The new Cold War: China and the United States take their fight to outer space

The rivalry between China Y U.S It is not only geopolitical, economic and commercial. For several years now, the competition has also moved into space, where the Asian giant’s career is taking huge strides. One of the most recent milestones was undoubtedly the successful landing on Mars last May of the rover Zhurong, which followed in the footsteps of the Curiosity and Perseverance from NASA.

“It is really a milestone for the Chinese space program. It means that Chinese space exploration leaves the Earth-Moon system and goes to the planetary system [de Marte]. A mission like this shows that China has the ability to explore the entire solar system. “said a proud Chi Wang, director of the National Center for Space Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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As NASA and the Chinese agency continue parallel, and even collaborative, paths to learn more about outer space, tensions have also risen. Like what happened recently with the SpaceX company, of the American millionaire Elon Musk, which was accused of endangering the safety of Chinese astronauts at the Tiangong space station.

“This is a serious threat to the life and safety of our astronauts”, criticized Chinese diplomatic spokesman Zhao Lijian on Tuesday.

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What happened? In July and October, the Tiangong station had to carry out preventive controls to avoid collisions during two close encounters with Space X’s Starlink satellites, Beijing informed the UN special agency.

Both times, the satellites entered orbits that forced the space station operators to change course.

Billionaire Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX, who has sent several satellites into space. AFP / POOL / Britta Pedersen (BRITTA PEDERSEN /)

SpaceX, based in California, did not respond to the questions, but according to reports from the AFP agency, thousands of Chinese users on social networks strongly criticized Musk and his companies for what happened, and have even proposed to boycott Tesla, the company that manufactures electric cars and they have become very popular in China.

The Tiangong station core module entered orbit during 2021 and is due to be fully operational by next year, and two crews of three astronauts each have succeeded on board since June.

According to AFP, evasive maneuvers become more frequent as more objects saturate the near-Earth orbit and force trajectory adjustments to avoid accidents, said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

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Competition for space

Although the development of the Chinese space race has advanced much more slowly than the American one, Beijing is taking safe steps in exploration.

This concern was raised last October by Bhavya Lal, director of technology, policy and strategy of the NASA, during his presentation before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the United States Congress. “China is aggressively investing in a large number of space technologies, including nuclear power and propulsion.”, he expressed, pointing out that there is fear that China will take away their leadership in the exploration of the solar system.

“If the United States wants to seriously lead a manned mission to Mars, there is no time to lose.”, He said.

In this 2012 photo, three Chinese astronauts, including Liu Yang, the country’s first female astronaut, pose for an official photo. AFP (AFP /)

For now, the United States can still say that it has decades of advantage, not counting on the budget, which is much greater than that of the Chinese. At least for now. The budget for NASA in 2022 will exceed 22 billion dollars, while that of China approached 9 billion in 2021.

However, according to a report by El Confidencial, the Chinese are almost exclusively dedicated to space exploration, especially Mars, while the money handled by the NASA It is divided between several scientific missions.

“The Chinese are rising to the top as one of the most important space agencies in the world. Just for the simple fact that few have succeeded. This is no accident; it’s not like they randomly cast it and got lucky. They have clearly been working hard to achieve it. “, explains to “MIT Technology Review” the director of The Planetary Society, Jason Davis.

The world has already proven that when China aims for a target, there is nothing to distract them. Your perseverance and calculation could overtake you sooner than expected.

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