Asian Space Race: Rhetoric or Reality?

This book attempts to explore the character and counters of the investments made by various Asian states in the space arena. It is an attempt towards understanding the geopolitical and geostrategic relevance of space technologies for the Asian states. It is also an attempt to understand the nature of contest amongst the Asian states in this regard.

In recent years, the idea of Asia is generating great excitement. The resurgence of Asia is resulting as a turning point in the world history. The emerging Asia is no longer been viewed with the earlier stereotyped vision as a quagmire of poverty, illiteracy, religious fundamentalism and border disputes. The region’s different identity in terms of faiths, religions, cultures, political systems and economic inequalities is now been skillfully used by the Asian states for their own development. Various regions of Asia have acknowledged the liberal and democratic values of the West but at the same time have identified and adopted their own model linked to their respective cultures and values.

West Asia (also known as Middle East) is the westernmost portion of Asia. It is a region containing large areas of mountainous terrain and also has major desert regions. Historically, the region is famous for its kingdoms and big cities. Over centuries, the people in various parts of this region are trying to stay independent, but either the invaders or the people within the region have always tried to overpower them. Over the years in this region, the means and methods of power grabbing could have changed, but the basic instinct remains the same. The region has gained importance globally mainly because of the significant availability of the energy sources. During last three to four decades, the region has witnessed few of the major wars fought in the recent history. Presently, the region could be viewed as one of the most unstable regions in the world.

South Asia is the region of immense richness and diversity with great cultural heritage. Over centuries, it had developed trade and cultural links with the rest of the world. In the twentieth century, the region was destabilised by the cold war machinations, and in the twenty-first century, the region is facing the second Afghan War. The region is famous because of the India–Pakistan rivalry, and the US dilemma is taking Pakistan’s help to fight the global war against terrorism. In this region, mainly affected by boundary wars and internal conflicts, India is found emerging as an island of prosperity. India is the only spacefaring nation from this region. This chapter and next chapter discuss the space agendas of two important states within the region, namely, Pakistan and India.

In 1963, India’s entry into the space field made a nascent beginning from a small church in Thumba village in the southern parts of India. It started with launching of sounding rockets in 1963. At that time, the purpose behind investing in space technologies was for scientific investigations of the upper atmospheric and ionospheric phenomenon above the geomagnetic equator. In India, the geomagnetic equator passes through Thumba village (Kerala state in India). During 1960s, the only suitable building to start this job was a church in this village [1]. From this village, India launched its first sounding rocket on November 21, 1963. Over last four to five decades, India’s space programme has made significant progress and is today globally reorganised as one of the most successful programmes in recent times. India’s initial progress in the space arena was slow in comparison with the progress made by in the later days. Limited technological expertise and being an underdeveloped economy lack of financial resources were probably the key reasons for this slow growth.

East (Eastern) Asia is an extremely important region of Asia. Almost one fourth of the world’s human population live over here. The world’s second and third largest economies reside over here, and the region comprises of the only Asian state which is the permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. This chapter and following two chapters discuss the space polices of few important states within the region. This chapter highlights on the space policies of the two Koreas and Taiwan, and subsequent chapters discuss the space policies of China and Japan.

China’s space programme has been one of the most debated programmes in the recent past. Various analysts and academicians have written extensively on different aspects of this programme. This chapter offers a broad overview of the China’s space agenda. China being the most significant space player in Asia, various specifics of their space agenda are being discussed in detail in some of the other chapters of this book too. This chapter only makes brief mention of such space activities to avoid duplication.

Japan is a wonderfully unique place and could be said to be a realm of contrasts, anomalies and anachronisms. But, at the same time, it is Asia’s first modern and industrialised nation and has been involved deeply in world trade for over four decades [1]. Contemporary Japan is a great success story of twentieth century. In various fields, Japan challenged Western hegemony and succeeded in setting world-beating standards. The world admired, applauded and envied Japan. In fact during 1980s for a short period, it appeared that Japan may even dislodge the United States from global leadership positions in certain areas [2, p. 191]. It had maintained itself as the world’s second largest economy from 1968 until 2010, till the time China overtook it. This probably happened because of the ‘rise of China’ and the change in economic and political circumstances with Japan at the end of twentieth century. Again twenty-first century has arrived with certain positive impetus to take Japan towards a brighter future.

Southeast Asia a humid tropical region is located around the equator and also has various geographic contrasts too. Since the sixteenth century, the region has been under European and Japanese colonisation for many decades. Various countries in the region regained their independent existence approximately four to five decades ago. The region, in general, has been characterised by high economic growth and closer regional integration.

Rocket technology is likewise for both civilian and military applications. There are certain fundamental differences in regard to technology appreciation between space launch rockets and ballistic missiles. However, the similarity in basic science and technology makes it impossible to separate them completely or permanently. Scientists in various parts of the world (mainly Germany, erstwhile USSR, the USA and few European Nations) during the early 1920s and 1930s were attracted to the rocket development because of their interests in idea of space travel. In order to continue to develop these ideas, the scientific community engaged military sponsors in those periods.

Bartholomaeus Pitiscus (1561–1613) was a Polish theologian who first coined the term ‘trigonometry’ which is a branch of mathematics that deals with the relationship between the angles and sides of triangles. This aspect of geometry is of wide-ranging utility to various fields of science and technology. Trigonometry has various applications for measurement of distances. The techniques based on trigonometry are used in astronomy and for navigational systems which use the triangulation method to identify the position of an object.

Any satellite (or a probe) which travels to a distance of 100,000 km or more from the Earth’s surface is known to have entered the region which is normally depicted as deep space. Earth’s Moon is approximately at the distance of 400,000 km; hence, Moon missions are generally termed as deep space missions. Various other activities to reach planets like Mars, Venous or far-distance asteroid would be viewed also as part of deep space schema of the states. This chapter discusses the Asia’s agenda into deep space region. This chapter restricts itself to discuss Moon and Mars missions.

Space is playing a growing role in military activities across the globe. The 1991 Gulf War has played a significant role towards showcasing and popularising the relevance of space technologies in the military campaigns. Amongst the various satellites orbiting the Earth, some are being used for specific military purposes. However, almost all satellites have certain capabilities which could be exploited for security purposes in some form or other. This is possible because of the dual-use nature of technologies. Hence, civilian satellites could be optimally utilised for enhancing the war-fighting capability of the armed forces.

For mankind, space exploration has always been a mix of curiosity, utility and profitability. Any ambitious space plan mostly becomes successful provided trained manpower, technology support and adequate funding is available. Societal, scientific and educational requirements have been the key focus for the Asian investments in space arena. They seek space capabilities mainly to achieve developmental goals. At the same time, since the involution of their space programmes, few Asian states have dreamed big like sending manned missions to space.

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

The future imaginative exercise is especially critical in areas of security studies, international politics and for judging advancements in technology trajectory. This is because in all such arenas, the states have to grapple with the fast-paced nature of the winds of change. For states, it is important to invest in the process of long-term perspective planning. This allows them to plan for their future. Such planning is an extremely challenging task, and various scientific techniques could be used for this purpose. Such process for predicting the future could play a useful role towards developing basic appreciation of the immediate and the long-term futures. This chapter endeavours to look at the future of space programmes of few important Asian states. It identifies and examines major drivers in connection with growth of space programme and develops futuristic scenarios.

Race is essentially a contest of speed. It is about one-upmanship, it is about beating the opponent/s, and it is about demonstrating that you are better than others. Race is all about dominating, winning and signifying ‘power’. From sociology to sports and science to security, the connotation of the word ‘race’ remains the same, but only the context changes. In the realm of international politics, the race is essentially viewed as a competition amongst nation-states. Essentially, technology plays a dominating role in this race and helps to prove the superiority of the state. Particularly, the military technologies play a major role in deciding the power equations.