(American Friends of Tel Aviv University) Researchers at Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with an international group of scientists, have proved the existence of theoretical “separated asteroid” pairs, which could have implications if an asteroid passes close to earth. A large part of the research for the study was done at Tel Aviv University’s Wise Observatory, the first and only modern astronomical observatory in the Middle East.

Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can’t be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon “dark flow.”

The stuff that’s pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude.

When scientists talk about the observable universe, they don’t just mean as far out as the eye, or even the most powerful telescope, can see.

In fact there’s a fundamental limit to how much of the universe we could ever observe, no matter how advanced our visual instruments.

The universe is thought to have formed about 13.7 billion years ago. So even if light started travelling toward us immediately after the Big Bang, the farthest it could ever get is 13.7 billion light-years in distance.

There may be parts of the universe that are farther away (we can’t know how big the whole universe is), but we can’t see farther than light could travel over the entire age of the universe.

Mysterious motions

Scientists discovered the flow by studying some of the largest structures in the cosmos: giant clusters of galaxies.

These clusters are conglomerations of about a thousand galaxies, as well as very hot gas which emits X-rays.

By observing the interaction of the X-rays with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is leftover radiation from the Big Bang, scientists can study the movement of clusters.

The X-rays scatter photons in the CMB, shifting its temperature in an effect known as the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect.

This effect had not been observed as a result of galaxy clusters before, but a team of researchers led by Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., found it when they studied a huge catalogue of 700 clusters, reaching out up to 6 billion light-years, or half the universe away.

They compared this catalogue to the map of the CMB taken by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite.

They discovered that the clusters were moving nearly 2 million mph (3.2 million kph) toward a region in the sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela.

This motion is different from the outward expansion of the universe (which is accelerated by the force called dark energy).

“We found a very significant velocity, and furthermore, this velocity does not decrease with distance, as far as we can measure,” Kashlinsky told SPACE.com. “The matter in the observable universe just cannot produce the flow we measure.”

Inflationary bubble

The scientists deduced that whatever is driving the movements of the clusters must lie beyond the known universe.

A theory called inflation posits that the universe we see is just a small bubble of space-time that got rapidly expanded after the Big Bang. There could be other parts of the cosmos beyond this bubble that we cannot see.

In these regions, space-time might be very different, and likely doesn’t contain stars and galaxies (which only formed because of the particular density pattern of mass in our bubble).

It could include giant, massive structures much larger than anything in our own observable universe. These structures are what researchers suspect are tugging on the galaxy clusters, causing the dark flow.

“The structures responsible for this motion have been pushed so far away by inflation, I would guesstimate they may be hundreds of billions of light years away, that we cannot see even with the deepest telescopes because the light emitted there could not have reached us in the age of the universe,” Kashlinsky said in a telephone interview. “Most likely to create such a coherent flow they would have to be some very strange structures, maybe some warped space time. But this is just pure speculation.”

Surprising find

Though inflation theory forecasts many odd facets of the distant universe, not many scientists predicted the dark flow.

“It was greatly surprising to us and I suspect to everyone else,” Kashlinsky said. “For some particular models of inflation you would expect these kinds of structures, and there were some suggestions in the literature that were not taken seriously I think until now.”

The discovery could help scientists probe what happened to the universe before inflation, and what’s going on in those inaccessible realms we cannot see.

The researchers detail their findings in the Oct. 20 issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Currently the comet is located in Cassiopeia. It is moving to the east and will enter Perseus by mid-month. The comet should continue to brighten as it approaches perihelion and may be as bright as magnitude 8.0.

The comet was found by Dae-am Yi of Yeongwol-kun, Gangwon-do, South Korea on March 26. He noticed the obvious blue-green glow of a comet on 2 images he took with a Canon 5D digital camera and a 90-mm f/2.8 lens. According to a post on the MPML mailing list by Maik Meyer, this is the 1st comet discovered by and named for a Korean citizen in the modern age. There were first sightings of comet by Koreans in the 18th century before the comets were named for their discoverers.

The other discoverer was Robert Matson of Irvine, CA. Mr. Matson found the comet on a series of images taken with the SWAN instrument on the SOHO (Solar Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft starting on March 29. The SWAN insturment images the entire sky for solar Lyman-alpha particles that are backscattered off of neutral hydrogen atoms. In this way, SWAN can monitor the activity of the far-side of the Sun. This instrument is also excellent at detecting the glow of hydrogan in the extended coma of comets.

