MISSION MOON
HOW 50 YEARS OF SPACE EXPLORATION DEFINED HOUSTON
Our special anniversary coverage of the July 20, 1969, moon landing continues today with a look at how Congress has kept the U.S. from partnering with China on space exploration.
I n less than two decades, China has sent a person into space, staged a spacewalk and launched its own version of a space station. The country even landed a probe on the far side of the moon earlier this year — a feat that not even the United States has accomplished.
But don’t expect the U.S. and China to work cooperatively in space any time soon.
“The basic reality is that when we interact with China’s space program, we are essentially interacting with China’s military,” said Dean Cheng, a policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation who testified at a National Space Council meeting last year. Cheng said his statements did not represent the official position of the foundation, which is a conservative policy think tank based in Washington, D.C.
That sentiment may seem odd in an age where the U.S. has built an International Space Station with the help of 15 countries, including Russia, once its biggest nemesis in space.
But the decision to cut China out of America’s cosmic endeavors can be traced back to one man: Frank Wolf.
Wolf was a U.S. representative from Virginia in 2011 when he spearheaded a move prohibiting both NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from collaborating with China on any scientific activities. The prohibition was dropped into a congressional spending bill that year.
“We don’t want to give them the opportunity to take advantage of our technology, and we have nothing to gain from dealing with them,” Wolf said in a 2011 Forbes article. “China is spying against us, and every U.S. government agency has been hit by cyberattacks. They are stealing technology from every major U.S. company. They have taken technology from NASA, and they have hit the (National Science Foundation) computers. … You name the company, and the Chinese are trying to get its secrets.”
Calls to drop the ban
The Wolf amendment, as it was later coined, has held for seven years. Wolf, whose district included northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., retired in 2015 after 17 terms in office.
In the years since the Wolf Amendment’s passage, many have called on the United States to drop the ban, especially since China’s space program is burgeoning.
In October 2003, it became the third country to ever launch a person into space when astronaut Yang Liwei rocketed out of Earth’s atmosphere in a Shenzhou V capsule. In 21 hours, Yang traveled 372,000 miles and orbited Earth 14 times.
Ten years later, China became the third country to reach the surface of the moon. Though the United States remains the only country to leave human bootprints there, the Soviet Union sent a probe to the surface in September 1959 and China sent one in December 2013.
And in January, China became became the first nation to land a probe on the mysterious far side of the moon.
After the historic event, retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson told the Houston Chronicle that it makes sense to work with the Chinese. He compared it to partnering with Russia on the space station, which has been a good move for both countries.
“It seems to me that the relationship with Russia on the ISS … was successful and a smart move and I think the current administration should consider a partnership with China and their space program,” Anderson said. “In partnering with them in space, the odds of us fighting them either in space or on the ground are probably lessened.”
Experts believe it’s just a matter of time before China sends people to the moon, perhaps to build a base there.
Chinese officials plan to have a fully operational space station in Earth’s orbit by 2022 and send a probe to Mars. They’ve also announced that the next lunar trip for China will bring moon rock samples back to Earth for further study. The country hopes to launch that mission later this year, according to Space Policy Online.
A Chinese official said in 2016 the country hopes to put a man on the moon by 2036, according to The Telegraph.
Small steps being made
The United States in recent months has made some progress toward working with China in space.
Last year, for example, a Chinese science experiment was permitted on board the space station.
That experiment, which was installed on the U.S. side of the space station, focused on DNA research and answering questions such as how “microgravity cause mutations among antibody-encoding genes,” according to a 2017 Space.com article.
And in January, officials from both NASA and China’s space agency set aside their differences to share data on the communist country’s historic landing on the far side of the moon. They had to receive a waiver from Congress to do so.
But NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said that true partnership with China cannot happen until the Wolf amendment is changed by Congress.
“I’m not going to close that door, but it’s not a door that I’m going to open wide up,” he told reporters during a February media roundtable in Washington.
Still, some experts are hesitant to work with China.
“The problem with China is establishing a level of trust,” Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council, said in October. “China has great capabilities and there are some cooperative activities that we could and want to engage in, but there has to be kind of a reciprocal balancing with the scientific community.”
“The basic reality is that when we interact with China’s space program, we are essentially interacting with China’s military.” — Dean Cheng, policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank