Space: The final frontier. Unless you’re China’s Tiangong-1 space station. In which case, your final frontier is about to be a crash landing on Earth.
This is China’s Tiangong-1 space station.
It means “Heavenly Palace.” And it’s a “showcase of [China’s] growing prowess in space.”
The Tiangong-1 launch in 2011 was a great moment for China’s budding space program. It came a mere four decades after Russia launched the first space station in 1971, and America launched its first space station in 1973. 1973 was also the year Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” became a Billboard Hit. Of course, in 1973 in China, no one was listening to bourgeois Western music. And the Communist Party’s idea of space exploration back then was sending all the scientists to the countryside to be re-educated.
So all the more reason why China’s 2011 launch of Tiangong-1 was such a big deal. The launch was broadcast on state-run CCTV, which also ran this computer animation during it. There’s something about that music that just makes me feel so patriotic. Because it’s “America the Beautiful.” Oops. Sounds like someone needs to be re-educated.
But anyway, Tiangong-1 is just the beginning for China. China spends roughly 2 billion dollars a year on its space program. That’s small potatoes compared to the 18 billion NASA spends. But China’s space ambitions are growing at a time when the US’s are shrinking.
But if China growing space program has you worried, let state-run media reassure you that it’s all for totally peaceful purposes.
