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Before the International Space Station was launched into orbit in 1998, the US signed a document with several other countries to agree on the peaceful use of the orbital laboratory. The agreement includes Russia, Japan, Canada and 11 European countries. China was left out of the plan.
Nearly a decade later, China expressed interest in joining those aboard the space station. The European Space Agency supported the addition, along with South Korea. The final decision was ultimately opposed by the United States.
“I think you have to understand that Congress gave us very clear direction in 2011.” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said. “Any bilateral cooperation with China had to be certified that it did not share any information that would give China some kind of advantage.”
In 2011, Congress included in a bill direction to prohibit collaboration between NASA and China when it comes to any scientific research, including space. Lawmakers argued that China’s program was secret and closely tied to its military.
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China has become a new threat, creating a new space race. (star lab)
“I think there’s no question that they’re an economic competitor and they’re also a competitor for leadership geopolitically,” Melroy said.
China began to develop its own space station. It launched and deorbited a pair of short-term space labs between 2011 and 2018. It launched the first part of its Tiangong Space Station, which translates to Heavenly Palace, in 2011.
“We’re now laser-focused on China. China is a threat. We’re in a new space raceVoyager Space and International Space Station President Jeffrey Manber said.
Voyager is one of three companies contracted by NASA to work on developing a new space station. Voyager says it is on track to launch its Starlab in 2028. There are some fears that NASA will face funding cuts. If there are delays for the companies designing the next space stations, NASA will deorbit the space station without a ready-to-operate replacement.
Melroy insists the agency will not allow China to be the sole operator of an orbiting space station, but the story resonates with that of the space shuttle program.
The American-made space shuttle was the world’s first reusable aircraft. It took off like a rocket and landed like an airplane. In 2004, then-President George W. Bush announced a new space initiative, which included retiring the shuttle in 2010 and conducting the first manned mission on a new spacecraft by 2014 at the latest.
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“The crew rover will be able to transport astronauts and scientists to the space station after the shuttle is retired,” Bush said in 2004.
The government considered several contractors to develop the vehicle under the constellation program. Over the next few years, program delays and funding problems led Obama administration eliminate the program from the 2011 budget.
“Following this new strategy will require us to revisit the old strategy. In part, that’s because the old strategy, including the Constellation program, was not delivering on its promise in many ways,” said then-President Barack Obama in April 2010.
Instead, the administration directed more than $6 billion to support commercial companies building spacecraft. The shuttle program ended a year later. American-made rockets were not yet available. The United States was forced to rely on Russia to continue space travel.
“These were difficult times. I think it was the right decision. The time of the shuttle was over. We had to make a strategic investment in our own industry to develop the ability to take humans into space,” he said Melroy. “There were a lot of people who thought we had canceled the space program.”
NASA would eventually launch one American made rocket that could carry humans to the space station, nine years after the shuttle was retired. That was a six-year delay from Bush’s initial projection. SpaceX’s 2020 launch also marked the first of a commercial rocket on American soil.
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China has created a new competition for space exploration. (Arkisys)
As NASA faces the same prospect once again, officials insist they have a different strategy to compete in space with China.
“I think it’s different in the sense that we remain the leader. We intend to remain the leader. We intend to remain the partner of choice. We work very well with our international partners, and they want to continue working with us.” , Melroy said.
Only Chinese taikonauts have visited the Tiangong space station. The country has been open to welcoming astronauts from other countries. Beijing has increased cooperation with Sweden, Russia and Italy. In recent months, China’s first international payload was launched on a commercial Chinese rocket. It includes Oman’s first satellite, which is equipped with artificial intelligence for urban planning, forest monitoring and disaster management.
If China becomes the sole permanent presence in space, international partners could be forced to rely on Taikonauts for long-term needs in low earth orbit Commercial companies could also be forced to do the same.
“We have to be a little bit careful with technology transfer and how we actually connect with international companies to make sure we’re not giving away things related to it,” said Dave Barnhart, CEO of Arkisys.
California-based Arkisys is working on a robotic service port for companies to use while in orbit.
“We can provide the cargo, the supplies, the robotic handling capability, the fuel, whatever is needed to support a service architecture,” Barnhart said.
Barnhart added that the port could help sustain itself the usa competitive in space if a commercial station is not ready to operate when the space station is out of service. Although the port would be robotic and have no humans on board, it would still give the US a form of permanent presence.
“We’re actually hoping that we’ll be a bridge between when the space station is decommissioned and when the new commercial space stations are up there,” Barnhart said. “We’re autonomous, we can move much faster. We can allow different orbital transfer vehicles to come in, carry cargo, carry fuel, carry new payloads.”
