The Committee to Nuke Elysium

The planned Chinese space station will be the centerpiece of the country’s manned space program, which has seen three crews — each larger than the next — launch aboard Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft starting in 2003.

China hopes to launch its first unmanned space station module, Tiangong 1 (Chinese for “Heavenly Palace”), in 2011, the state news organization Xinhua has reported. Over time, other modules will be added on and astronauts will eventually take up residence on the station to conduct research.

The new space station will be constructed using China’s Shenzhou capsules and Long March carrier rockets. These spacecraft established China as only the third country, after Russia and the United States, to independently launch people to space.

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“To the rest of the world, China’s working very eagerly and aggressively,” Johnson-Freese said. “Canada, Europe and Russia are all banging on the door for China to work with them. I certainly have a concern that the U.S. is going to end up the odd man out in terms of the globalization of space.”

While some American lawmakers have expressed wishes to cooperate with China in space, the idea also faces strong resistance. A trip last month by NASA chief Charlie Bolden to China sparked controversy.

“It should go without saying that NASA has no business cooperating with the Chinese regime on human spaceflight,” U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) wrote to Bolden in an Oct. 5 letter before the visit. “China is taking an increasingly aggressive posture globally, and their interests rarely intersect with ours.”