8Back down to Earth
As America celebrates the 50th anniversary of the
Apollo 11 lunar landing, it still struggles with the
pressures of being number one in outer space
BY THOMAS ELLISn 9 May, Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos gave a speech
outlining how his space
company, Blue Origin,
would fulfil his long-held dream of
building gigantic settlements in space
capable of housing millions of people.
Bezos’ presentation began with
the iconic footage of Neil Armstrong
descending the steps of the Apollo 11
lunar lander. “Wow!” gushed Bezos.
“If that does not inspire you, you are at
the wrong event!” Armstrong’s “small
step” has certainly inspired generations
of space enthusiasts, but reducing the
Apollo programme to a single, albeit
sublime, moment of victory overlooks
its complex legacy.
After 1969, Nasa found itself facing
a resurgent Soviet space programme
as it struggled to sustain public
enthusiasm for space exploits that
often failed to live up to the high bar
set by Apollo. In 1961, the Kennedy
administration had chosen to aim for
a crewed lunar landing as an inspira-
tional yet feasible goal to prove US
supremacy in space technology.
Eight years later, with Kennedy’s
mission accomplished, Nasa – hoping to
capitalise on the success of Apollo 11- produced the Space Task Group
Report. This expansive and expensive
proposal encompassed space stations,
Moon bases and crewed missions to
Mars. However, the Nixon Administra-
tion, eager to reduce space spending,
rejected this vision. Nasa was lucky that
its proposed new reusable spacecraft, the
Space Shuttle, survived subsequent
budget cuts.
By the second half of the 1970s,
as the tortuous and protracted develop-
ment process of the Space Shuttle
continued, concerns grew about the
United States’ slipping status in space
leadership. While America’s astronauts
were grounded as they waited for
the Shuttle to be ready, the Soviets
were launching a series of increasingly
sophisticated Salyut space stations
into orbit.
From 1978 onwards, Soviet space
stations became venues for propagandis-
tic displays of socialist solidarity, hosting
cosmonauts from the Eastern Bloc and
developing countries as part of the
‘Interkosmos’ programme. American
space pundits predicted that the Salyuts
might soon be replaced by a threatening
‘Kosmograd’ – a permanently occupied
Soviet space station. And former
Republican presidential nominee Barry
Goldwater pilloried the US for resting
on its laurels, declaring: “Our compla-Far from basking
in its lunar glory,
the US has spent
the past 50 years
glancing nervously
over its shoulder
O
Rana Mitter is
professor of the
history and politics of
modern China at the
University of Oxfordin the south-east of the country,
supplied and inspired the ceramics
industry of England.
It was only in the 19th century, as
China fell victim to the west’s imperial
modernity, that this process of innova-
tion was halted. Now it has started
again, and the 21st century may see
China become the power that the west
seeks to emulate when it thinks about
technology. Beijing is also establishing
the Belt and Road Initiative (sometimes
called the ‘new Silk Road’), a vast
infrastructure project that will create
a new China-friendly ecology of
countries, stretching from east Africa
to south-east Asia, with which Beijing
can trade and develop its network of
standards and practices.
Today’s US–China trade war is about
immediate issues, such as whether China
is being fair in opening (or not) its
markets to foreign companies. But it is
also about a wider dilemma. Will China
become the world’s most powerful
trading nation? And does America want
to stop it? That may become a conun-
drum for many other powers beyond
Washington and Beijing.Have your say Share your thoughts
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