The Budget proposes the removal of government funding for the International Space Station (ISS) by 2024, turning the project over to the private sector. The President’s FY 2019 Budget, released on February 12, gives taxpayers a pleasant break from space oddities. It’s a perspective the lawmakers in Washington could use.The nation’s space program often entails sucking billions of taxpayer dollars into black holes. From space, as astronauts like to say, you can’t see borders. And more to the point, if there’s one thing the men and women who fly in space will tell you, it’s that once they get there, terrestrial politics mean nothing at all-the sandbox silliness of politicians who are not relying on the cooperation of a few close crewmates to keep them alive and safe as they race through low Earth orbit. The technology aboard the ISS is not the kind that a Chinese astronaut with ill will would want to or need to steal. Russia later became America’s leading partner in operating and building the ISS-a shrewd American move that both offloaded some of the cost of the station and provided work for Russian missile engineers who found themselves idle after the Berlin Wall fell and could easily have sold their services to nuclear nasties like North Korea or Iran. Well before the ISS was built and occupied, the shuttle was already flying American crews to Russia’s Mir space station. Something similar is true of the Chinese now. When you’re in first place in your division you don’t to steal ideas from the guys in last. For one thing, the Soviets hardly needed a peek at our tech since they were the ones who were winning. That argument failed for a lot of reasons. Every Soviet space feat that followed was one more log on the Cold War fire, one more reason to conclude that we were in a mortal arms and technology race and woe betide us if the guys on the other side got so much as a peek at what we were doing. 1957 to January 1958, presenting the clear and present danger that at some point it might beep at us as it flew overhead. The world’s first satellite, Sputnik was a terrifying, beach ball sized object that orbited the Earth from Oct. China is big, China is assertive, China has made clear its intentions to project its military power in ways it never has before-including to the high ground of space.īut if that sounds familiar it’s because it’s an echo of the Cold War hysteria that greeted the launch the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. On the surface, the studies make a kind of nervous, reflexive sense. leadership and has serious implications for U.S. The 2011 law draws a sort of ex post facto justification from a study that was released in 2012 by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, warning that China’s policymakers “view space power as one aspect of a broad international competition in comprehensive national strength and science and technology.” More darkly, there is the 2015 report prepared by the University of California, San Diego’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, ominously titled “ China Dream, Space Dream“, which concludes: “China’s efforts to use its space program to transform itself into a military, economic, and technological power may come at the expense of U.S. Space is a family affair many countries are developing their space programs and China, as a big country, should make our own contributions in this field.”īut that contribution can’t happen aboard the ISS. “I also look forward to going to the International Space Station. “As an astronaut, I have a strong desire to fly with astronauts from other countries,” said Nie Haisheng, the Shenzhou 10 commander. And similar to the nature of those other space agencies too is the professed wish of the Chinese crews to work across national borders.
0 kommentar(er)
