Ben Bova: China joins world's most exclusive club

And the news media, by and large, yawned.

Why has the People's Republic of China (to give the nation's proper name) spent an estimated $2.2 billion to allow Lt. Col. Yang Liwei, 38, to spend a little more than 21 hours in orbit? The answer, of course, is politics -- on several levels.

Both the Russian and American space programs were born in Cold War politics. In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev was head of Soviet Russia. He wanted to prove to the world that the USSR had technical expertise equal to or even better than the West's.

By launching the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in 1957, the Soviets showed that they had rockets powerful and accurate enough to drop a hydrogen bomb on any city on Earth.

In the United States rocket development had been stalled by academic analyses that told the Pentagon there was no need for large rocket boosters. When, in the early 1950s, U.S. radars on the periphery of Soviet territory saw the Russians flying ballistic missiles over ranges of thousands of miles, the United States launched a secret crash program to catch up to the Soviet lead.

This all became public in the 1960 presidential race, with John Kennedy citing a "missile gap" between the two superpowers.

Once JFK entered the White House, the Soviets scored another space first: Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to fly in space. Kennedy, saddled with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and stalled at every turn by a recalcitrant Congress, electrified the world by pushing to put Americans on the moon. In less than 10 years.

Thus began the well-publicized "space race." The United States won that race. NASA succeeded so brilliantly that today it looks almost easy. It wasn't. Men died. But in 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon.

Since then there hasn't been a political motivation for our work in space. The Soviet Union, of course, collapsed and Russia is hard-pressed economically to continue its own space effort.

Scientific exploration of the stars and planets with robotic spacecraft is proceeding, but the human presence in space is now limited to the International Space Station, orbiting a scant few hundred miles above the Earth. Robot spacecraft are on their way to Mars, but there are no plans for humans to go beyond Earth orbit.

Into this scenario come the Chinese, with their first man in space.

By American standards, the People's Republic of China is not a wealthy nation, despite claiming a gross national product of $4.8 trillion, second only to the United States' $9.25 trillion. Many economists feel that China's GNP numbers are heavily exaggerated by the Beijing government.

Even taken at its face value, with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, that $4.8 trillion GNP comes down to about $4,400 per capita, less than the per-capita income of Spain, or Greece, or even Malta.

But in China, the government's decisions on how to spend its money are not constrained by the will of the people. Beijing can pump a relatively large percentage of the nation's GNP into its space program.

Why? To echo a question that is frequently asked in America, why does China spend billions on space and ignore the needs of its poor? The first reason that comes to mind is national prestige. China's leaders want the rest of the world's respect. They want to see China attain what they consider to be its rightful place among the great powers.

The Chinese have had nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to carry them for decades. They have been orbiting satellites for almost as long. By putting a man in space, however, they are showing the world in a very dramatic fashion that their technological prowess is second to none.

Undoubtedly Beijing's ruling elite benefits from this accomplishment in the eyes of their own people. Does the average Chinese glow with pride at the fact that one of his or her countrymen has flown in space? If so, that glow reflects on China's leaders. Even in a nation under one-party rule, the leaders want their people to admire them.

The Chinese space program is under the control of the People's Liberation Army, and this space accomplishment strengthens the army's hand in the political infighting among various segments of the Beijing government.

Western analysts now believe that China will send more soldiers into space, following the steps that the USSR and United States took earlier to ascertain what military role humans might play in space. Probably China will orbit a space station of its own, for long-term military surveillance missions.

The Shenzu 5 capsule that Col. Liwei flew most likely carried both optical and electronic surveillance systems, designed to observe the ground beneath the orbiting spacecraft and eavesdrop on electronic communications.

Both the American and Russian space leaders came to the conclusion that humans are of limited military use in space. Missions of surveillance, communications, navigation and targeting can be done quite well with robotic spacecraft. Faced with the same physical facts, the Chinese will probably come to the same conclusion.

But humans can do much more in space. One of the primary purposes of the International Space Station is to eventually serve as a platform for a wide variety of medical, physical, and industrial research.

If and when the Chinese are ready to join us on this new frontier, we should be prepared to welcome them.

Naples resident Ben Bova worked in space development two years before the creation of NASA. His latest futuristic novel is "Saturn," part of his "Grand Tour" series of books. Dr. Bova's Web site address is www.benbova.net.