Rockets Falling From Space: The Dark Side Of China's Space Programme

China has some impressive achievements in space. From growing cotton in the dark side of the moon to planning a terra-lunar economic corridor, China is a space power with spectacular achievements.

The latest achievement, however, seems more like a space equivalent of Wuhan virus.

On 29 April 2021, China launched the 22.5 metric tonne Tianhe space station module from Wenchang through its largest rocket variant 'the Long March 5B'.

This launch vehicle uses a core stage and four side boosters to place its payload directly into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

While it has placed the payload into LEO, the core stage itself is unexpectedly making an uncontrolled entry into Earth and might fall somewhere on Earth.

Where it would fall is unpredictable and scientists are hoping that it would fall on some water body and not on inhabited regions. What makes the fall unpredictable is that the core-stage circles the planet once every 90 minutes.

The last infamous event of this type was the fall of Skylab.

In 1979, this unmanned space station weighing 76 tonnes fell as debris over the Indian Ocean and Australian shore. Since then, nations have been extra cautious and have avoided such mishaps.

But China is different.

The communist regimes of past and present have a unique character. They are capable of demonstrating to the world impressive achievements: Sputnik, first man in space, Chinese achievement of quantum teleportation, space achievements, and not to mention highest number of Olympic medals.

Usually, a democratic nation would catch up with these achievements later.

If it is an affluent democracy charged with a sense of national mission like the United States, the catching up and even superseding would be faster.

But if it is a developing country like India, a democracy with polity loaded in favour of centrifugal forces, then it is difficult.

India has to face anti-science protests of vested interests even to set up a neutrino observatory while China can set up world’s largest SETI dish antenna for search of extra-terrestrials making the villagers vacate without a murmur.

The same is true for Chinese space programmes. They are impressive. China has achieved so much in such a short time.

However, the human cost that has been paid for this is enormous: not just quasi-slave labour and state-sponsored caste system but also human lives sacrificed without any accountability.

It is an international norm that the launch pads of space programmes are situated such that the areas down range of the launch centres are sparsely populated. But China has no regard for such norms.

China also does not adhere to the norm of keeping the space launch pads by the ocean. Three of its launch sites are surrounded by villages. Nor does it care about the toxic fuels raining over its own population. Here are just a few of the innumerable instances of violation of norms of space programmes by Chinese.

· On 15 February 1996, the Long March 3B rocket veered off the launch route and crashed into a village. The number of causalities remains unknown to this date. This was not a stray incident, nor a thing of past.

· On 20 April 2019, China launched its 100th space mission placing a navigational satellite in a geo-synchronous orbit. As it did, the mission boosters rained toxic fuel on the downrange Chinese villages.

· In November 2019, a Long-March 3B rocket launching two Beidou satellites into orbit had its first stage booster fall into a village nearby which apart from the physical damage also filled the village with yellow smoke of a 'very toxic hypergolic propellent'. Again, the real extent of damage shall never be known.

While the successes of Chinese space programmes act as good propaganda material and attract global space-economy investors, an eerie silence, except for a few lone voices, prevails about the complete unaccountability of the Chinese space programmes.

Space expert Greg Autry is one such lone whistle blower. He contrasts China’s anti-satellite programme with that of India:

However, by and large the successes and the economic profitability that the reckless Chinese space programmes bring make the international community and media go silent over the human suffering and human cost.

Publications like The New York Times that deride India’s space programmes will not dare a cartoon against the inhuman dimensions of Chinese space programmes.

As the US scientists track the Chinese wreckage entering the planet and as we all hope that whatever is left of atmospheric friction falls in the ocean or uninhabited regions, China was busy launching an optical Earth observation satellite designed to provide detailed reconnaissance imagery to the Chinese military.