Uniqueness- US Losing Dominance

Uniqueness- US Losing Dominance

But privately, political leaders are bemoaning what could be a deeply unsettling period during which the U.S. will have no way to put humans into space -- and efforts to reach more distant destinations appear hazy and uncertain. Bolden's critics told ABC News they see significant hurdles for NASA after the shuttle retires. They are worried that without a clear destination or proven spacecraft to get there, it could be a long, long time before a manned U.S. rocket heads for the heavens.

"What used to be a gap is now a cliff," said Michael D. Griffin, who served as NASA administrator from 2005 to 2009 under President Bush. "What really is happening here is the destruction of an American institution that has been preeminent in the world for the past 40 years. I believe it's tragic." Griffin's chief complaint is that the Obama administration has scrapped the plans sketched out during the Bush years for the development of new spacecraft to take humans back to the moon. And he and others find excruciating the idea that the U.S. could be completely dependent for the next several years on Russian Soyuz rockets to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.
China is exploiting US funding gap for gains in space

Tkacik 10 (c John J., a retired Foreign Service officer, was chiefof China analysis in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research during the Clinton administration, “Chin space program shoots for moon,” The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/08/china-eyes-high-ground/?page=1)

In contrast, NASA has resigned itself to the realities that America’s space shuttles will be decommissioned by 2010 and, while the test-launch of the Ares 1-X heavy lift booster was successful, the follow-on Constellation manned program does not have a budget that will get it off the blueprint tables. Nor is NASA staffed with the scientists needed to support it. The median age of NASA’s manned space engineers is now over 55. Over a quarter are past retirement age. Meanwhile, China’s average lunar probe engineer is about 33 years old and the Shenzhou manned-space program engineers average about 36.

The US and Chinese space programmes cannot be compared directly. The American programme precedes China’s by at least 40 years and China has yet to land its first man on moon. The US satellite and spacecraft technology is still years ahead of China. But China is on the fast track right now. In 2011 alone, China aims to put more than twenty vehicles into space. Compared to this, the US space programme is in a state of inertia. It has had to scrap its ‘Constellation Program’ since the struggling American economy cannot afford the huge price tag attached to the programme at present.

October’s launch of the experimental Ares 1-X heavy lift rocket, while flawless, may well mark the end rather than the beginning of America’s next-generation Constellation manned-space program. The space shuttle is scheduled for retirement this year and until Constellation gets off the ground, future American astronauts will rely on Russians - or Chinese - to get into orbit - if they want to get there at all. America’s multitrillion-dollar deficits over the next 10 years are likely to dissuade the Obama administration from budgeting for Constellation until well after Mr. Obama leaves office, if then.

Senior Chinese space officials have told their state media that China could be on the moon by 2022 at the outside. Other authoritative Chinese space engineers see a moon landing as a next step in the Tiangong program that will launch three Chinese space stations into Earth orbit between 2011 and 2015. In 2008, NASA scientists told the Bush White House that, with the technology currently available to the Chinese space program, Chinese cosmonauts could be on the moon by 2017.

China’s high-profile feuds with the United States, along with territorial spats with Southeast Asian neighbors and Japan, showed a more muscular foreign policy in 2010 that called into question Beijing’s promise of a “peaceful rise.”