While Russian launches fail by the dozen, threatening operations aboard the International Space Station, and the American space program stalls amid political wrangling, China is building its own space laboratory, growing its satellite network, expanding its crewed space program, upgrading its launch facilities, improving its lift vehicles and laying the foundations for a moon shot. Are we witnessing the dawn of Chinese dominance in space?
Alfred Nobel and several recipients of his namesake Peace Prize alike contributed to warfare and violence in numerous ways—a fact that some find ironic. Yet, Nobel lived at a time when scientists didn’t consider themselves responsible for how others used their inventions, and he held a view of destructive-weaponry-as-deterrent that presaged the Cold War philosophy of Mutually Assured Destruction, so perhaps there was a method to his M.A.D.-ness. As for the others I discuss in my article below, only history can judge.
