Abstract
The race between the United States and the Soviet Union to put the first satellite in orbit, then the first man in orbit and then the first manned Moon landing was repeated in a smaller way in eastern Asia in the late 1960s. Japan and China both strove to broadcast their status as modern industrial economies by placing a satellite in orbit. With the help of technology and assistance from the Soviet Union, China succeeded in launching its first satellite on April 24, 1970. Given the name “The East is Red 1” and broadcasting the song of the same name, it is still in orbit today due to the relatively high altitude its launcher achieved, with the high point of its elliptical orbit more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) above Earth. However its radio stopped transmitting after about three weeks.
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Notes
- 1.
Literal translation of “Dongfanghong 1.”
- 2.
Interviews witnessed by the author in 2006 on English language state television in China.
- 3.
Some of Mao’s policies were probably as much to do with strengthening his personal position in power as with improving the Chinese economy.
- 4.
The full implication of the Trump Administration decision to create a Space Force as a fourth military branch (alongside army, navy and air force) remains to be seen, but initially it appears to maintain a focus on robotic spacecraft. Some of those spacecraft may have more aggressive missions than is currently the case, such as attacking other spacecraft.
- 5.
Some commentators dispute the lead role of the Chinese military in the manned space programme, e.g.: [2].
- 6.
See for example [3].
- 7.
Such as senior politicians turning up for the launch or other media-frequented milestones of such missions but otherwise showing no interest in them.
- 8.
There are at least three different weights that are pronounced “ton.” For brevity, I use the word “ton” to signify a weight of 1,000 pounds (about 2,205 pounds) instead of “tonne” or “metric ton.” Note that in the United States and Canada, “ton” usually means 2,000 pounds, while in the rest of the world it usually means 2,240 pounds.
- 9.
After eight months, Chang’e 2 fired its engines to leave its orbit around the Moon and head into deep space, first to a point where Sun and Earth gravity neutralize each other (the 2nd Lagrangian Point). Then ten months later it proceeded outwards to fly by the asteroid Toutatis.
- 10.
August 7 in 2019, August 25 in 2020 for example.
- 11.
The policy of using mythical names for space systems was apparently initiated by Deng Xiaoping, the wily Chinese leader who set China on its present course of competing in the global market economy in the 1980s. Previously, names from the communist party’s history were used such as Long March.
- 12.
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Norris, P. (2019). China, the Communist Challenger. In: Returning People to the Moon After Apollo. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14915-4_11
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