US fired up as China sets the pace in a new space race
With the number of probes, landers and orbiters buzzing around Mars these days, the red planet's airspace is starting to resemble peak season over Dubai.
For the past month, the media has been alive with news about Mars. Europe's Britpop-powered Beagle 2 spacecraft disappeared, its orbiter is now mapping the entire planet, and the United States landed two probes to explore Mars for signs of life and send back images almost in real-time.
And as US President George W. Bush seizes the moment to claim his place in space history, many of us are getting dizzy with d?j? vu.
America's interest in space is often credited to an idealistic former president, John F. Kennedy, who famously announced, 'We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.'
In fact, it took the furious competition of the cold war to drag the US into the space race. America chose to go to the moon because it was afraid the Russians would get there first.
When the former Soviet Union launched its first Sputnik in 1957, the US responded by throwing massive resources into a largely unsuccessful game of catch-up. But the Russians were not satisfied with getting a satellite up there - they wanted more. Within five years, they became the first to put a man in space, the first to land a probe on the moon and, before Mr Kennedy even entered the White House, they had already set their sights on Mars.
Mr Kennedy's speech was one of the most inspiring in the history of space exploration, but its subtext was clear: only one power was fit to rule in space.
'We have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace.?.?. only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theatre of war,' said Mr Kennedy. A year later, he said, 'The point of the matter always has been not only of our excitement of interest in being on the moon, but the capacity to dominate space.'
Mr Kennedy's vision guaranteed his place in history, not for his shaky civil rights record, the Bay of Pigs or the war in Vietnam, but for his role in expanding America's frontiers into space.
In 1975, I stood in a field in Florida and watched as the Apollo mission launched from Cape Canaveral to meet the Soviet Soyuz mission in space. Yes, I'm that old. That historic docking seemed to signal not just a new era in international space exploration, but an end to the interminable cold war.
But as the Soviet Union crumbled, the space race ended with both countries devoting most of their energies to commercial opportunities in Earth's orbit. Since then, the increasing number of countries developing space-age technology has not proved enough of a threat to draw the US back into a new space race. These days, anyone with enough cash can send a rocket up into orbit. The plans are on the internet.
President Bush's sudden conversion to the cosmic cause should be no great surprise, even if it took the attacks on America to alert him to the fact that there was life beyond the 50 states.
Like Mr Kennedy's, Mr Bush's vision is a reaction to foreign challenges and a distraction from stumbling military adventures. As Mr Kennedy was driven into space by the Soviet Union, Mr Bush is being driven there by a fear of China. When China announced plans to build a settlement on the moon from which it could one day reach out to Mars, America could hardly respond by staying at home. It had to go one better.
According to Mr Bush, the new Crew Exploration Vehicle, which is due to replace the aged Space Shuttle fleet, is not expected to reach the moon until 2020. If China's plans work out, it will have already been there for five to 10 years. At least the US astronauts (or 'courageous spacial entrepreneurs' as Mr Bush calls them) can count on some decent food when they arrive.
The last space race generated spectacular results: the moon landings, space stations, missions to Venus, the Space Shuttle and fly-bys of Neptune, Jupiter, Uranus and Mars.
With the cold war behind us, today we have unprecedented global co-operation in projects such as the International Space Station, and global satellite networks are helping connect the global village in ways that Mr Kennedy could never have imagined.
Though Mr Bush has denied it, we may be seeing the beginnings of a second space race. And unless China implodes like the Soviet Union, this race should last way beyond the next two decades. Space is no longer the disputed territory of two superpowers, and we may all be better off for it.
Neil Taylor is SCMP's technology editor.
