Is China Winning the Space Race?

No, China Isn’t Winning the Space Race

China’s space program has made dramatic strides in recent years. But the main competition for the commercial future of outer space won’t just be between governments, but among private firms, too, argues Adam Minter for Bloomberg View. And that could favor the United States.

“It’s true that by comparison to China, the U.S. space program appears to have stagnated. Americans haven't left low-Earth orbit since the last moon landing in 1972. The International Space Station -- history's most expensive scientific instrument -- is underutilized, and presidential plans to return to the moon have faltered over the last two decades,” Minter writes.

“Yet, thus far China's centrally planned and military-centered space program has only replicated achievements made decades ago by other national space programs…Even China's boldest initiative -- developing those nuclear rocket engines for interplanetary space shuttles -- isn’t a new idea. From 1955 to 1972, the U.S. conducted its own nuclear rocket research, which Congress canceled in 1973 over cost concerns.

“Today, the most innovative research into space travel has shifted to the private sector, especially in the U.S. SpaceX's commercial rockets have not only cut the cost of launching into Earth orbit. They're precursors to bigger rockets the company hopes will send humans to Mars before the end of the 2020s, long before China's state-funded program achieves the same.”

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