The comet was found by Dae-am Yi of Yeongwol-kun, Gangwon-do, South Korea on March 26. He noticed the obvious blue-green glow of a comet on 2 images he took with a Canon 5D digital camera and a 90-mm f/2.8 lens. According to a post on the MPML mailing list by Maik Meyer, this is the 1st comet discovered by and named for a Korean citizen in the modern age. There were first sightings of comet by Koreans in the 18th century before the comets were named for their discoverers.

The other discoverer was Robert Matson of Irvine, CA. Mr. Matson found the comet on a series of images taken with the SWAN instrument on the SOHO (Solar Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft starting on March 29. The SWAN insturment images the entire sky for solar Lyman-alpha particles that are backscattered off of neutral hydrogen atoms. In this way, SWAN can monitor the activity of the far-side of the Sun. This instrument is also excellent at detecting the glow of hydrogan in the extended coma of comets.

Olivia from Washington state wanted to know if space ships had ever been to the Sun. Well of course not manned ships, but there have been a few unmanned ships that have gone. The closest flyby of the Sun was by a ship called Helios 2. She also wanted to know where the Sun came from, how was it created? Well, I touched on this in Episode 18. Basically there was this REALLY big cloud of molecules. Now, even single molecules have gravitational pull, so they started being attracted to on another. After a time (a really long time, about 50 000 000 years) the stuff at the center of this cloud really could be called a star. Oh when did this happen? The Sun is probably about 4.5 billion years old.

Usama Hasan

Why is there so much disagreement among scholars about the start of Ramadan? Mathematics can provide the correct answer

Ramadan, the month of fasting, prayer, generosity and charity begins today. Or does it?

Across the Middle East, it does start today, mainly because of the religious influence of Saudi Arabia, even though nearly all Muslim astronomers disagree with the outdated Saudi methods of determining dates. In Nigeria and Libya, Ramadan began yesterday. In Pakistan, Bangladesh and possibly Indonesia, three of the most populous Muslim countries, Ramadan is expected to begin tomorrow. Muslims living as minorities in India, Europe and the Americas, often without centralised religious authorities, are frequently left in confusion. For example, various Muslim communities in Britain will begin their fasting today, tomorrow or even on Wednesday.

The problem is that Ramadan, like all lunar months, begins the day after the first sighting of the sliver-thin new crescent moon, visible by up to an hour after sunset on the appropriate evening. The orbit of the moon around the earth is such that it can take up to three days for the whole world to actually see the crescent for the first time each month, even after clouds have cleared. But in an age of super-computer calculation and instant telecommunication, should this present such a problem?

It is extremely ironic, not to say embarrassing, that the Muslim people, who led the world for a millennium in every scientific discipline, developed the scientific method itself and taught it to the west, are still in a state of chaos over a relatively simple matter of science and religion, ie the lunar calendar.

A millennium ago, the Persian scientist and philosopher al-Bayruni calculated the circumference of the earth with over 99% accuracy. Even earlier, the astronomers of the caliph at Baghdad had first measured the tilt of the earth’s axis as being 23.5 degrees. Most of the major stars in the sky still carry Arabic names, for the Muslim civilisation took the Greco-Roman constellations and added invididual star names as part of their development of the knowledge of the ancient world before transmitting it to the modern one. Ptolemy’s great works of astronomy, like the philosophical ones of Plato and Aristotle, largely reached Europe through Arabic translations.

There are many factors contributing to this confusion. Apart from religious and political disunity, perhaps the biggest reasons are the gulf between science and shariah and the simplistic, literalist approach to shariah that characterises much of Muslim religious discourse and ignores the magnificent theory of maqasid al-shariah, or the higher objectives and spirit of the sacred law of Islam.

Muslim scientists and experts in law (shariah) need to understand each other’s disciplines, and we need more individuals who are well-versed in both areas, as we had for centuries. For example, the 14th-century theologian Ibn Taymiyyah was an expert in the astronomy of his age, effortlessly discussing difficult and technical astronomical terms such as conjunction, the “arc of light” and the “arc of vision” as well as factors affecting the visibility of the new moon such as the angles between moon and sun, moon and earth and even factors such as atmospheric humidity. All this, of course, in addition to his renowned expertise in the traditional Islamic sciences.

