If China is worried about SpaceX, it should encourage ‘astropreneurs’ of its own

The US company has been ferrying crew to the International Space Station and conducted test flights of the most powerful rocket ever built
The risk-taking mentalities and deep pockets of the new space oligarchs are now a force to reckon with in space exploration

Quentin Parker

Published: 9:30am, 13 Dec 2023

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Commentary is emerging from Chinese space authorities on how the country should or could react to the rise of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. A recent article in the state-owned China Space News highlighted how the American rocket launch company poses a very particular challenge to Beijing’s own ambitions and capabilities in space.

To be fair, we are not comparing like with like. SpaceX is not the US’ Nasa, Russia’s Roscosmos, the European Space Agency or the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which are nation state or collaborative nation state endeavours. SpaceX is a commercial enterprise that has far more freedom to act.

Based in the US, it the brainchild of South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk who has given us Tesla cars and more recently acquired Twitter, where his arguable missteps and rebranding of the company as X have worried many.

Nevertheless, since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has achieved remarkable progress over a short time. Its Dragon module, which can ferry seven passengers to the International Space Station, has already had 43 launches and made 38 visits to the station. This includes 20 reflights as the capsule itself is reusable, which considerably lowers costs.

Its latest version, Dragon 2, had its first crewed launch in May 2020. I was impressed by how it overturned expectations of what astronauts should look like. In contrast to the bulky spacesuits used in the Apollo or Space Shuttle missions, or even those of the Chinese astronauts, the crew aboard Dragon look like they are about to jump into a Formula One racing car in their sleek, white, minimalist outfits, black boots and head-hugging helmets.

Then there is the reusable Falcon 9, the first orbital class reusable rocket, and the Falcon Heavy rocket, which generates thrust equivalent to that of 18 jumbo jets from engines. Falcon Heavy can lift about 64 tonnes into orbit.

Finally, there is Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, which has had two test flights already, both of which had unscheduled in-flight “disassembly”– that is, they blew up. However, there is much to be learned from these failures and half-successes. This is something billionaire owners of private companies can do – take more risks and push the envelope harder, unlike state actors who are naturally far more risk averse.

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SpaceX loses contact with Starship minutes after reaching space

So, yes, SpaceX is certainly changing things up for all spacefaring nations. I am not surprised that these achievements and the speed at which they have been accomplished are focusing the minds of the leadership of China’s space programme. Even Musk has commercial competition with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin winning a major Nasa contract to build the lunar lander for the Artemis programme.

It is the opportunities, freedoms, risk-taking mentalities and deep pockets of the new space oligarchs that are at least partially driving things now. This is part of the new space future: public-private partnerships to achieve more with less.

Last week, the International Space Station, which is well past its use-by date, marked its 25th anniversary. It is living off the political imperative of not letting China have the only game in town, now that Beijing has completed a space station in its initial configuration, with plans to grow it further.

The Dragon capsule docking with the International Space Station can be a 16-18 hour odyssey while it only takes China six to eight hours to do the same for its space station, the benefit of newer space station technologies.

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China’s Shenzhou 16 space crew returns to Earth after 5 months in orbit

While commercial space endeavours are playing an increasingly important role in the American space programme, they are not all there is. Japan, India, the European Space Agency, Russia and China are all active.

Of these, China is already a major space power, perhaps second only to the US if you look at its achievements over the past decade. The key is how quickly China can also develop its technology to match aspects of the capabilities of SpaceX in terms of reusability, efficiency and cost. Of course, with a home-grown robust national space programme, the operational parameters are very different.

China could adopt policies that encourage and support home-grown space “astropreneurs” who invest in parallel commercial development, exploitation and technological breakthroughs.

This is beginning to happen. For example, Chinese start-up iSpace recently landed a rocket vertically, just like SpaceX, and also has plans for a reusable suborbital space plane. So watch this space – things are moving quickly.

Quentin Parker is an astrophysicist based at the University of Hong Kong and director of its Laboratory for Space Research