Although we only see news with numerous headlines such as ‘NASA has sent a spacecraft to Mars’, ‘China has carried out a successful rocket launch’, ‘UAE captured new images from the surface of Mars’, today space studies is one of the world’s top priority fields of study and a great deal of interest. There is talk of ‘competition’.
The concept of competition in space is not foreign to us, especially due to the ‘space race’ between the USA and the USSR from the mid to late 50s. However, the fact that this has now turned into a ‘war’ raises some concerns about the future. The new competitor to the USA is China. So is there really a space war going on? Let’s take a closer look…
Space was a kind of battlefield at the beginning of the road…
During the space race between the USA and the USSR, space was an area where a show of power was made and ‘national defense’ was assigned rather than scientists. In fact, only one of the 12 astronauts who visited our satellite with the Apollo missions that the USA set foot on the Moon was a scientist. All the rest were ‘military personnel’, usually pilots.
Because space was seen as an area that was not dominated and pregnant with possible resources, but was also seen as an area where national security threats could be experienced. Naturally, being the dominant power in space would solve many problems and would be the playground of the new ‘superpower’.
In addition, countries have used this ‘space race’ expression to change and affirm the view of the ‘people who send people to space with their taxes’ on space studies. There was an area that put everyone at risk, and being the dominant force was important to security. It was normal to spend money anyway.
Over the years, the situation has changed, scientists working in space agencies of all countries have started to work together.
Over time, this perspective on space studies has changed. As scientists became more involved, they began to project the axis of the ‘space race’ as an ‘endless field of research’ in which researchers from all over the world worked together.
Although many countries together with the USA can carry out space studies jointly, China is a ‘banned’ country in this regard. For example, even Russia and the USA are doing research on the same space station; China is prohibited from entering the same space station, or even visiting NASA facilities by a Chinese citizen… The reason is ‘national security’…
Also, of course, there is a country that sits in the ‘leading seat’ even though no one talks about it; USA. The reason for this is that the USA continues to work without a break even after the ‘space race’ period, the budget allocated to NASA is considerably higher than the budgets allocated for space studies by other countries, and we can say that it can make it permanent by increasing the acceptance rate of space studies in the society.
While the USA ‘excludes’ China in space studies and on the other hand continues its space studies under state control with NASA; Private companies from the USA also got involved. The gradual development and strengthening of engineering and software studies in the USA has facilitated NASA and private companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, and accelerated their work.
Also, despite the ongoing work in many other countries, the USA has always used the media a lot and ‘advertised’ a lot. That’s why when everyone says ‘oh yes’ when NASA says, abbreviations such as ESA, CNSA, ISRO do not mean much…
In recent years, the ‘strong competitors’ of the USA have started to increase, the color of the business has changed.
After years of calm in space studies under the quiet leadership of the USA, which this person no longer refers to as ‘leadership’, important breakthroughs have been made in many countries, from the United Arab Emirates to India, from China to Russia.
The United Arab Emirates started to investigate by sending its satellite Hope to Mars with the Mars mission. While Russia was already positioned just behind the USA, it announced that it would leave the International Space Station by establishing its own space station due to the increase in political tension. China has accelerated its lunar missions, even recently announced that they have discovered a new mineral on the Moon, and also launched the first two modules of the space station Tiangong and began to create its own workspace in orbit.
In short, we can clearly see that the era of ‘peaceful and collaborative work’ revolving around the International Space Station has come to an end. All countries that have made a name for themselves and developed themselves in space studies have started to take steps to guarantee their existence in space with stronger formations.
Both the Pentagon and NASA began to make statements that would confuse things. OK, so what’s going on?
In fact, the source of the expression ‘space war’ that caused this content is the USA.
The U.S. Department of Defense Pentagon frequently comes up with the recent ‘UFO’ developments at the point of space studies. Along with the published ‘UFO’ images, expressions such as ‘threat to national security’ began to be used frequently. In other words, there is a tension created in the USA on this issue. Because the Pentagon emphasizes that it considers every possibility when investigating what the ‘mysterious things’ seen in these images might be, and one of them is ‘tools developed by competitors that may pose a risk’…
Of course, it is not possible to say much about it, as both documents and explanations come only from the Pentagon. NASA is also involved in the subject, and even these images will be examined by a special team established by NASA, but the studies are still very new…
These UFO images are not the only area where the US uses the words space, war and danger. Just in the past months, the head of NASA, targeting China’s Moon studies, made a statement like “They will invade the Moon, they will not bring anyone close” and showed China’s space studies as a “danger”.
Although China announced that they had no such intentions, and blamed the NASA president, that fuse was ignited once. China has become the new evil rival that the US has created for itself in space studies.