This great scholar, writing seven centuries ago, correctly concluded that astronomical calculations could not be used to replace naked-eye sighting of the moon because, during his lifetime, no one could calculate the visibility of the new moon accurately. However, 700 years later, many traditionalists erroneously and anachronistically cling to the view of this great authority, or that of earlier expert astronomer-jurists, whilst ignoring the fact that science has progressed exponentially since then and that we are now able to confidently predict the visibility of the new moon with great precision.

Experts in the maqasid al-shariah, the theory of the holistic intent of Islamic law, agree that calculations can obviously be used to replace and confirm naked-eye sightings of the new moon, and to reject impossible claimed sightings. One leading Islamic scholar, Ahmad Shakir, argued this as far back as 1939, except that he advocated using conjunction (the birth of the moon) instead of crescent-visibility as the starting-point of the new lunar month: visibility calculations were not accurate enough in his time, and have only become extremely precise over the last few decades.

Contemporary experts in progressive interpretations of shariah agree that calculations of crescent-visibility can now be used to replace naked-eye sightings of the new moon. Those who disagree with this are unfortunately stuck in literalist approaches to shariah and the classical schools of Islamic law, arguing over individual texts from the Qur’an, Hadith and mediaeval books of Islamic law while forgetting the bigger picture, the holistic approach to the subject embodied in Maqasid theory and developed by the great scholars such as Ghazzali, Ibn Taymiyyah and Shatibi.

The problem may be illustrated with the the Prophet’s teaching (peace be upon him), “Begin fasting when you see the new moon, and end fasting when you see the new moon.” The opponents of calculation rigidly stick to a literalist interpretation of this instruction, insisting on physical sighting even when official declarations of moon-sighting are known to be flawed in many Muslim countries and when calculations give us a much more precise answer. They also forget that their mode of reasoning could equally be applied to the verse of the Qur’an (The Cow, 2:187) about fasting: “Eat and drink until the white thread of dawn becomes apparent to you from the black thread [of night].” Clearly, dawn only “becomes apparent” to us by physical sighting and therefore it could be argued that one cannot use calculations to determine prayer-times. Amazingly, it is not uncommon to see people going by clocks and timetables for prayers all year round, yet becoming extremely animated about rejecting calculations for the dates of Ramadan.

Although it is true that physically seeing the dawn, sunset, new moon and other astronomical phenomena helps to keep us connected to the signs of God in nature, insisting upon this for everyone is not realistic in the modern world and does not offer practical, pragmatic solutions for modern societies dominated by clocks and calendars. The literal meaning of the above-mentioned prophetic teaching would still apply to people wishing to remain as connected as possible to natural cycles, while its interpretation from a maqasid viewpoint in modern society, especially for governments and religious authorities, would be, “Base your worldwide, calculated lunar calendar on the visibility of the new moon.”

Bringing shariah into line with modernity and science using intrinsic Islamic principles of interpretation is an urgent need of our times. From human rights, especially those of workers and women in the Muslim world, to the place of faith and religion in modern societies, much progress can be made if we move away from literalist interpretations that fail to understand the nature of the modern world. As a symbol of Islam, the crescent moon is probably apt at the moment: it inspires chaos and disunity. But the good news is that moves to harmonise religion and reason, the sacred and the secular, are gaining momentum in the Muslim world. We can only hope that the clouds of confusion continue to clear and that the crescent moon will once again symbolise, not chaos and fragmentation, but enlightened Islamic contributions to humanity.

Dr Usama Hasan is an imam and science lecturer based in London.

Imagine for a moment that the Cold War never happened. Suppose that Joseph Stalin had suffered an aneurism a week after the end of World War 2 and that his successors, although not exactly friendly toward the West, chose a far less antagonistic relationship. No ICBMs, no technological competition, no Space Race.

Would humans be in orbit right now? Would any country have launched anybody into space considering the immense costs and the lack of a compelling political rationale?

This is the kind of counterfactual argument that makes historians sputter. It has too many variables and cannot really tell you much. But we do know that the Cold War caused the United States and the Soviet Union to rush to outdo each other in spaceflight, forcing each to launch faster and seek to produce “firsts” in the Space Race. Without the Cold War, human spaceflight would have developed along a more normal trajectory.

But what is “normal” anyway? Is there even a way to measure it? Fortunately, China’s entry into human spaceflight and India’s newly stated desire to have a human spaceflight program allows us to consider this subject from a slightly different perspective. In the past couple of weeks a number of public talks by Indian and Chinese space officials as well as American observers of the Chinese space program have shed some new light on this issue.

