China: Space race? What space race?

By Christopher Bodeen

updated 9:30 p.m. ET Nov. 1, 2007

BEIJING - Over a few short months, Japan, China, and India will all have lunar probes orbiting the moon, sparking talk of a new space race in Asia.

China, for one, takes exception at that characterization. On Thursday, a top official in its secretive military-backed lunar explorer program defended the probe launched last week as an innovation that is part of a future wave of cooperation, not competition, in outer space.

"It's all peaceful," said Pei Zhaoyu, assistant director of the Lunar Exploration Program Center, when asked whether a space race was on. "The countries involved in lunar exploration are developing an understanding. They're evolving a mechanism for cooperation."

China's launch of the Chang'e 1 satellite put in motion an ambitious space exploration plan, and came just weeks after rival Japan launched its own moon probe. India plans to send its own lunar probe into space in April.

The three missions represent a new wave of lunar exploration following those begun in the Cold War by the United States and former Soviet Union, and another bout in the 1990s that saw Japan and Western Europe joining the club.

Parallel technologies
NBC News space analyst James Oberg said the current glut of lunar missions is less of a space race and more a matter of those countries developing new technologies at similar rates. All three have lately developed more powerful booster rockets, along with experience with payloads gleaned from launching commercial satellites, said Oberg, a veteran of 22 years at NASA Mission Control.

However, he added that such missions do offer tangible benefits for a country's business and reputation.

"Doing 'moon probes' advertises a country's technological level, and that's good for high-tech exports and for validating the threat-level of its high-tech weapons," Oberg said in recent comments to The Associated Press.

Oberg said the Chinese probe, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, was similar to Clementine and Lunar Prospector, U.S. moon orbiters that were launched in the 1990s.

All systems go for lunar orbit
In Beijing, Pei told reporters all was well with the satellite, which is due on Monday to move into lunar capture orbit, when it will allow itself to be caught by the moon's gravity.

"All the systems on board are currently in excellent condition and the spacecraft is on the expected trajectory," said Pei, who is also spokesman for the China National Space Administration — China's version of NASA.

The lunar mission adds depth to a Chinese space program that has sent astronauts orbiting around the earth twice in the past four years and is a source of great national pride.

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