any spacecraft
that may be in orbit.
It is from this room
that all Shenzhou spaceships were tracked and
controlled with the help of four "Yuanwang"
aerospace survey ships stationed in the Atlantic,
Pacific and Indian oceans.
Rows of
monitors with shiny, multi-colored buttons adorn
the consoles from where a tense ground-control
crew observe the entire journey of the craft from
liftoff to touchdown.
Zhang Shegyuan,
deputy director of the BACCC, said the first six
Shenzhou spacecraft cost a total of 19 billion
yuan (US$2.3 billion). Though this is only a
fraction of what the United States spends on its
space program every year (its National Aeronautics
and Space Administration has a proposed budget of
$7 billion for 2007 alone), nonetheless there have
been criticisms that such a program is a luxury
for a developing country where tens of millions of
people still live below the poverty line.
Zhang insists $2.3 billion is a modest
sum. While this answer might appear surprising
given that the average per capita annual income of
the country is still only a little over $1,000,
for China the space program is a source of
national pride and international prestige,
conferring on the country a status that transcends
price tags.
After the launch of the
Shenzhou V space mission, China became only the
third country in the world to send a manned
spacecraft into orbit, behind the United States
and the Soviet Union/Russia.
When
congratulating the staff of the BACCC after the
hitch-free launch and return of the Shenzhou VI
mission last October, Wu Banguao, chairman of the
National People's Congress, said, "The successful
mission is of great significance for elevating
China's prestige in the world and promoting
China's economic, scientific and national defense
capabilities as well as its national
cohesiveness."
Underscoring the
techno-nationalism that imbues China's space
program, Zhang attributes the success of the six
Shenzhou missions thus far to the fact the
astronauts and other members of the mission teams
are "patriotic to their motherland".
Yang
Liwei, an astronaut who is today one of China's
biggest celebrities, was also on hand to answer
questions at the aerospace city's "astronaut
research and training center". Framed by a
gigantic spacecraft simulator, Yang said space
research was "the common task of humanity" and
highlighted the fact he had carried a United
Nations flag with him on Shenzhou V.
But
despite China's calls for greater international
cooperation in space development and insistence
that its own program is intended for peaceful,
scientific research, some countries, notably the
US, remain suspicious that China's space
capabilities are intended for military purposes.
Thus, though China has expressed interest
in joining the International Space Station
project, which involves Russia, Europe, Canada and
Japan, the Pentagon has opposed cooperation with
Beijing, claiming China's space program is a
potential threat to the US satellite system, which
underpins US military power.
Regardless of
US suspicions, China says it is on track to
achieve its goals of a space walk by 2008, docking
of flight vehicles in orbit by 2012 and a manned
spaced nation not long after that.
Chinese
media recently reported that the country's first
lunar orbiter, named "Chang'e I", is on schedule
for launch in 2007. The moon-orbiting project is
the first step in China's larger lunar exploration
program that went into operation in 2004. The
orbiter is expected to be followed by a
remote-controlled lunar rover that will perform
experiments and send data back to Earth. In the
third phase, a module will drill out a chunk of
the moon and bring it back for analysis.
The professed aim is to have all three
phases complete by 2017, when a manned lunar-probe
mission will be considered.
It's an
ambitious program, but China is not alone in
thinking big on space. In China's immediate
neighborhood, India and Japan are also planning an
eventful decade of space exploration. India will
by 2008 launch Chandranarayaan-1, a robotic
spaceship headed for the moon. In Japan, robotic
probe SELENE (Selenological and Engineering
Explorer) is also slated to visit the moon before
2010. Space exploration is certain to expand
beyond the exclusive club of countries that have
dominated it thus far. In the "space race" of the
1960s when US rocket scientist Wernher von Braun
was asked what he expected to find on the moon, he
jokingly replied, "Russians."
Today his
answer would probably have been, "Chinese, Indians
and Japanese."
Pallavi Aiyar is
the China correspondent for The Hindu.
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