India in space

On October 6, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsored a panel discussion with the National Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) at AAAS headquarters in Washington, DC. NIAS is an Indian think tank based in Bangalore, and the discussion consisted of three presentations on the Indian space program, the future of the Indian nuclear program, and the need for professional accreditation of scientists. The presentations were followed by a panel discussion including the three presenters and three other NIAS representatives.

The first speaker was Krishnaswami Kasturirangan, the director of NIAS and a member of the Indian Parliament. Kasturirangan was chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for nine years and Secretary to the government of India in the Department of Space. He earlier served as the director of the ISRO Satellite Centre where he oversaw activities related to the development of new generation spacecraft such as INSAT-2 and the Indian Remote Sensing Satellites IRS-1A and 1B as well as scientific satellites.

Kasturirangan gave a fast-paced overview of the Indian space program. The program began in the 1960s—what he dubbed the “initiation phase”—and continued in the 1970s, or “experimental phase.” The 1980s were when India finally entered its “operational phase” where its satellites were capable of serving the social priorities of the country. As a poor country, India could not treat spaceflight as a luxury—the satellites it developed were directly tied to the social needs of the Indian people. Kasturirangan noted that the United States assisted India in this regards: in the early 1970s the United States sponsored a demonstration program using an American geostationary satellite to provide telemedicine resources to rural doctors. (See “India and the US: partners or rivals in space?”, The Space Review, February 11, 2008)

Telemedicine is particularly important in India, Kasturirangan explained, because 98% of the people from rural areas who become doctors leave those areas, resulting in a small number of doctors with the required training to serve a large number of people. Telemedicine can therefore bring some of the medical resources of India’s thriving urban areas to remote villages. Also important is remote sensing for agricultural assessment. According to Kasturirangan, India can now predict with 90% accuracy the national crop output one month before harvest. For a country that in its past frequently faced starvation and malnutrition, this is a vital resource. He noted that in 1978 Indian remote sensing satellites could achieve one kilometer resolution; today they can achieve one meter resolution.

Now that India has not only developed significant space capabilities but also experienced substantial economic growth, the Indian space program has entered into what Kasturirangan describes as its “expansion phase.” India can afford the luxuries of space science and possibly even human spaceflight. The country’s first lunar spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, is scheduled for launch later this month. The government has also created the Antrix Corporation to market Indian space capabilities around the world. The country’s next goals are development of a heavy launch vehicle, lunar exploratory missions, a two-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicle, human spaceflight, and further international cooperation.

During the panel discussion, several members of the audience asked Kasturirangan and two of his colleagues questions about the Indian space program. His colleagues included S. Chandrashekar, a professor of corporate strategy at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, as well as a 20-year veteran of ISRO. Chandrashekar’s recent work at NIAS includes an assessment of Pakistani and Chinese ballistic missile capabilities. In response to a question about Pakistan’s missiles he said that it is clear that they are not entirely based upon Chinese technology and that Pakistan clearly has significant ballistic missile design expertise of its own. Chandrashekar also said that his assessment of China’s missiles disagrees with that of the United States. For instance, he said that while the Americans have concluded that the Chinese DF-5 ICBM is a two-stage missile, his group has concluded that it is actually a three-stage missile. His research also disagrees with the American assessment of China’s newer DF-31 ICBM.

Most of the space questions were directed at Kasturirangan, who was asked about India’s plans for human spaceflight. Kasturirangan explained that right now India’s government has not officially approved a human spaceflight program. Although he did not say so, other sources have indicated that India will pursue a two-person capsule. ISRO is currently studying technology options and questions and he rattled off a long list, including life support, reentry, tracking and human-rating a launch vehicle, clearly indicating that he was personally familiar with the studies. Only after the Indian space agency has answered these questions and defined the kind of vehicle they want to build, its costs, and the timeframe for the first human space launch, will ISRO officials take those plans to the Indian Parliament for formal approval. Simply put, India’s human space program has not yet been fully defined or approved.

Kasturirangan said that ISRO has not yet made a decision concerning launch vehicles, but is considering a 2.5-stage rocket for carrying a manned spacecraft into orbit. ISRO is studying two possibilities, the current Geostationary Launch Vehicle (or GSLV), which has flown successfully several times, or the planned GSLV Mark 3, which is scheduled for first launch in 2010. The Mark 3 will be more capable, but as of yet it is only a paper vehicle and therefore higher risk.

