China CP
China CP
Text
Solvency – General
Solvency – He-3 Mining
Moon Treaty Solves
AT Not Ratified
Solvency – SPSS
Net Benefit – China Development
Net Benefit – Natural Disasters
Solvency – WFIRST
CCP Net Benefit
1NC
Yes Collapse
Space Solves Brain Drain
High-Tech Workers Good – Econ
High-Tech Workers Good – CCP Stability
CCP Collapse Bad – GP Wars
CCP Collapse Bad – US-China War
CCP Collapse Bad – Econ
AT Space Mil
No Space Mil
No Impact
AT Perm
No Solvency – Illegal
Links to Politics
Links to CCP Net Benefit
Text
Counterplan text: the People’s Republic of China should ______[insert mandates of aff plan]
Solvency – General
China’s space capabilities are well-funded and coordinated
Louise Watt, staff writer for the AP, 7-11-2011, “China's Space Program Shoots for Moon, Mars, Venus,” AP,
This year, a rocket will carry a boxcar-sized module into orbit, the first building block for a Chinese space station. Around 2013, China plans to launch a lunar probe that will set a rover loose on the moon. It wants to put a man on the moon, sometime after 2020.While the United States is still working out its next move after the space shuttle program, China is forging ahead. Some experts worry the U.S. could slip behind China in human spaceflight — the realm of space science with the most prestige."Space leadership is highly symbolic of national capabilities and international influence, and a decline in space leadership will be seen as symbolic of a relative decline in U.S. power and influence," said Scott Pace, an associate NASA administrator in the George W. Bush administration. He was a supporter of Bush's plan — shelved by President Barack Obama — to return Americans to the moon.China is still far behind the U.S. in space technology and experience, but what it doesn't lack is a plan or financial resources. While U.S. programs can fall victim to budgetary worries or a change of government, rapidly growing China appears to have no such constraints."One of the biggest advantages of their system is that they have five-year plans so they can develop well ahead," said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry. "They are taking a step-by-step approach, taking their time and gradually improving their capabilities. They are putting all the pieces together for a very capable, advanced space industry."In 2003, China became the third country to send an astronaut into space on its own, four decades after the United States and Russia. In 2006, it sent its first probe to the moon. In 2008, China carried out its first spacewalk.China's space station is slated to open around 2020, the same year the International Space Station is scheduled to close. If the U.S. and its partners don't come up with a replacement, China could have the only permanent human presence in the sky.
Chinese space program is flourishing
Mark Brown, space correspondent for Wired UK, 7-12-2011, “China's space programme flourishes while the United States flounders,” Wired UK,
But China now has a chance to catch up, as the United States' space programme is crippled by budgetry constraints. America's last shuttle launched earlier this month, and Nasa will now have to use Russian Soyuz capsules and commercial rockets to carry out manned missions. China's space programme, on the other hand, is flourishing. The country plans to send a small module into orbit this year as it begins building a rival to the International Space Station. The floating space lab will be smaller than the ISS, but it will open the same year that the ISS is scheduled to close down: 2020. If the International Space Station -- which is jointly owned by the US, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European countries -- doesn't get a successor, it could mean that China will have the only permanent settlement in space. By 2013, China also wants to have launched a new lunar probe to drop a rover onto the surface of the Moon. After 2020, the country plans to land a man on the rocky satellite. From there, the country's options open even further. "We first need to do a good job of exploring the moon and work out the rocket, transportation and detection technology that can then be used for a future exploration of Mars or Venus," Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's Moon-exploring programme, told the Associated Press.
More evidence
Taylor Dinerman, space and defense analyst for the Hudson Institute, 7-7-2011, “China's Continuing Drive For Space Power,” Hudson New York,
Sometime between now and the end of this year, China plans to launch the first module of its new space station, confirming that China is determined to become a full-fledged, independent, comprehensive, world class power in outer space. China's methodical strategy of pursing mutually-supporting civil, commercial and military space activities is beginning to pay off. Space launch rockets can lift both civilian and military satellites; sensor technology can be adapted for both science and spying; communications systems are equally able to transmit orders to go to war or orders for children's toys. China's civil space projects include not only the space station and the manned Shenzhou capsules that will carry its Taikonauts to it and back, but also deep space probes such as the Chang'e 2 probe, which has now been dispatched from lunar orbit to a point almost a million miles from Earth. Its commercial activities until now have been limited to communications satellites and occasionally selling low-cost space launch services. US ITAR (International Trade in Armaments Regulations) technology export rules have, effectively prevented China from becoming a major player in the commercial space field. This has occurred in spite of efforts by some European aerospace firms to circumvent US restrictions by building so-called "ITAR Free" satellites.
Solvency – He-3 Mining
China can do it
Casey Kazan, columnist for the Daily Galaxy, 7-2-2008, “Is Helium 3 Exploitation China's Hidden Lunar Agenda?” The Daily Galaxy,
Earlier this year, shortly after Russia claimed a vast portion of the Arctic sea floor, accelerating an international race for the natural resources as global warming opens polar access, China has announced plans to map "every inch" of the surface of the Moon and exploit the vast quantities of Helium-3 thought to lie buried in lunar rocks as part of its ambitious space-exploration program.OuyangZiyuan, head of the first phase of lunar exploration, was quoted on government-sanctioned news site ChinaNews.com describing plans to collect three dimensional images of the Moon for future mining of Helium 3: "There are altogether 15 tons of helium-3 on Earth, while on the Moon, the total amount of Helium-3 can reach one to five million tons.""Helium-3 is considered as a long-term, stable, safe, clean and cheap material for human beings to get nuclear energy through controllable nuclear fusion experiments," Ziyuan added. "If we human beings can finally use such energy material to generate electricity, then China might need 10 tons of helium-3 every year and in the world, about 100 tons of helium-3 will be needed every year."Helium 3 fusion energy - classic Buck Rogers propulsion system- may be the key to future space exploration and settlement, requiring less radioactive shielding, lightening the load. Scientists estimate there are about one million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year.Thermonuclear reactors capable of processing Helium-3 would have to be built, along with major transport system to get various equipment to the Moon to process huge amounts of lunar soil and get the minerals back to Earth.With China's announcement, a new Moon-focused Space Race seems locked in place. China made its first steps in space just a few years ago, and is in the process of establishing a lunar base by 2024. NASA is currently working on a new space vehicle, Orion, which is destined to fly the U.S. astronauts to the moon in 13 years, to deploy a permanent base.Russia, the first to put a probe on the moon, plans to deploy a lunar base in 2015. A new, reusable spacecraft, called Kliper, has been earmarked for lunar flights, with the International Space Station being an essential galactic pit stop.The harvesting of Helium-3 on the moon could start by 2025. Our lunar mining could be but a jumping off point for Helium 3 extraction from the atmospheres of our Solar System gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter.
Recent launches prove
Casey Kazan, writer for the Daily Galaxy, 10-3-2010, “China Launches Second Moon Mission: Is Mining Rare Helium 3 an Ultimate Goal?” The Daily Galaxy,
On Friday China marked 61 years of communist rule with the launch of the Chang'e-2 lunar orbiter. The Chang'e-2, which is a part of the country’s second lunar probe, blasted off from an isolated corner of Sichuan province just some seconds before 7 a. m. EDT. The launch will provide a boost to China’s ambition to emerge as a major space power capable of landing a man on the moon and perhaps one day exploring far beyond. The rocket will shoot the craft into the trans-lunar orbit, after which the satellite is expected to reach the Moon in about five days. Chang'e-2 will be used to test key technologies and collect data for future landings. The latest launch, to test key technologies and gather data, is China's second lunar mission. China says it will send a rover on its next mission, and it also has ambitions to put humans on the surface of the lunar body at some future date. The Xinhua News Agency said Chang'e-2 would circle just 15km (nine miles) above the rocky terrain in order to take photographs of possible landing locations. This is China's second lunar probe - the first was launched in 2007. The craft stayed in space for 16 months before being intentionally crashed on to the Moon's surface. So far, only three countries have managed to independently send humans into space: China, Russia and the US. In 2008, a Chinese astronaut, fighter pilot ZhaiZhigang, performed a spacewalk - the first in his country's history. He stayed outside the Shenzhou-7 capsule for 15 minutes; the exercise was seen as key to China's ambition to build an orbiting station in the near future. Economic reasons are first and foremost of the forces driving Beijing's space endeavors, explains Dean Cheng, senior Asia analyst at think tank CNA in Washington DC. "From a civilian perspective, you are fostering the development of advanced technologies," he explains. Another driver is diplomacy. A wide-ranging space program shows the rest of the world that China had arrived on the international stage. There is also a domestic motivation: success in space helped legitimise China's regime in the eyes of its population. In 2007, shortly after Russia claimed a vast portion of the Arctic sea floor, accelerating an international race for the natural resources as global warming opens polar access, China announced plans to map "every inch" of the surface of the Moon and exploit the vast quantities of Helium-3 thought to lie buried in lunar rocks as part of its ambitious space-exploration program.
Moon Treaty Solves
Moon treaty means the resources would be shared – solves your advantages and tanks solvency for their US-key warrant
Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee, no date, “Key Objections to the Moon Treaty,” National Space Society,
“Common Heritage of Mankind” Language: Article XI of the Moon Treaty provides that “the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of [hu]mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement, in particular Paragraph 5 of this Article.” Like the identical language contained in the Law of the Sea Treaty, the “common heritage“ language of the Moon Treaty constitutes a finding that all nations of the world - whether or not they expend any effort or risk any capital - have rights to Lunar resources. This means that any effort to develop resources would require the consent of all nations, a process that would be slow, cumbersome and prone to blackmail. Ban on Property Rights: That this is the goal is made clear by Paragraph 3 of Article XI, which provides that: “neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become the property of any state, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or nongovernmental entity or of any natural person.” Without property rights, economic development of the Moon would be frustrated - unless it were conducted by the special monopolistic regime that the treaty contemplates in Article XI, Paragraphs 5 & 7. The International Regime: According to Paragraph 5 of the Treaty, there will be established “an international regime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the exploitation of the natural resources of the Moon as such exploitation is about to become feasible.” Paragraph 7 provides (among other things) that the regime shall promote “orderly and safe development [of lunar resources], rational management [of them and the] equitable sharing by all states parties in the benefits derived from those resources.” Although the Moon Treaty itself provides little guidance on what these terms mean, the very similar Law of the Sea Treaty interprets them to involve the creation of an international authority to govern or conduct all resource extraction, with a hefty share of the proceeds going to less-developed countries regardless of whether they have any investment in the activity or not. That would discourage - if not outright prevent - the development of Lunar resources any time soon.
AT Not Ratified
Still in effect – the US doesn’t need to sign it because the UN adopted it
EdythWeeks, professor of law and international relations at Webster University and Washington University in St. Louis, 1-21-2011, “What's Wrong With the Moon Treaty?” Examiner St. Louis,
The Moon Treaty is often treated as though it is not a part of the body of international space law. There exists a tendency to refer to this agreement as a failed treaty. However, after about nine years of proposals, negotiations and revisions by and between a community of nations, the United Nations General Assembly on December 5, 1979 formally adopted the finalized draft of the Moon Agreement on December 18, 1979. Thereafter, it opened for signature and ratification on December 18, 1979 (Galloway, 1980: 19). The next step, in the series of legal norms, which had been agreed upon by the international community, was for five nations to sign, ratify and deposit it with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Although it took several years, Chile, the Philippines, Uruguay, the Netherlands and Austria were the first five nations to sign and ratify this Agreement. Technically, consensus was achieved. The Moon Agreement entered into force on July 30th, 1984, which would be the “thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the fifth instrument of ratification”, since July 11, 1984 marked the date of the fifth instrument of ratification which was deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The political mood that existed within the United States in 1979-1984 created opposition to the signing of the Moon Treaty. Without the signature of the U.S., many other nations saw little reason to sign.
Solvency – SPSS
China solves – plans already exist – just need to launch
GaoJi, HouXinbin,and Wang Li, researchers at the China Academy of Space Technology, Winter 2010, “Solar Power Satellites Research in China,” Online Journal of Space Communication, Issue 16,
China's first SPS research started in the late 20th century. In the new millennium, when the energy issue became a constraint on sustainable development in China, the China Academy of Space Technology submitted to the government a "Necessity and Feasibility Study Report of SPS." Later, an SPS concept design was activated, approved and funded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). CAST's present SPS system oriented study is the first to address its key components, and to define a baseline or reference system that will allow a relatively accurate determination of mass and cost in China. The CAST SPS research team conceives that there are four imperative sections for SPS development: launching approach, in-orbit construction/multi-agents, high efficiency solar conversion and wireless transmission. Except for launch, the other aspects do not seem to be insurmountableissues for China in the upcoming years.
Net Benefit – China Development
SPS solves sustainable development for China
GaoJi, HouXinbin, and Wang Li, researchers at the China Academy of Space Technology, Winter 2010, “Solar Power Satellites Research in China,” Online Journal of Space Communication, Issue 16,