China’s ambitious space program is also for Europe’s space Agency a Chance. Because large-scale projects such as Mars-travel or a moon base can no longer afford Europe alone, says Frank Sieren.
A model of the first planned building on the moon
What actually is the “lunar module descent engine” in Chinese? Matthias Maurer might be one of the few Germans to be in the know. For almost six years, swots of the 48-year-old professional Astronaut Mandarin. Maurer is not the only one. Many of his younger colleagues at the European space Agency ESA have detected that Chinese will in the future be a key qualification for the European astronauts. Because China is as a space nation is becoming more and more important. While the American and the Russian space program had in the past few years, save more, and private companies such as Elon Musks SpaceX entered the stage, supported by Beijing, with ever greater state investment in the Chinese foray into space. Since 2003, China is the third Nation after Russia and the United States, which has sent its own art to a people in the space.
To explore “the vast cosmos, to develop the space industry, and China makes a Space, a dream we pursue constantly is,” said Beijing in the beginning of 2017, submitted to the five-year plan. Among the ambitious plans to build up to 2022, a 66-ton space station, the three astronauts live and work. In the orbit of the space station and a space telescope is to be positioned, similar to the “Hubble”telescope in the USA, however, about a 300 times larger field of view. If the International space station, ISS, as planned, 2024 acknowledged their service, would be China, then even the only Nation with a permanent Outpost in space.
Ambitious plans on the moon
The new Era of Chinese space is already dawning in the coming months, with an unmanned landing on the South pole of the moon. There is nothing and no one from the earth. 2030 is supposed to leave according to the plans of Beijing, a Chinese Astronaut fresh tracks on the surface of the moon. The symbolic power of the moon in space travel history plays a role in its history as a place of longing in Chinese poetry.
Tiangong 1 is the first, short-term manned Chinese space laboratory. At the beginning of April it was destroyed
But the are of course not the only reasons why the Chinese want to be on the moon: mineral resources such as aluminum, and Helium-3, are suspected to be there in large quantities. The colorless and odorless Gas can be converted into fuel for nuclear fusion power plants. And the recently confirmed Eisreservoirs on the moon would, by hydrolysis, hydrogen, can also be used as a fuel for rockets. This makes the moon an ideal pit stop for further space flights, to Mars and back.
Of such projects, the Europeans can only dream of. The Director-General of the European space Agency, ESA, Jan Wörner, had already recruited more than a year ago for a village on the moon as a follow-up project of the International space station ISS. Plans abound: the moon and the earth have very similar geological conditions. The entire lunar surface is covered with a layer of dust, which condense to bricks and to assemble then Store for space ship parts or the navigation and communication stations. In addition, the moon dust is composed of approximately 40 per cent, of oxygen, found out the ESA researchers. If the scientists succeed, this oxygen “aufzuknacken” would be secured for the longer stays on the moon. However, the money is missing from the Europeans.
Lead on the way to the moon
The Americans are torn about whether you should afford the costly adventure. While US President Barack Obama has cancelled the more expensive projects, want Trump to keep up. The United States should return to the moon. “We need to have the American dominance in space,” said Trump last December at the signing of a US-space travel Directive. “We don’t want China and Russia or other countries lead us. Have always led us!”
DW-columnist Frank Sieren
The last US Astronaut had landed in 1972 on the moon. A U.S. Mission to the lunar surface could implement the NASA starting in 2026, four years earlier than China’s first manned departure. That would be a Triumph for Trump, he could still be before the end of his second term in office to enjoy – provided that he is re-elected and decides not to again, because his constituents, the prestigious project seems to be too expensive. The Argument, in any case, progress in space technology to advance not only military but also civilian areas (such as the news, technology, climate protection or the global Computer network), is compared to the American voters a free ride.
In this respect, it is to cooperate more and more reasonable, in the case of space projects such as lunar stations or manned Mars flights international. Europeans, Russians, and Chinese are open to this, Washington does not want to allow this in relation to China. The Chinese were already excluded from the International space station, ISS, at the more than 100 countries are involved. For Washington, each of the Chinese rocket is considered as a potential weapon and every satellite as a spying tool.
At the same time Washington wants to build a “US Space Force”, a kind of space army unit the American navigational and communication satellites against attacks from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran to protect the US, Vice-President Mike Pence in a General suspicion of all-round shock explained. Since Zhang Kejian, the Chairman of the China National Space Administration, as often emphasise that China is looking forward, “a space in society with the Rest of the world”.
Washington’s Exclusion Policy
The European space Agency is open to China. Out of Conviction and out of financial necessity. The Europeans hope that one of their astronauts may soon fly to the planned Chinese space station. Even so, a headline that would have been ten years ago, this was unthinkable: “the Chinese and the Europeans fly into space”. The Russian space Agency has also signed an agreement with China to All work together more closely. You plan to create a joint space station on the moon and want to work together to establish binding rules of the game for the moon.
Experiments for a permanent Chinese base on the moon run for years
However, you can hear also in China, the nationalistic tones, for example, of Ye Peijian, the chief of the Chinese moon mission: The universe is like an ocean, and “the moon is like the Diaoyu Islands” in the South China sea. Or: “Mars is Huangyan Island”. If China does not go there, although it was capable of, “are we our descendants of criticism. If others go there, you will take the Power, and then we can’t go there whenever we want.” The Ye those Islands are claimed by various countries, of the Chinese, however, as their territory is aggressively defended.
Europeans and Russians in the hope, meanwhile, that change through rapprochement. “Especially in times of international tension, it is important that one also has issues, which crises can be bridged. Science, specifically space travel, the perfect,” ESA chief Jan Wörner. He adheres to a different Chinese location. “The Chinese space station”, said Shi Zhongjun, China’s representative at the UN, generous, “not only China, but all over the world”. But this is also true for the moon?
Our columnist, bestselling author Frank Sieren, who lives since over 20 years in Beijing.