When asked about India’s goals in space science beyond the Chandrayaan lunar mission, Kasturirangan listed several objectives: developing chemical analysis capabilities for future lunar landers, sample return from the Moon, international cooperation on a robotic Mars mission, and the Astrosat observatory, which is to be capable of observations from the ultraviolet to high energy X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Although he is not currently involved in decision making concerning the Indian space program, it was apparent from the clarity and quickness of his answers not only that Kasturirangan was very familiar with the current state of Indian spaceflight plans, but that Indian space officials are putting a great deal of effort into planning their next moves in the expansion phase of Indian spaceflight.

China in space

On October 8, several American space experts spoke at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC on China’s space program. The speakers were Dean Cheng, of the Center for Naval Analysis; Kevin Pollpeter, China Program Manager of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis; and Scott Pace, the new director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and former NASA associate administrator for program analysis and evaluation.

The panel discussion had the rather awkward title of Pandas in Orbit. Heritage is a conservative think tank, but none of the speakers were particularly ideological, although they did not reflect viewpoints recently expressed by some other speakers (for instance, Joan Johnson-Freese and Theresa Hitchens) calling for more cooperative engagement with China.

Unfortunately, the Heritage event again reflected some of the ignorance and myths that surround China’s space program—opinions not expressed by the speakers, but by Heritage’s moderator and some members of the audience. The moderator once again repeated the mistaken claim that China plans to land a man on the Moon by 2017, a myth resulting from confusing China’s stated plans for a robotic lunar sample return mission with plans for a human lunar lander. Several of the questions posed to the speakers also repeated some of the erroneous claims made about China’s space weapons capability, including the charge that China “blinded” an American satellite with a laser, and that China is developing a “parasitic microsatellite” capability. The laser incident was exaggerated—in fact, the United States government never protested the incident to the Chinese government, and obviously did not interpret it as an attack—and the parasitic microsatellite claim has been effectively debunked. (See “Paper dragon: the Pentagon’s unreliable statements on the Chinese space program”, The Space Review, June 23, 2008)

Fortunately, whatever ignorance was reflected by the moderator and audience was counterbalanced by the informative speakers. They all emphasized the point that it is a common mistake to view China’s space developments in isolation from its other activities. China does not simply have a “space program,” the country’s leadership views space as part of its goals in many areas, including economic development, national security, and diplomacy.

Dean Cheng explained that the recent Shenzhou 7 spaceflight demonstrated what observers of the Chinese space program have realized for at least half a decade now, that the People’s Republic of China is a space power possessing the “full range of space mission capabilities.” These include the ability to produce, launch, and track satellites on its own. The country has a range of indigenously developed satellite systems including communications, meteorological, Earth-imaging and navigation satellites.

According to Cheng, the PRC sees space as promoting “zonghe guojia liliang,” or “comprehensive national security.” It improves the national economy both by raising China’s level of science and technology and generating high-tech jobs, and serves national security, both through military security and diplomacy.

It is this latter point that often gets ignored in the West. The PRC uses space as a diplomatic tool, Cheng noted, citing several recent examples including satellite sales to Venezuela and Nigeria, the sharing of satellite data, and China’s membership in the Asia Pacific Space Cooperation Organization. Potential future efforts include offering insurance for space missions and training foreign astronauts.

Of course, it is China’s January 2007 ASAT test that gained the most attention in the West. China’s view of the military value of space has evolved substantially over the past two decades. The 1991 American experience in Desert Shield/Desert Storm had a major effect upon China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), convincing the PLA leadership that future wars will involve joint forces, will be high-tech, and rely upon precision weapons. The military will rely on information for operational coordination, target location, and weapons guidance.

Cheng said that more recent wars have continued to shape China’s view of space and in recent years the PLA has begun to shift from a view of space as a source of information to a “key battleground in its own right.” He cited the example of the PLA Encyclopedia, which in 1997 downplayed the importance of space, but by 2002 rated it as a vital battleground.

In light of this evolving viewpoint of space’s importance, China’s manned spaceflight missions remind the world of the PRC’s space capabilities even if the human spaceflight program has no overt military goals.

Kevin Pollpeter focused more on the economic aspects of China’s space ascendancy, a rise which has been rapid in the past few years. He noted that since 2001 China had flown three human spaceflight missions, launched a lunar mission, conducted ASAT tests, and orbited a radar satellite, a remote sensing constellation, an ocean monitoring satellite, a communications relay satellite, and exported two satellites. China had also achieved launcher reliability at international standards and has not experienced a launch vehicle failure since 1996, possibly due to the illegal assistance of several American companies.

