Asia’s current space race could turn into an arms race akin to the Cold War, according to James Clay Moltz, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He makes that argument in a recent Nature commentary.

The major Asian nations, including China, Japan, India, and South Korea, are all expanding their space programs with little-to-no cooperation. These efforts are driven by national prestige and geopolitical rivalries, similar to the US-Soviet space race of the 1960s. Like that period, this space race is stimulating technological advances, but competing agendas are leading to duplication of work and mistrust—in other words, a waste of resources. Even worse, this competition is undermining recent cooperation between the US, Russia, and Europe.

Unlike the Western Hemisphere, Asia doesn’t have any regional security organizations like NATO, the EU, or CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization, a post-USSR followup to the Warsaw Pact). Add to this long-standing feuds between specific nations—China-India, India-Pakistan, North Korea-South Korea, China-Japan, Vietnam-China, to name a few—and increasing military tensions, says Moltz, and you have a civilian space race that could turn into an arms race.

Competing for space

China, Japan, and India, the three Asian leaders in space, are all increasing their launch activity as they deploy satellite constellations for both civilian and military uses. China had the same number of launches as the US (15) last year, while Japan had two and India three. Japan’s annual space budget is the highest, at $3.8 billion, compared to China’s estimated $2.2 billion and India’s $1.3 billion. But China and India have an estimated 80,000 and 32,000 civilian space personnel, respectively, to Japan’s 8,300. For comparison, NASA’s 2011 budget is $18.724 billion and it carries about 19,000 employees.

Each of these nations has performed separate lunar-mapping missions since 2007, with planned follow ups of rovers, landers, and lunar bases—but no cooperation, even though a lot of the work will be redundant.

Japan has the most human spaceflight experience, with 15 manned flights since 1992 and a membership in the International Space Station, but it has always hitchhiked with the US or Russia; the country doesn’t have its own personnel transport vehicle. China launched its first astronaut in 2003 (via the Shenzhou-5), with multiple followups since. Most recently, it launched the Tiangong-1, an orbital test module for a planned 2020 space station. India, threatened by China’s recent rise, announced a planned manned flight in 2016.

In addition to human spaceflight efforts, the three major nations are also building their own supplements to the US-maintained Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network. GPS is freely accessible but foreign nations are understandably concerned about relying on technology controlled by the US government. China has already deployed one third of its planned 35-satellite BeiDou network. Japan—a close US ally, and therefore likely more comfortable using GPS—is building the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), a three-satellite augmentation to GPS to better cover South Asia. India also plans to launch a South Asian satellite network, called the GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (or GAGAN) System.

(Note: the Nature article describes the QZSS as a planned four-satellite system, but a JAXA [Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan’s NASA] website only mentions three.)

Smaller Asian nations, like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan, are also building their own satellite-communications networks with help from larger partners, both in Asia and abroad. China, India, and Japan are also cooperating in some ways with US, Europe, and Russia, but not with each other.

Recently, some of the previously civilian-only space development started to move into military applications, specifically satellite interceptors. China destroyed an old satellite in 2007 with a ground-based weapon, creating more than 3,000 pieces of orbital debris. In response, both India and Japan announced offensive and defensive anti-satellite weapons.

Opportunities for cooperation

The biggest question in the face of this rising tension is, of course: what should be done? Getting the big three (China, Japan, and India) to cooperate on space development probably isn’t quite as difficult as the US and Soviet Union during the 1960s-era space race (although the same can’t be said for South and North Korea), but space relations are intrinsically linked to regional politics and rivalries.

To their credit, China and Japan both formed regional space groups: the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) and Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF), respectively, but there hasn’t been any cooperation between the groups, and members of each are limited to less-developed nations such as Bangladesh, Mongolia, Peru, and Thailand.

In addition, the recent natural disasters in the region sparked some data exchanges and networking among nations; APSCO and APRSAF could cooperate more in this area. China, Japan, and India also joined NASA’s Global Exploration Strategy, and expressed interest in data exchanges under the umbrella of the International Lunar Network. Moltz suggests that a human spaceflight initiative between China and Japan, like the US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz docking in 1975, could help improve cooperation.

However, he says the most important issue is an easing of military tensions. The US and Soviet Union pledged satellite non-interference in 1972, but the new space powers haven’t even agreed to this yet. Orbital debris threatens the satellites and vehicles of all space-faring nations, so this might be the basis for talks aimed at ending development of satellite-killing weapons.

Another route to talks might be through the US. The government called for "responsible behavior" in space in 2010 but, due to congressional opposition, hasn’t pursued this much yet. Cooperation with China could downplay Asian rivalries and help develop shared interests in space, potentially leading towards global space efforts—exploration of space being in the interests of humankind, rather than just the citizens of specific nations.

Whether through Asian or US leadership, or a shared disaster, cooperation on space activities needs to grow to avert an arms race and potential conflict, warns Moltz.

Nature, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/480171a (About DOIs)