Can India China cooperation in space materialise ?

Xi Jin Ping, President China

China is the world's largest economy, has many top Universities and great industries, the West looks upto it as a low cost manufacturing factory for the world, major companies like Apple and others survive just because of China, it has great infrastructure, but it has a lousy single party political system and scant respect for individual freedom and liberty ..

But China does everything is style and size, big scale, or so, it appears, though both China and India are the oldest civilizations of the world. India has absorbed the best from all great and benevolent cultures of the world to its advantage and is quite varied in culture and traditions across the country, whereas China has more or less a singular culture and tradition, with history recording barely very little interactions with the rest of the world over millennia.

The President Xi Jin Ping , who took over just one month after India send Mangalyaan to space on its journey to Mars, has all along since his ascendancy to power been consolidating powers. The fears now are whether  concentration of powers with a core group of people cripple Chinese development yet again, as had happened prior to 1979 ? China has been progressing rapidly and remarkably since 1979 after the cultural revolution, even though it got a Communist government in 1949, two years after India got itself liberated from the clutches of British colonialism.

Beijing, captivating pic of the skyscrapers ..

China started its official defence programme in 1949 in response to threats from US and USSR and its space programme with the first sounding rockets around 1960. It has developed in many aspects in space technology. An area where China finds itself lagging behind India is in inter-planetary expeditions. It finds itself trailing behind India miserably. Though it has been trying for the past many years, it has failed miserably in trying to reach inter planetary space and land on other planets in the solar system.. Click here for detailed reading on India's level of preparedness ..

After conquering Mars innovatively using the less powered PSLV rocket, India is pushing itself forward with great force.. It is spreading its wings to reach Jupiter and Venus..

Some basic details of Jupiter (from wikipedia ....)

Planet Jupiter, courtesy Hubble telescope (2014) ..

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined.

Radius: 69,911 km

Mass: 1.898 × 10^27 kg 

Gravity: 24.79 m/s²

Surface area: 61.42 billion km² (earth surface area is just 510 million, ie. half a billion sq km, 70% of which is covered by water)

Orbits: Sun

Moons: Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe and 60 others .. total 67

Jupiter is approximately more than 11 times the radius of the earth and 4200 times the volume of earth .. It has has approximately 3x the gravitational force on earth, ie. a person weighing 80 kgs on earth would weigh approximately 240 kgs on Jupiter .. The shortest route to Jupiter may take anywhere from 26 to 33 months to reach this largest planet in the solar system..

Great learning for the rest of the world .. Courtesy WSJ ..

India's plans to reach Venus and Jupiter is bound to unsettle China's attitude to a growing and powerful India. India would always welcome China if it shows its true worth and ingenuity and is able to compete on merit and catch up with India, than just being an emulator of other countries missions. When India launched Mangalyaan in a 3 day window in early November 2013 (5 Nov 2013), China too had tried a satellite for Mars with a powerful Russian rocket about 2 years back in 2011 but failed miserably as the Russian rocket failed to develop the thrust needed to take the spacecraft out of earth's gravitational pull.

Science can develop in a country only if its people are given freedom and creativity to think innovatively. It is high time China learns a lesson or two from the rest of the world. It should relax its stranglehold on its people permitting more freedom, fostering innovation and creativity among its people .. And India would always wish well for China if it is willing to have healthy and credible cooperation with India in space ..

As the former US President Franklin Roosevelt has once told,

Competition is found to be useful only upto a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off ..

Developing an atmosphere of trust and co-operation between India and China is what is needed as that will only help the benefits of science, technology and telecomunication reach the common man ..

If China and India cooperates in space research, the results could be far reaching and eclipse all other human achievements so far .. 

george..