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Moon base to deep space: How China seeks to close gap with US

A rocket blasted into the night sky early Wednesday morning, shooting three young astronauts toward China’s space station – and propelling the country’s growing space ambitions.

China’s goal, revealed this month, is to become the world’s leader in key space fields by 2050. Its sweeping plan involves building a moon base, exploring deep space, and probing topics like the origins of the universe.

Why We Wrote This

The United States still dominates in space, but China’s star is rising. As the country’s latest crewed launch highlights a rapidly advancing space program, some wonder, Could China surpass the U.S.?

China began its space program later than the United States and Russia did, and had periods of rocky development. But today, the country is effectively catching up, with postponed projects now reaching fruition, experts say.

Some U.S. officials have cast Beijing as a competitive threat, warning that China could exclude other countries from important lunar terrain and resources.

Indeed, China is pushing ahead with plans to put an astronaut on the moon by 2030 – which would make it only the second country to do so – and officials predict some of the young astronauts aboard Wednesday’s space flight could work from a future lunar base.

“The last few years have gone really, really well for them,” says astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. “All this stuff they have had waiting … now they can actually do it.”

With a fiery blaze, a Chinese Long March 2 rocket blasted into a starry night sky from this remote corner of Inner Mongolia early Wednesday, shooting three Chinese astronauts toward China’s space station – and propelling the country’s growing space ambitions.

China’s goal, revealed in an official blueprint announced this month, is to become the world’s leader in key space fields by 2050. Its sweeping plan extends in scope from exploring the moon, Mars, and deep space, and probes topics like the origins of the universe, quantum mechanics, habitable planets, and extraterrestrial life.

“We are extremely confident,” says Li Yingliang, chief of general technology of the China Manned Space Agency, speaking with reporters at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on the eve of Wednesday’s launch, China’s 14th crewed launch and 33rd overall. “Every aspect of our [space] technology is getting more mature by the day.”

Why We Wrote This

The United States still dominates in space, but China’s star is rising. As the country’s latest crewed launch highlights a rapidly advancing space program, some wonder, Could China surpass the U.S.?

China began its crewed space program in the early 1990s, later than the United States and Russia did, and had periods of rocky development and long delays. But today, China’s advances are such that it is effectively catching up, with key postponed projects now reaching fruition, experts say. Officials predict some of the young astronauts aboard Wednesday’s space flight could work from a future Chinese base on the moon.

“The last few years have gone really, really well for them,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and expert on China’s space program. “All this stuff they have had waiting … now they can actually do it.”

Ng Han Guan/AP

Chinese astronauts (from left to right) Wang Haoze, Song Lingdong, and Cai Xuzhe wave during the see-off ceremony for the Shenzhou-19 mission at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, in the early hours of Oct. 30.

A cosmic competitor?

China has entered “the fast lane” of science innovation, Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told a Beijing press conference announcing the country’s space plan on Oct. 15. According to the blueprint, China will be able to make important breakthroughs in space science by 2027, “rank among the international forefront … in 2035, and become a world space science power by 2050,” he said.

Indeed, as China makes rapid advances in space exploration, some top U.S. space officials have increasingly cast Beijing as a competitive threat. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has warned, for example, that China could dominate key terrain and resources on the moon and exclude other countries.

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