Gary Coffman wrote in message . ..

On 12 Oct 2003 11:41:59 -0700, (Spehro Pefhany) wrote:
I wonder what the effect would be on the West of seeing a Chinese
astronaut plant that red flag with yellow stars on the surface of our
one moon, let alone Mars.

Probably most of the world will yawn.

It's 11:24 AM here in HK, and the Shenzhou V lift-off was covered
almost-live on Chinese state TV a couple of hours ago (presumably they
waited to be sure it didn't explode before they ran the tape). The HK
take on the US reaction is that it would be split between the yawn,
"been there, done that 40 years ago" reaction and the fear about
future military exploitation. IOW, not very positive. ;-) They ran
tape of the launch of the first satellite in 1970 with the control
room erupting into a "spontaneous" display of affection for the Great
Helmsman himself with their little re(a)d books. How times have
changed. They mentioned that Chinese success in launching commercial
satellites had been hindered by US opposition using export control
laws. The TV here has taken a small but very definite turn toward
reporting things from the Beijing perspective. I suspect national
pride issues will be much more in evidence north of the border (it
isn't that big a deal here)- I have to pop over for a day or two
before coming back and will see what people are saying.

Support for space exploration has
declined sharply since the Apollo Moon landings. Most people don't see
the benefits of space exploration and exploitation. If the Chinese start
turning a *profit* on it, though, people will begin to sit up and take
notice.

I suppose people are all in favor of it if they don't have to pay for
it, but the public interest was beginning to flag during the Apollo
missions- the TV networks didn't want to pre-empt all their
programming and so on, until Apollo 13 jolted us back into realization
that what they were doing was far from routine and riskless.

At least China got their shot in before private American companies
managed to do it. ;-) It would have been really embarassing if a
nation of 1.3bn couldn't do that.

If the initial flight is successful I do plan to toast their accomplishment,
but we have to think about this tit-for-tat stuff in the military area.
Eventually it will all come home to roost, and announcing plans for
absolute military dominance over a potential foe as a long-term
objective shows some real lack of understanding of human nature.

The military advantages of being able to operate from the top of the
gravity well are enormous. It is an old military maxim that one should
take and hold the high ground. But that's thinking in terms of conventional
warfare. In the 21st century, I suspect that most warfare will be carried
out by unconventional means (guerilla war, economic war, information
war, etc). So conventional military thinking is of less value than in the
past.

The US invasion of Iraq was heavily dependent on satellite technology,
something they are keenly aware of.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany