China's Real Space Plans

Everybody has a chip on their shoulder about something—many people have a whole bag of chips (or should that be a circuit board of chips?) I certainly have several, including people who won’t stand on the right and walk on the left on Washington Metro escalators (tourists!), drivers who don’t use turn signals, and just about any popular media article about the Chinese space program. The reason that media reports on China’s space program bug me is that they often seem to be out of phase with what is already known based upon Chinese reports and statements. That is still true, even as reporting on China’s human spaceflight program transitions from inaccurate stories about lunar ambitions to more accurate stories about Chinese space station plans.

The latest case in point concerns recent reports that China is beginning development of a new space station. The Chinese revealed the space station design on a New Year holiday television broadcast, around the same time that their first lunar robotic spacecraft smashed into the lunar surface. This was reported in numerous places in the western media as if it was a great revelation and a change in Chinese plans. The reality is that these plans, and the space station’s overall design, have been publicly known for nearly six months. Despite the way some in the western media have reported it, nothing has changed. In fact, popular media reporting about China’s future space plans seems more to reflect Western biases and fears than it does what the Chinese government is actually saying and doing. This is not a case of Chinese statements being unreliable; it’s a case of the Western media being inattentive.

I've known Dwayne for almost a decade now, iirc. He turns a mean phrase when it comes to space related matters, especially space history. He discusses China's real space plans (station, not moon) over at the Space Review: he also lambastes media for making silly claims about it too.