Over the last month, we in America have been completely fascinated with the twists and turns of elections. In addition to that drama, the rapid collapse of the financial sector and the wild gyrations of the stock market indices made sure that every day, and sometimes even every minute, brought news that we could not have imagined.
If we had diverted our attention a little bit away from this country, we would have found out that while all these were happening, China and India had ascended to new heights. Literally.
On Sept. 26, a Chinese astronaut (yuhangyuan) ventured outside the space craft and waved a Chinese flag while spending 15 minutes walking around in space. Quite an achievement and an emphatic statement on how far the country has come since Deng Xiaoping put China on a new economic trajectory in 1978.
With this spacewalk, China became the third country in history, after the United Sttes and the former Soviet Union, to have one of its citizens engage in, as NASA describes it, extra-vehicular activity. China’s goal is sending a man to the moon, which might happen as early as 2020.
As China was celebrating, India was getting ready to launch its first unmanned mission to the moon. On Oct. 22, “Chandrayaan”, which means “lunar craft” in Sanskrit, was launched. It is expected to reach the lunar orbit in 15 days. Furthermore, India’s space agency has already begun planning for Chandrayaan-II. Interestingly enough, Chandrayaan is carrying payloads for other space agencies as well, including NASA.
Of course, China and India are pursuing these to also improve their global standing and to remind the world that they are important players, as if their combined population of more than 2.2 billion people does not provide enough of a rationale by itself. In many different contexts, from the affairs of the United Nations to international discussions on global climate change, these two countries have made it clear that they will not put up with a Rodney Dangerfield-like “I-don’t-get-no-respect” treatment.
The good thing is that we are not in an ideological cold war with China or India, as we were with the Soviet Union. But, we could, and should, use these Asian space adventures as catalysts to shape our larger goals for the 21st century.
I hope that the new president and Congress will see this as the Sputnik-like wake-up call for America’s 21st century. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik-1 in October 1957, and then sent a dog into space in Sputnik-2 in November 1957. Sputnik awakened and re-energized the United States and 12 years later, Neil Armstrong was on the moon.
It might seem rather incongruous, perhaps even professorial, to highlight these extra-terrestrial developments when there seem to be more urgent issues such as the economic recession, home foreclosures, rising unemployment, and, of course, such a list is endless. But, even as we focus on the pressing issues of the day, I would argue that it is equally important to have a clear idea of the bigger picture — including our vision for deep space explorations.
We are almost at the end of the first decade in this new century, but it feels like all through these years we have only been reacting to global events as opposed to charting our own destiny. Our social and political discussions have been framed strictly as responses to, for instance, economic competition from China, immigration from Mexico, or the atrocious activities of al-Qaeda.
The economic competition will get fiercer as more and more countries develop, and we ought to welcome such economic progress that pulls people out of abject poverty. And perhaps al-Qaeda might continue to affect life and property around the world for a few more years.
At some point we need to stop and ask ourselves, “quo vadis” — the old Latin phrase meaning “whither goest thou?” Thanks to China and India, we now have a wonderful opportunity to ask ourselves this question.
And our answer is ... ?
For The Register-Guard
Published: Nov 4, 2008
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