“Sān … èr… yī … diǎn huǒ!” crackles the voice of ground control as two space-bound men salute in preparation for liftoff. Their rocket then leaves the blue planet behind with a fiery roar. Whose work could this be? Is it the Americans? The Russians? No, it’s the Chinese! Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong are the latest taikonauts to go into space.
What on Earth is a taikonaut? A taikonaut is one who ventures into space in the Chinese space program. On October 17, 2016, 7:30 a.m., Beijing time, taikonauts Jing and Chen hurtled into space in the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Launch Center, boosted by a Long March 2F/G Y11 rocket. Once in space, the brave men successfully docked with the Chinese-built space station, the Tiangong 2, where they spent a month conducting experiments. The taikonauts returned to Earth on the evening of November 18.
The Shenzhou, which roughly translates to “divine vessel” in Chinese, is a capsule designed for human spaceflight. Based on the Russian Soyuz, it is composed of an orbital module, a re-entry module, and a service module. The Shenzhou is to the Long March rocket as Apollo is to the Saturn V in the U.S. moon mission, in that the Shenzhou is the manned capsule which travels into orbit whereas the Long March is the expendable boost system that carries the Shenzhou into space.
Why is China choosing to go alone instead of joining the International Space Station (ISS)? China is barred from participating in the ISS and generally prohibited from assisting NASA due to various security concerns. So the Chinese space program has already planned to launch a large, modular space station into low Earth orbit sometime in the near future.
On November 3, the Long March 5, China’s latest heavy-lift launch system, soared through the atmosphere, cheered on by Chinese citizens and the astronautical engineers who had worked diligently since 2002 for that moment. Although the mission was unmanned, the Long March 5’s successful takeoff from the Wenchang launch site on Hainan Island was a milestone in China’s space program. It was the first big launch from the new sea-side launch site, as the Long March 5 is capable of hauling up to 25 metric tons to low Earth orbit and 14 tons to geosynchronous transfer orbit (a high-altitude orbit at the speed of Earth’s rotation). This will open new horizons for China and bring its dream of establishing a fully-functional Chinese space station by 2022 closer yet.
The “Long March” launch system is named in honor of the historic Long March, in which Chinese Communist revolutionaries escaped on foot to Northwestern China in an effort to flee the ruling force in China at the time, the Kuomintang. This grueling march over 5600 miles of difficult terrain was covered in roughly one year. Following the Long March, the Communists established a rural stronghold in Yenan and rested there until they could finally attack and defeat the Kuomintang government in a civil war. Ever since the Communist victory, the term “long march” has been made into a symbol representing a journey to triumph. While the Long March launch system is crucial to creating a fully functional space station (for which China has only managed to create prototypes so far), it is also an important component of a mission to the Moon or Mars.
While it still lags behind in comparison to the U.S. and Russia, the Chinese space program is on target to equal or surpass its counterparts in the future, considering the ISS is set to retire by 2024. By then, China may be a space superpower. If other countries greatly cut back on space funding and cease research while China presses onward, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that China may become the leader in space exploration. In fact, Brian Harvey, space analyst and the author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward, believes that “the Chinese [will] quite visibly begin to match the capacity of the other spacefaring powers by 2020.”
Space exploration is not easy. In fact, it can be very dangerous. However, the rewards of space exploration are plentiful and there to be reaped and shared as the advancement of science transcends national borders. When American astronauts landed on the moon, they proclaimed that they had come in peace for all mankind. Let’s hope that if China takes the lead, the exploration of space will continue in that generous spirit far into the future.