January 6 News Items

Editorial: Races Into Space (Source: Wall Street Journal Asia)
"...At a minimum, Washington should delay the planned 2010 retirement of the Space Shuttle until a new space plane can replace it, as a way to retain a deterring potential military capability. China's unwillingness to comment on its military space plans, coupled with the Shenlong space plane, confirms its larger aversion to military transparency. The U.S. and its allies have little choice but to develop the capabilities to defend their interests and assets in space."

China Launches Project to Monitor Space with Network of Observatories (Source: CCTV)
A major project to monitor space has been launched in Beijing. The Meridian project will create a network of ground-based observatories. The network will use a line of observatories running north to south along the 120th east longitude. They will be located in Mohe, Beijing, Wuhan, Hainan and the Zhongshan Antarctic Station. In addition, an east to west line of observatories in Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu, Lasa will run along the 30th parallel of north latitude. So far, 15 observatories are already in use.

These observatories will work together to monitor and forecast space conditions with high-tech equipment, including magneto-meters, radar and sounding rockets. Yin Hejun, member Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, " Monitoring space environment is key to space exploration activities. The Meridian project will gather space environment data, forecast space weather and provide information on dangerous space conditions. This will enhance safety in space exploration and will surely improve China's strength in this area."

Crowded Shuttle Schedule Sparks Worries (Source: Washington Post)
NASA's plan to increase the number of space shuttle flights it launches this year, in an effort to speed up final assembly of the space station, has stoked concern among independent experts that the space agency is placing scheduling demands on the 27-year-old fleet similar to those that contributed to the Challenger and Columbia disasters. NASA has scheduled six shuttle launches this year -- twice the number of flights it managed in each of the past two years -- but that plan has already been complicated by the grounding of the shuttle Atlantis as the result of a recurring electrical problem.

Although NASA has many new safety procedures in place as a result of the Columbia accident, the schedule has raised fears that the space agency, pressured by budgetary and political considerations, might again find itself tempting fate with the shuttles, which some say were always too high-maintenance for the real world of space flight.