PS COLUMN

September 26, 2008

The success of Chinese manned spaceship, Shenzhou 7

Morning papers of September 26 issued an eye-catching article that China launched three manned spacecraft and successfully put it on the orbit around the earth. The article was to report that Shenzhou 7 launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia at 9:00pm on Sept. 25 (JST: 10pm) was inserted onto the orbit around the earth at the altitude of 343km. One of the three astronauts is reported to do China’s first extra vehicle activity in the afternoon of 27th and to recover experimental equipment attached outside of the probe. After completion of extra vehicle activity they will test launching a small satellite. Various kinds of activity seem to be carried out onboard during 68 short hours of flight time.

Shenzhou 7 is the spaceship for the third time for China and this time China is to demonstrate all-out actual performances of manned space activity including extra vehicle activity. This may prove that China joined on the rank of “Great Space Nation” along with the USA and Russia. Chinese people must be very proud of the success of Shenzhou 7 in addition to hosting Olympics last month.

And now, manned space activity of our country is being carried out onboard International Space Station (ISS) in collaboration with the USA and other European countries. Astronaut Wakata is scheduled to stay onboard ISS for three months from February next year and to complete construction of our experimental module “KIBO”.

As of now, however, no plan of our own manned spaceship is under study yet. Manned space flight requires high-technology to meet very high reliability and also tremendous amount of money is needed. Manned space activity is no doubt very exciting but I do not necessarily see the need to do it all alone by ourselves. It is a difficult problem indeed to seek the balance somewhere between national dream and the reality. I think many people want to have a common ground to discuss the issue but at the moment there is, regrettably, no such opportunity.

My personal opinion is that manned space activity is better be carried out through international cooperation, because it is concerned with the future of entire mankind. China, too, will someday recognize the importance of international collaboration for whole mankind rather than an exclusive space activity, particularly when to think of maximum happiness of Chinese people as a whole. I now personally would like to propose an idea of starting collaboration on space technology just between Japan and China.