Space, according to Pollpeter, is a method for China to achieve “great power status.” Chinese officials believe that it is a technology driver that can propel China’s economy and facilitate innovation in pharmaceuticals and metallurgy. It can also provide other economic benefits, like increases in quality control testing and improving standards for selecting and training management personnel.

The Shenzhou human spaceflight program in particular is a driving force. Pollpeter noted that the average age of Shenzhou personnel is 36 and the average age of their Chang’e robotic lunar mission personnel is 33. Pollpeter compared this to many NASA projects where the average age is in the fifties and 25 percent of the US aerospace workforce is eligible to retire.

If China has been making great strides in spaceflight in the past decade, the United States has been either standing in place or shooting itself in both feet. Pollpeter noted that recent American national space policy and US Air Force space documents are seen by many foreign leaders as unnecessarily provocative and have contributed to a perception around the world that the United States government overemphasizes national security applications and intends to weaponize space. Pollpeter concluded by saying that China’s rise as a space power will have negative consequences for the United States. Simply increasing the American government’s space budget is not enough and solutions have to come from many areas. Although the recent success of SpaceX’s Falcon launch vehicle demonstrated that American industry can accomplish great things, the US government will have to take the lead in improving America’s space capabilities relative to China.

The final speaker was Scott Pace, who began his talk by emphasizing that he was not an expert on the Chinese space program but was very familiar with the issue of dual use technologies. Pace devoted much of his talk to China’s possible human lunar ambitions.

China has made some impressive advances in human spaceflight with relatively few flights. The United States flew five orbital missions over three and a half years before accomplishing its first space walk during Gemini 4 in June 1965. The Soviet Union accomplished the first ever space walk on its seventh manned mission in March 1965, with four years of human spaceflight experience. China took five years and did it in three missions. Pace noted that China’s 14-minute spacewalk was comparable to the first spacewalks of Russia and the United States (24 and 20 minutes respectively). But he also added that although China had gone from a one-person mission to a three-person mission slightly slower than the Soviet Union and faster than the United States, there is really no good substitute for actually doing things when it comes to spaceflight. China has undoubtedly extensively studied previous American and Soviet extravehicular activities, but there are many things you cannot learn from a book; you have to do them yourself. In addition, claims that China had copied most of its equipment from the Russians were exaggerations and the Shenzhou is approximately 95% indigenously developed and produced.

Pace also offered a brief overview of NASA-Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) discussions. In December 2004 NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe met with a CNSA delegation and discussed possible cooperation on space applications and Earth and space science. Nothing came of this meeting. In September 2006 NASA administrator Mike Griffin traveled to China where American and Chinese officials discussed regular exchanges between the two countries. Nothing really came from this meeting either and it was nearly another two years—in July 2008—when a NASA team visited CNSA and the two organizations formed two working groups on Earth and space science.

Pace said that many in the space community viewed space as a potential form of “ping-pong diplomacy” that could ultimately lead to greater cooperation between the two countries. But in his opinion, this was unrealistic. Space cooperation is dependent on the broader US-China relationship. As long as that relationship is rocky, there will be little or no space cooperation.

Pace said that although Chinese technical capabilities are becoming clearer, their strategic intent has not, and several broad questions remain unanswered: Will China develop a human lunar lander? Will China give the Long March 5 (CZ-5) heavy launch vehicle priority over continued evolution of the workhorse Long March 2 (CZ-2)? Will China focus more on robotic systems for disaster monitoring and navigation, among other missions?

If China decides to send humans to the Moon, its current most likely method will be to use the Long March 5 booster. First announced in 2001, it is projected to launch in 2014 after numerous schedule slips. Designed to launch heavy geosynchronous communications satellites, it could place 25 metric tons (55,000 pounds) into low Earth orbit or 14 metric tons (31,000 pounds) into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Pace mentioned that a 2008 paper titled “Research on the Technical Approach of Manned Lunar Mission” (in Chinese) was prepared by Long Lehao, of the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and Rong Yi, of the Beijing Institute of Space System Engineering. They identified four different approaches to the Moon, most of which require multiple launches of Long March 5 boosters. Two of the methods would require three launches.

