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NEWS > SCIENCE > CHINA MAKES FRESH MOVES TO TAKE OVER SPACE
CHINA MAKES FRESH MOVES TO TAKE OVER SPACE
November 8 2011
Beijing, China – For a little while, in the early days of space exploration, there were two players. Those two players essentially invented space travel and have continued to be the biggest players in the field to this day. Today, though, the market has 
changed. New competitors have entered the field and made it difficult for those formerly big players to keep up, leaving them further and further behind in the effort to gain dominance over space.
One of the biggest of those new players has been China which, until recently, seemed to be just another start-up, a wannabe with no real clout. However last week, with the docking of two spacecraft, China made a major step forward in their efforts to become a dominant space power, a move that has many here on Earth concerned the Chinese dream of dominating both Earth and Heavens may be one step closer, and possibly inevitable.
“It's a huge technical leap forward. We will do more two more rendezvous and docking flights next year. After that, we will begin the construction of a space laboratory and space station,” said Wu Ping, a spokesperson for the Chinese space program. 
The lab is expected to be operational by 2016 and the space station by 2020, which would essentially the Chinese alone in near space.
From that point, it’s not clear what the Chinese intentions are, but it’s probably not good for other space engineers.
“At the type of pace the Chinese are setting it really won’t be long until they have almost complete control of the area around Earth, which appears to be what they are going for. They haven’t announced any grand plans for exploration of the Moon or Mars, they appear to be keeping things close to the vest, close to Earth, which could be problematic for everyone else,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “After all, you would need to go through them to go anywhere else. They could use that dominance to prevent people from passing or for setting tariffs for transit. Either way, it’s pretty clear that China will be the gatekeeper going forward.”
The International Space Station will still be operational when the Chinese facilities launch, but it’s believed likely that the Chinese will quickly establish a number of cheaply built stations throughout the near orbit.
“The ISS is much larger than the planned Chinese station, but unfortunately it will be controlled by so many entities that any effort to platform it outwards will likely fall away, especially when you have the U.S. and Russia being the two biggest partners. That will not be an issue with the Chinese station, they will only have themselves to deal with,” continued Poe. “Once they start to proliferate throughout the area there will be no real stopping them. Pretty soon we will see Chinese space stations all over the sky and we will have no option but to deal with them. By that time though we may not even notice, we may actually want to deal with them because we are so used to them.”
China had no comment on further expansion at this time.
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
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