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	February 9, 2000	atimes.com

China

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: Space cadets
By Bradley Martin

US entrepreneurs have come to the rescue of Russia's venerable Mir space station, supplying enough money to keep it aloft for a few months while they try to raise more to finance a longer-term reprieve from abandonment. What's not widely known is that this rescue role is one that China had contemplated taking on itself.

And if the American businessmen's scheme should fail, it's still within the realm of possibility that the Chinese might step in to buy Mir or go partners with the Russians in maintaining it.

Before the news broke last month of the US businessmen's rescue operation, the December 31 issue of the mainland-owned Hong Kong daily Ta Kung Pao set out in detail a Chinese rescue role for Mir.

Celebrating the successful late 1999 unmanned launch of the Shenzhou manned-type spaceship, writer K'ang Chien-wen predicted that the early part of the 21st century would see China become the third manned-space-flight power.

Astronaut training is already well under way. According to the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao (November 22) the China Space Center outside Beijing features simulation spaceship cabins where "solitude and extreme loneliness challenge the trainees' psychological well-being and physical fitness". (Why not wile away the time and keep in shape by performing Falung Gong breathing exercises?)

But "to start the Chinese space century, just having astronauts and a manned spaceship will not be enough", K'ang wrote in the Ta Kung Pao article. "Since China will need its own space station to do further space research, the matter of a space station has now been put on the agenda."

Actually it was Mir's Russian masters who put the matter on Beijing's agenda. Originally designed to orbit for three years, the Russian space station has now been up for 14. Last August Moscow announced it could no longer afford its upkeep and would let it crash into the Pacific in March. This was welcome news at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), which wants Mir out of the way so that the Russians will concentrate on financing and building their designated parts of the new international space station.

People directly involved in the Russian space station program were most reluctant to see Mir go, so they set out to talk up various proposals for foreign investment that might keep it in orbit. They spread the word that it could stay up another five years easily "and, if its main capsule is upgraded, its computers are upgraded and its power supply problems are solved, it will continue to orbit for 15 years", to quote Ta Kung Pao.

It would cost at least $1 billion to buy it and more billions to renovate and maintain it, the Ta Kung Pao writer said. But if China were to get involved, that shortcut would save many years and astronomical sums compared with building its own space station. For reference, the 16-nation international space station will cost some $100 billion.

Unanimity was lacking in the Chinese science and technology community, K'ang wrote. Opponents of purchase argued that "high technology cannot be acquired simply by buying it". Anyhow, there could turn out to be much more wrong with Mir than the Russians had let on. China might end up throwing money into a "bottomless pit". Better to stick to the self-reliant policy that has been gaining adherents when it comes to armaments.

K'ang noted that an alternative to outright purchase or waiting to create a solely Chinese space station was "cooperative investment" in maintaining Mir, in exchange for user privileges. The Russian experts recommended that "China and the European nations fund or buy Mir, which will keep the US-controlled international space station from being a monopoly", K'ang wrote. (They even recommended as partners the Germans, but there is no word on whether their promotional efforts included singing "Bist du bei Mir" or "Du, du liegst Mir im Herzen".)

At the time the Ta Kung Pao article was published, the question of which of the three options to pursue had "not been settled". A few days later, while the Chinese presumably were still chewing over the possibilities, the Russians announced Mir's temporary reprieve. They had some money from an American investor and would send another manned mission to the station in March. Mir's gradual descent in orbit would be halted.

The investor, Walt Anderson, soon showed himself in an interview with Knight-Ridder newspapers and said he planned to commit $20 million from his venture capital firm, Gold & Appel, to start Mir's renovation. "You don't tear down an old building because it has a few heating and air conditioning problems," he said. "You renovate it." His plans include sending rich tourists to Mir on rockets, using its weightless conditions for developing new commercial products and enlisting it in promotional campaigns.

It developed that Anderson is part of a consortium. According to the Houston Chronicle (January 14) the effort is led by Jeffrey Manber. A longtime US representative to Mir's Russian operating company, RSC Energia, Manber had registered a startup company called Mir Corp and was "casting for investors worldwide" to raise $100 million to $200 million for the station's renovation.

Who knows? Maybe Manber and his colleagues are casting around widely enough that they would welcome Chinese investment in the project. True, becoming a shareholder in Mir Corp wouldn't allow Beijing to thumb its nose at the United States as convincingly as if Americans weren't leading the rescue effort. But at least it would further infuriate already apoplectic Nasa officials. According to a February 3 Associated Press story from Moscow, the Russians already are planning to use in the save-the-Mir effort some rockets, cargo ships and other resources that Nasa insists must be devoted to the new international space station.

(Special to Asia Times Online)

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