Race For Space

 A few ago, subcontinental pride found anachronistic expression in a series of tit-for-tat nuclear tests. The successful launching into space of a Chinese astronaut has presented us with yet another avenue for the misdirection of patriotic fervour and precious national resources. In addition, the Chinese have also announced their intention of putting their men on the Moon by 2010.

Forty years after Yuri Gagarin walked in space, a manned space flight has largely symbolic value. Yet it is a lamentable reflection on human nature that symbols are only too readily clutched at by countries whose stock in international affairs is lower than what bitter pride would have. Fears abound, therefore, of a "space-race" that promises to derail economic and human development in the region.

`Colonisation of space'

While the U.S. has not exactly been caught off-guard by this development, China's plans for the Moon have challenged its own illogical sense of proprietorship over that piece of rock. Even a superficial study of the history of the last few centuries should suffice to convince us that the "colonisation of space" is more than a metaphor — it represents the perfect logical extension of the Western ideology of possession or expropriation by money or might. Conjoined with the happy philosophy that all resources are fair game for exploitation, it explains the U.S. anxiety over the prospect of "ceding" territory to a rival enterprise, even if the resources of the territory in question have not till date been established to be useful (a lesson the Soviets learnt the hard way after selling Alaska for a song).

Actually, though, it has been suggested that the Moon represents a good source of Helium3, an isotope of helium, considered to be the ideal fuel for controlled nuclear fusion, which promises to be a "clean" energy source. While the idea of a space battle over mining rights on the Moon may seem far-fetched, it is only because space travel has not yet developed to the point of being affordable and reliable. However, it is worth remembering that scientific advance in this century has had a tendency to be exponential, with one small breakthrough opening the floodgates for an avalanche of discoveries. The surreal nightmare of an extraterrestrial war may be upon us sooner than we think.

The intensity with which the Chinese have been pursuing their space programme over the past few years also reflects their own perception of the strategic importance of outer space in the waging of terrestrial wars, an importance that has been repeatedly underlined by recent U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, which relied heavily on satellite imaging. Already the battles of the future are being envisaged in defence establishments around the world, with talk of weapons to knock out satellites, and in turn, weapons to knock out those weapons, and so on, endlessly, in the dizzying calculations of military deterrence.

A space-race is inevitable, therefore, and it is equally inevitable that India will join in it, willy-nilly. A war without a battle lasts longer and costs more than a war with one, and we can be assured that by the time it ends (if it ever does), many millions will have sacrificed their lives to poverty for the sake of keeping the military machinery of their respective nations oiled and ready.