Artemis, Tiangong successes in US-China space race leave Russia eating cosmic dust

The US and China have revived the space race as Nasa has started its return to the moon and China’s Tiangong space station is complete and operational
Russia, meanwhile, has seen its role diminished and could fall further out of favour as public and private options surpass Russian rockets

Philip J. Cunningham

Published: 2:45pm, 10 Dec 2022

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Space exploration, once a spirited rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, has now become a contest between the US and China. Recent weeks have seen advances in the space programmes of both countries, and these advances have left Russia in the cosmic dust.

A powerful new US rocket propelled an uncrewed module to the moon and beyond while the International Space Station, primarily funded and run by the US, continues to do good science. Meanwhile, China’s newly expanded Tiangong space station recently refreshed its crew with a visit from Shenzhou 15.

On November 16, the US-designed Space Launch System (SLS) thrust an uncrewed Orion capsule on a trajectory for the moon in its inaugural test flight as part of the Artemis programme. The SLS was supposed to be an answer to Russia’s Proton rockets and the legendary Saturn rocket.

It has not been an instant success, though. The SLS, plagued by cost overruns and technical delays, has had trouble getting off the ground, with four launches scrubbed earlier this year.

Nearly four months after the first attempt, the Orion module finally broke free of Earth’s gravity for its first voyage around the moon. This is a significant accomplishment and comes as a great relief to Nasa, which has already invested billions in the Artemis programme.

The SLS, which is projected to cost about US$4 billion per launch, relies on dated space shuttle-era technology. Unlike the shuttle, it disposes of each rocket after one launch.

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Nasa launches Artemis 1 in first US attempt to return astronauts to the moon in 50 years

Nadia Drake wrote in Scientific American that, “The SLS and Orion are a knitted together Frankenmachine with parts built by multiple legacy aerospace companies – a result not of any mission-driven demand from Nasa but rather of political pressure from influential congresspeople … to keep cash flowing into their district or state. The result is an unwieldy contraption relying on dated technology that is jokingly referred to as the ‘Senate Launch System’”.

Moon shots don’t come cheap. Already SpaceX has shown it can offer two-thirds the lift for a fraction of the price of the SLS, in part because it has invested heavily in reusable rockets.

In contrast, the International Space Station (ISS) is nearing the end of its optimal shelf life, but it has proved itself a reliable orbital platform in the last decade. China was excluded from ISS participation in 2011 by the Wolf Amendment, which cuts both ways as US astronauts are similarly banned from the Chinese station.

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China’s Shenzhou 15 astronauts arrive at Tiangong Space Station on historic mission

As for Russia, its space swagger is gone, even though it was a vital part of the ISS until recently. The US provided most of the oxygen, but the Russian section of the craft carried the thrusters necessary to correct its orbit and manoeuvre the craft, so it was a true joint venture.

Moreover, until the recent success of the SpaceX crewed launches, the US had no indigenous means of ferrying its astronauts to and from the ISS. It required Russian support in the form of rocket launches that lifted Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan into space.

Meanwhile, China has enjoyed a string of successes in space, though one needs to be aware that all space travel is dangerous and prone to unforeseen problems. Funding for China’s space programme, which comes via central fiat, is probably more efficient than how Nasa gets its funding, but autocratic bureaucracies have their blind points, too.

The launch of Shenzhou 15 aboard a Long March rocket and subsequently the successful docking with the Tiangong space station is an accomplishment in itself. It is also a public relations bonanza for China.

The ISS has been doing path-breaking science without much fanfare for years. Its accomplishments include the recent milestones of the Cold Atom Laboratory that has produced tiny bubbles of extremely cold gas in space, bringing temperatures low enough for possible quantum use in a way that could not be easily replicated on Earth.

Both the ISS and Tiangong have done visually exciting spacewalks showing spacesuit-wearing humans floating upside down above the planet in dramatic fashion. More such spacewalks, which are good for publicity and not without some technical importance, are planned. China has scheduled more spacewalks and has several dozen science experiments lined up, to be conducted in the recently attached cylindrical science modules Wentian and Mengtian.

Russia, once a giant in space exploration, has seen its role diminished both by funding and political will. Russia’s space agency has indicated it will phase out its cooperation with the ISS, but it has nothing remotely ready to replace it.

Likewise, its Soyuz crewed capsule, while an undeniably good piece of engineering and sturdy space workhorse across the decades, is likely to see less space time as new launch systems such as China’s Shenzhou programme and private industry in the US – most notably SpaceX – replace the duopoly that bureaucrats in Washington and Moscow once had on all space exploration.

Philip J. Cunningham has been a regular visitor to China since 1983, working as a tour guide, TV producer, freelance writer, independent scholar and teacher