At the 2009 Sino-American summit, President Obama committed the
US to dispatching the head of NASA to China, in return for a
reciprocal visit by his “appropriate Chinese counterpart,” i.e.,
a player to be named later. A year later, NASA Administrator
Bolden has visited China (although it remains unclear to what
end), yet there is no sign that an “appropriate Chinese
counterpart” has even been designated. This should be a warning
sign, since China’s presence in space has been steadily
improving. In 2010, China launched a record 15 satellites, the
first time since the Cold War that any state has matched the
rate of American launches in a year. In 2011, China will launch
the Tiangong-1, a spacelab, and engage in docking maneuvers with
their Shenzhou spacecraft. Meanwhile, China is striving to
complete its indigenous Beidou navigation satellite system, a
rival to the American GPS system, and is steadily outpacing
Europe’s moribund Galileo program. And China’s network of Yaogan
remote sensing satellites, capable o