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A image captured at Beijing Aerospace Control Center on March 2 shows Shenzhou-17 astronaut Tang Hongbo performing extravehicular activities. Photo: Xinhua
Opinion
Quentin Parker
Quentin Parker

It’s not rocket science: Hong Kong needs to jump on Chinese space bandwagon

  • Top-tier cities in mainland China are planning to foster commercial space ecosystems of their own
  • Mainland NewSpace companies are keen to connect to the world through Hong Kong. The city’s government should take note
Quentin Parker
Quentin Parker
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I’ve just returned from a mission to Beijing to seek partners for not only scientific space research but also commercial “NewSpace” endeavours.

Attending six meetings in 2½ days was exhausting yet exhilarating. Why? Because the mood music from every group we met, whether in the halls of academia or the boardrooms of private companies, is effectively the same.

We found ourselves in a “can-do” atmosphere humming with excitement about what the future may hold, an impatience to act, a keenness to deliver, and fervour for all things space.

This was apparent not just from national space projects (as exemplified by the lunar and Mars programmes, the space station and a soon-to-be-installed space telescope), but also from the flurry of activity in the rapidly expanding commercial realm.

On the mainland, commercial space activities are seen as an incubator and facilitator of new industries and technologies for the longer-term wealth and health of a developed nation. No short-termism here, unlike among many Western governments.

China’s aims include developing and improving overall space capabilities, growing its economic footprint in the commercial space sector, as well as real and meaningful international collaboration.

This intent is not new, but it is earnest. For example, the Chinese government’s 2022 white paper, “China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective”, mentions “international” 59 times and “cooperation” 39 times.

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China’s Shenzhou 16 mission sends its first civilian astronaut into space

China’s Shenzhou 16 mission sends its first civilian astronaut into space

Top-tier cities on the mainland are clearly paying attention to this mood music. Beijing and Shanghai both recently revealed impressive plans to foster commercial space ecosystems of their own. Hong Kong should take note.

At the same time, there is a real eagerness, far stronger than I expected, among mainland NewSpace companies to reach out to Hong Kong. This is because of their strong belief in Hong Kong, whose special status as a meeting point of East and West, and of opportunity and pragmatic cooperation, remains concrete.

The city is able to provide avenues, however indirect, for international linkages, cooperation and partnerships that are more difficult to navigate from the mainland. It’s also about winning overseas customers.

Old Hong Kong has no future? Good, merge it with Shenzhen

This belief persists, despite well-known headwinds and all-too-frequent blasts of Western propaganda about Hong Kong being finished or living off the fumes of past glories. I do not agree with such a negative view, and to my knowledge, it has not infected much mainland thinking about Hong Kong. However, I do think our city needs to be more in tune with the national mood, and more aware of the burgeoning opportunities in NewSpace.

I am also reflecting on the successful test flight of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship – the most powerful rocket ever built. The visionary billionaire has, by any measure, built the most successful private space enterprise the world has seen.
SpaceX has pioneered reusable rockets (which China’s LandSpace is also developing), SpaceX Dragon capsules take astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and the constellation of operational SpaceX Starlink satellites has grown to 5,442 as of this month, out of a planned 12,000.

Against this international backdrop of large-scale commercial space operations, smaller enterprises are very active and new start-ups are proliferating.

The global space economy, currently valued at about HK$3 trillion (US$384 billion) by Bryce Tech, could reach HK$7 trillion in the next decade or so. A Chinese Elon Musk is not such a ridiculous prospect.

And yet, despite the unique strengths Hong Kong continues to enjoy under “one country, two systems”, and which could be tapped to explore opportunities in NewSpace, the government seems curiously unmoved.

This is even more difficult to fathom in the context of the massive plan to develop the Northern Metropolis. For all its much-touted smart and green credentials, the mega project is missing the ground-to-sky sensing technologies and integrated planning needed to make everything work.

In the meantime, our elite institutions such as Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Hong Kong are playing their part and setting the pace. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has launched a satellite from the mainland, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong is increasingly involved in the mainland space sector. And Hong Kong’s Orion Astropreneur Space Academy (OASA) continues to fight the good fight.

Let’s hope government policy will shift, and the green light will be given for NewSpace to help turbocharge our smart city.

Quentin Parker is an astrophysicist based at the University of Hong Kong and director of its Laboratory for Space Research

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