Pace noted that Lehao is the developer of the Long March 5 and therefore inclined to underemphasize the difficulty of the task. NASA has also developed a notional concept of how China might conduct a human lunar mission and in NASA’s estimation it will require four Long March 5 launches, not three. The first launch would carry a translunar injection (TLI) stage into low Earth orbit. It would be followed by the unmanned lunar landing vehicle, which would automatically dock with the TLI stage and head to the Moon. They would be followed by another TLI stage and then a Shenzhou vehicle which would also rendezvous in low Earth orbit before heading to the Moon. In lunar orbit the Shenzhou would rendezvous with the lunar lander and two astronauts would descend to the Moon’s surface. They would later rendezvous with the Shenzhou and return to Earth. Four launches and four rendezvous events would entail a significant amount of risk, especially for a country with such limited human spaceflight experience. In its current approach to returning humans to the Moon, NASA has sought to minimize the number of launches and rendezvous events.

A NASA illustration of how China could carry out a human lunar mission using four Long March 5 launches. (credit: NASA)

After Pace’s talk the speakers took questions from the audience, several of which focused upon how much China spends on spaceflight, particularly the manned program, and how obscure their future plans are. Dean Cheng said that although Chinese officials have stated how much they have spent developing Shenzhou, the numbers are effectively meaningless because of the convoluted bureaucracy that is involved in the project. The Chinese may not even know themselves due both to arcane and secretive accounting rules and the way that the program is matrixed throughout various organizations. A better measurement is not cash, but level of effort. Cheng also added that when the People’s Liberation Army was ordered earlier this decade to divest itself of its various commercial holdings such as casinos—part of a plan to “professionalize” the Chinese military—one industry that they did maintain control of was communications satellite manufacturing, which they viewed as vital to their military mission.

Pollpeter said that during a recent trip to China, a senior Chinese space official explained that the government was seeking to separate its military and civil space functions which up until now have largely been lumped under the responsibility of the People’s Liberation Army. Although Pollpeter did not offer an explanation for this change in policy, it is not hard to imagine that it is part of the broader effort to increase accountability, professionalism, and clarity in the Chinese military. All that you need to know about the convoluted nature of the Chinese military can be summed up in one name: the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

All three speakers agreed that a major problem with China’s space program is its opaqueness. This has been a major complaint in the West, and something that has apparently fallen on deaf ears in China.

Openness in Glasgow, and in orbit

Despite oft-repeated Western complaints about China’s lack of openness concerning its space program, the reality is that although China is secretive about some of its space projects and plans, including its budget, the country is far more open than many Westerners believe, and certainly far more open than the Soviet Union ever was during the Cold War. There was no better example than the talk given by a member of the Chinese Society of Astronautics during the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Scotland, the week before the AAAS and Heritage discussions in Washington.

The speaker—I do not know his name—demonstrated that in addition to mastering EVAs, the Chinese have also mastered PowerPoint. The presentation includes many detailed computer illustrations of the various Shenzhou vehicles launched to date as well as what are apparently early designs of their future space station modules. The presentation, titled “Shenzhou-7 Mission and Beyond—From Imagination to Reality,” was mostly devoted to recounting the various Shenzhou missions, including the four unmanned missions and their accomplishments.

The presentation was remarkably detailed, including a graphic illustrating that five tracking ships, three satellites, and at least nine ground stations supported the Shenzhou 7 flight, a much higher degree of openness than the Soviet Union ever practiced during the Cold War. But the most interesting aspects were the speaker’s discussion of China’s future human spaceflight plans.

Up until relatively recently, Western observers have assumed that the next step in the Chinese Shenzhou program would be the near simultaneous launch of Shenzhous 8 and 9 to conduct an orbital rendezvous. This would then probably be followed with the launch of a rudimentary unmanned space station, perhaps in 2010, to be visited by Shenzhou 10.

An illustration of a Shenzhou spacecraft in orbit. (credit: Chinese Society of Astronautics)

But according to the presentation at Glasgow, China now has a preliminary plan to launch a target craft around 2011, with an “unmanned spaceship” and a Shenzhou to be launched to conduct a rendezvous and docking test. It is unclear from the presentation if this refers to three vehicles—only one manned—or two. If it refers to three vehicles, then the Chinese may be planning on practicing launching an unmanned “core” vehicle that would be joined by a Shenzhou and could be resupplied with a cargo ship, similar to Russian experience with the Salyut and later Mir space station programs.

