China releases its planned space science program through 2050
China’s state run press today announced the release of a planned space science program covering all Chinese space missions through 2050 and put together by several government agencies.
The program, the first of its kind at the national level, was jointly released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the China National Space Administration and the China Manned Space Agency at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office.
The program outlines the development goals of China’s space science, including 17 priority areas under five key scientific themes, as well as a three-phase roadmap. The five key scientific themes include the extreme universe, space-time ripples, panoramic view of Sun-Earth, habitable planets, and biological and physical sciences in space, Ding Chibiao, vice president of the CAS, said at the press conference.
The article describes the program as having three phases. The first phase goes until 2027 and will focus on both the operation of China’s Tiangong-3 space station as well as the initial establishment of its lunar base. The second phase, from ’28 to ’35, will focus mostly on completing that lunar base, though other space science missions will fly as well. The third phase, from ’35 to ’50, lists 30 space science missions, though this is so far in the future it should treated merely as a rough premlinary proposal for the future.
This proposal continues the overall rational long term approach of China’s space-related government agencies. However, much of it will depend on China’s overall economy in the long term. I am reminded of similar long term plans put forth by Russia early in the last decade, all of which came to nothing because of economic and political factors (largely but not entirely related to Russia shooting itself in the foot with its two invasions of the Ukraine in 2014 and 2022). Similar events could do the same to China, especially as its program is not truly competitive but run from the top, a method that never works that well when one is trying to develop cutting edge technology.
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China’s state run press today announced the release of a planned space science program covering all Chinese space missions through 2050 and put together by several government agencies.
The program, the first of its kind at the national level, was jointly released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the China National Space Administration and the China Manned Space Agency at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office.
The program outlines the development goals of China’s space science, including 17 priority areas under five key scientific themes, as well as a three-phase roadmap. The five key scientific themes include the extreme universe, space-time ripples, panoramic view of Sun-Earth, habitable planets, and biological and physical sciences in space, Ding Chibiao, vice president of the CAS, said at the press conference.
The article describes the program as having three phases. The first phase goes until 2027 and will focus on both the operation of China’s Tiangong-3 space station as well as the initial establishment of its lunar base. The second phase, from ’28 to ’35, will focus mostly on completing that lunar base, though other space science missions will fly as well. The third phase, from ’35 to ’50, lists 30 space science missions, though this is so far in the future it should treated merely as a rough premlinary proposal for the future.
This proposal continues the overall rational long term approach of China’s space-related government agencies. However, much of it will depend on China’s overall economy in the long term. I am reminded of similar long term plans put forth by Russia early in the last decade, all of which came to nothing because of economic and political factors (largely but not entirely related to Russia shooting itself in the foot with its two invasions of the Ukraine in 2014 and 2022). Similar events could do the same to China, especially as its program is not truly competitive but run from the top, a method that never works that well when one is trying to develop cutting edge technology.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Not quite a plan for a “Thousand-Year Reich” – to borrow a phrase from a prior expansionist tyranny that was also much given to writing boastful checks its arse couldn’t cash – but the PRC will be extraordinarily fortunate to still be any sort of thing at all by mid-century. Given its free-fall demographics and that it is already several years into an incurable deflationary economic decline/contraction, I don’t expect there to be a PRC by 2035 and it could easily implode well before that. A dying nation is never going to be the Queen of Outer Space.