So what did China do to make the entire USA so nervous, from the Pentagon to NASA?
In fact, just like the USA, China develops and implements various projects in different fields in space. However, he has increased his speed considerably in recent years and has taken important steps in succession. These steps are indeed fast and powerful enough for China to surpass the United States, but the United States is still clearly ahead.
We can say that the most disturbing projects of China for the USA are the missions to the Moon and the establishment of its own space station. In addition, China states that it wants to be the biggest power in space by 2030 and to be the world leader in space technologies by 2045, and you can guess that these statements are not very pleasing to the USA.
Another issue is the BeiDou project developed by China as an alternative to the US GPS system. However, the USA considers it ‘dangerous’ that this trump card, which is currently under its monopoly, is also found in China. Because he thinks China can abuse this kind of power in war situations. Well, isn’t there the same possibility for the USA?
Although NASA set foot on the Moon almost 50 years ago, China went to the side of the Moon that the United States had not yet reached. On issues such as manned Moon missions, bases to be built on the Moon and bringing resources from the Moon, China continues to work without slowing down and seems quite determined to have a say in these areas.
Continuing to be a strong name in the struggle for dominance on the Moon with the tasks we have heard frequently in similar fields such as Artemis, the USA does not seem to want a rival as advanced as itself in this regard, as you can understand from the statements we mentioned above…
The political and economic rivalry and tension between the two countries for years has also led to a perception of ‘space wars’ due to the US’ unwillingness to ‘allow’ China in space.
A ‘strong enemy’ for space studies comes to the US’s advantage
The United States spends billions of dollars each year on space studies. Although it is a small part of its budget, this budget allocated to NASA by the USA, which is often criticized by its citizens, especially on issues such as public health, causes reactions from the public. People criticize the government by reacting like ‘you are spending our taxes on space while we can’t get free health care’.
As you can imagine, a strong and ‘frightening’ opponent is the thing that will help the USA the most to avoid these criticisms and make space studies necessary. Thus, the USA can more easily explain its space budget to its people.
But is China really strong enough to get ahead of the US?
Data on this subject show that although China has sprinted, it is out of the question for it to leave the USA behind for the time being.
- The money spent by the USA on space studies during 2021 was approximately 55 billion dollars. In China, it is stated that this figure is approximately 10 billion dollars.
- The USA has sent space vehicles to the orbits of many planets with ongoing studies for years, it has become the ‘eye’ in space with huge telescopes, and it has carried out numerous launches with powerful rockets. China still has a long way to go when it comes to planetary exploration, apart from a spacecraft on mission to Mars.
- While China is targeting 2030 for manned Moon missions, the US did it decades ago and aims to do so again by 2025.
Many examples like these show that the United States is still ahead at the moment.
It’s easier to militarize space if there’s an ‘enemy’
Although space studies are progressing on a scientific line and come to the fore in this way, this issue is also considered as a serious ‘military national security issue’. Moreover, the scenarios are endless…
For example, China recently announced that it has found a new mineral on the Moon, and it is claimed that this mineral can be used as fuel. However, the region where the mineral is found is a region that NASA also wants to go with Artemis missions. If a resource has been found in this region, who will have the right to extract it? Think about it for Mars too…
Or laser weapons developed against spy satellites and neutralizing the satellites. What if a country could attack the communication satellites of another country? Or if it could damage other countries’ space stations with such ‘weapons’ planned to be placed in orbit…
A slightly more extreme example; What if an intelligent extraterrestrial life form came close enough to attack Earth? How would we protect ourselves?
Here, unfortunately, there is an effort to militarize space through such scenarios and questions, and unfortunately, it seems that they will ‘prove’ its necessity with more scenarios in the long run…
The fact that there is a big rival in space, for example, the NASA president’s statements such as ‘China will invade the Moon’ lays a very solid basis for such an effort. “Of course we will have soldiers and weapons in orbit, the result is a ‘space war'”…
While competition is real, there is no war; at least for now…
Of course, it is an indisputable fact that there is a rivalry between countries such as China, Russia and the USA, which have proven their strength in this field at many points. However, we can clearly see that this does not come to the consistency of a ‘space war’. The question here is whether this can be turned into a war. However, when it comes to ‘human’, we unfortunately know that war comes right after…
It is difficult to predict what kind of line the development of humanity in space will take, and what will happen in the distant future with goals such as moving civilization to ‘space’. However, our hope is that space studies, one of the most important steps that will take humanity forward as a species, will always advance ‘to our advantage’ and that the word ‘war’ is not used in an area…
Its space is always fascinating and instructive; to see it as a place full of unknowns and to be admired, to investigate, to see it like a teacher; to be able to approach our planet as we do without ending it… Even if it’s unrealistic, who wouldn’t want to…
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