According to Chinese television—although not detailed in the Glasgow briefing—China might conduct up to three simple space station—known at Tiangong—missions between 2010 and 2015. They would be visited by up to eight Shenzhou spacecraft. If accurate, this means that China plans to gradually increase the pace of its human spacecraft launches. So far China has averaged one manned launch every 2.5 years. It might be at least that long before the launch of Shenzhou 8. But after that, the launch rate could increase to 1–2 missions per year.

According to the Glasgow presentation, China would develop a “manned space station” by 2020 “to solve the problem of larger scale space application with manned long-term presence in space.” This is all part of a “three-stage” strategy. Although not fully explained, presumably the first stage was the development of Shenzhou up to the most recent mission. The second stage will consist of the rendezvous and docking with a small space station vehicle and multiple missions extending through at least the first half of next decade. And the third stage will involve developing the “multi-module space station.” Once China has achieved that by the end of the next decade, “China will move to the broad area of the LEO orbit and far beyond.” The presentation slides also state that “we think manned landing on the moon is a great challenge in the global high-tech and is also a strategic field for exploration. So, it is necessary to carry out R&D activities at proper time for the future goal.” But so far as the presentation is to be believed, China’s plans for the next decade focus on extended human spaceflight in low Earth orbit, not a mission to the Moon.

An illustration of a Shenzhou spacecraft docking with a simple space station. (credit: Chinese Society of Astronautics)

Just as interesting as the words in the presentation are the images, which appear to show for the first time both what may be the Tiangong spacecraft, and an early plan for the multi-module space station that China wants to develop by 2020. The Tiangong module appears to be somewhat akin to the European Space Agency’s Jules Verne Advanced Transfer Vehicle, a pressurized module that could provide supplies to keep a Shenzhou in orbit for perhaps a few weeks. The multi-module space station consists of three large modules mounted around a central hub, with a Shenzhou parked at one of the hub’s docking ports, and what appears to be a module similar to that shown in a previous slide as the docking target—possibly the Tiangong, similar to the Russian Mir space station configuration. Thus, it seems possible that China’s goal is to use the Tiangong to support extended duration Shenzhou missions in the early part of the decade and later to provide logistics support to the multi-module space station. If so, this is a logical stepping-stone approach.

Which brings us back to the Cold War analogy and how little that model resembles the path that China and India are pursuing. China and India are both carefully studying the experience of their predecessors, but setting their own pace. There should not be any real surprise in this. But it does highlight that there may be no “normal” path to human spaceflight. After all, what explains the fact that one of the largest space programs in the world, Japan, never chose to develop its own human spaceflight program? And what exactly determines why a country will choose to develop its own human spaceflight capabilities? Two years ago, at a symposium on the social aspects of spaceflight in Washington, DC, one speaker challenged the notion that countries develop human spaceflight programs in order to assert their capabilities and independence. If this was so, the speaker asked, then what explains the fact that France does not have its own human space program? Every country is different. There is no “normal” path to human spaceflight.

Dwayne A. Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Leakey, who once served on a government economic team in his native Kenya, said much of the support for science comes from wealthy philanthropists, foundations and companies. All those groups likely will be affected by lowered interest rates and the squeeze of credit not being available to fund their operations, he said.

“With the investment portfolios being hit as hard as they’ve been hit in the last few weeks, particularly the last few days, I would have thought there would be a very dramatic reduction in available funds for research in all sorts of countries,” Leakey told reporters Wednesday. “Unless they bring it under control, I think it’s going to spread. I think it’s extremely worrying for science.”

Leakey became famous after making a number of fossil discoveries in East Africa. His team unearthed the bones of the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984.

The effect of the credit crisis on science likely will begin to be felt as organizations begin planning their budgets for 2009, Leakey said. The paleontologist said donations will be “hugely hit,” affecting what research and exploration can be done next year and into the future.

“This has spread right across the world and there’s quite a lot of science to be supported,” Leakey said. “I think it is just devastating.

“It’s more worryful for people who are losing their homes, it’s more worryful for people who are losing investments for their children’s futures, but we’re also very worried as scientists,” he said.

Leakey was in Little Rock to speak at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

In a new book, Leakey offers a stark warning for the planet, saying global warming could wipe out endangered species living in national parks and refuges throughout the world. He said the extinction of a few species could destroy food chains supporting many other animals — including humans.

“I think the end of the Ice Age was a quite a massive change and I think this will be … almost as big of a change in the way we live,” Leakey said.