As Chinese wheels touch the soil of Mars and Indian astronauts walk toward the launch pad, can we hope for another space race?

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If you were born in the 1960s or early 1970s, it is likely that somewhere in your childhood ambitions lies the desire to become an astronaut or astronaut. Once Yuri Gagarin circled the Earth and Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, millions of children imagined they would one day climb into a space capsule and join that elite band of intrepid explorers. Anything seems possible when you’re five, but of course the fact remains that very few of us have made it into space.

Have you ever dreamed of stars? Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in Finland in 1961. Arto Jousi, public domain.

The picture may be a little different for young people after a few decades, but did children in the 90s dream of stars? Mostly not. So what changed as the Shuttle and Mir crews passed overhead?

The answer is that the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union that dominated extraterrestrial exploration from the 1950s to the 1970s had subsided by then, and although the construction of the International Space Station was impressive, it lacked the capacity to do so. Ignite the public with electricity the way Sputnik, Vostok or Apollo did. It was very cool for people like us, but the general public was distracted by other things and their political leaders were no longer willing to agree to subjective fiscal budgets. We’re done with space, and regardless of the occasional bright spot in the form of space telescopes or spacecraft orbiting through Mars, that was the case. The popular TV comedy series The Big Bang Theory had a story that found comedy in one of its characters serving on a mission to the International Space Station and was completely ignored upon its return.

A few years ago, a Chinese friend in my hacking space at the time was really surprised because I knew the name of Yang Liu, the Shenzhou 5 astronaut and the first person his country launched into space. He’s a national hero in China, but not so much on the rainy edge of Europe that the Chinese space program for all its heady progress at the time about a decade into Yang’s mission hasn’t sparked interest beyond few space watchers and enthusiasts in hacking spaces. . But that may be starting to change.

Rocket launch for all, Tianhe core module of China’s Tiangong space station, appears before launch. 中国 新闻, CC BY 3.0.

As we approach two decades since Shenzhou 5, it appears that China’s space program has rarely been far from the news. On the moon last year, the latest series of Chang’e probes successfully retrieved surface samples and returned them to Earth, as they look to sign a deal with the Russians to collaborate on a manned lunar base in the 2030s.

In Earth orbit, the Tianhe module that will form the heart of the next group in the Tiangong series of space stations has received its first crew, and will be complemented by other modules over the next year. Meanwhile on Mars, their Zhurong rover has landed on the Red Planet aboard the Tianwen-1 mission and has been dazzling us with photos of its landing site, and there are ambitious plans for sample return missions and an eventual manned presence in the 2030s.

The sheer variety and speed of these parallel missions is instantly reminiscent of the Cold War-era space race and at first glance seem more ambitious than their Western counterparts, but of course the Chinese program isn’t the only one guiding its missiles skyward. The Russian space agency Roscosmos will not partner with the ISS after 2025 and will bring its decades of experience to build its own orbital position, while the Indian Space Agency (ISRO) will continue both the successful Maangalyaan Mars program and the Chandrayaan Lunar program and continue the testing program leading to the existence of A crew planned for orbit aboard the Gaganyaan spacecraft in 2022. If we thought the two-pronged space race was exciting, one with four or even five participants should pique the world’s interest like never before!

So, given the potential array of skyward vehicles from China, India, and Russia, what does it look like from the side of the planet where Hackaday’s headquarters are located? We’ve seen enough coverage of the International Space Station and various contenders to ferry crew and supplies to it, NASA’s Mars rovers, and other science vehicles to know that American and European space exploration efforts are still alive and kicking. But if we’re in a space race, how will their immediate future compare to others? Therefore, the special sauce comes in two forms; International cooperation in the form of the Artemis program, crafts and parts from private sector companies that will form part of it. This has a noble goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2024, and its first mission will launch an unmanned test capsule aboard an SLS rocket to orbit the Moon and return home, in November of this year.

You probably don’t need to be a nation-state to race into space, the SpaceX Starship SN9 on the launch pad. Jared Crane CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanwhile, there’s still all the hype around Elon Musk’s Martian plans, which has at least satisfied any need you might have to see a prototype of giant rockets crash into the Texas countryside. Aside from the struggle between billionaires for the ultimate space games, the arrival of SpaceX, Blue Origin and their host of competitors points to a new and never-before-seen aspect of this space race that would not have happened five decades ago. The market for small satellite launches will likely move to the private sector largely over the coming years, but at the end of space exploration, this increases the number of players beyond nation-states. American spacecraft parts have been manufactured by private aerospace contractors for decades, but the work was done under the supervision of NASA and not by a company. What would be the effect of, say, the space race between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, a miserable corporate nightmare or a new and dynamic competition for those other nations? Time will tell, but one thing is certain: There will be plenty for space watchers to consume.

It is said that there was disillusionment among the members of the Apollo-era astronauts and the astronaut teams during the 1970s as enthusiasm for space exploration faded and humanity’s next station remained in orbit rather than on the horizon of Mars. It is fitting, then, that some of them are still alive to see the start of a new space race, and that the seed will be planted in children around the world that will take some of them to careers that advance space exploration at the turn of the century. Most of us are probably too old to want to be an astronaut or astronaut now, but if the last space race is anything to go through, we treat that race as spectators.

Title image: L-BBE, CC BY 3.0.

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