China Slams US After Space Station’s "Close Encounters"
China Has strongly criticized the US for its irresponsible behavior in outer space over two "close encounters"
between the Chinese new space station ( Tiangong) and satellites operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
These encounters have given rise to outrage against the American Billionaire, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX.
On Tuesday, Beijing indicted the US of its unsafe acts in space over two "close encounters".
Moreover, Tiangong had to change the direction to avoid collision with the One Starlink satellite in July and another in October.
It was reported in the note submitted by Beijing to the United Nations space agency this month.
Moreover, the note also reported that it had put many lives of astronauts at threat aboard China Space Station.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian also reported that
"The US... ignores its obligations under international treaties, posing a serious threat to the lives and safety of astronauts."
Although Starlink, a division of SpaceX, is a non-government space company independent of the US military and civilian space agency NASA.
But, China blames the UN that members of the Outer Space Treaty
the foundation of international space law -- are also responsible for actions by their non-government entities.
What could have happened if a collision had occurred?
A warning is given by Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that any collision could collapse the whole space station
and would likely"completely demolish" the station. Moreover, he also said that everyone would be dead on board.
Moreover, McDowell told French news agency AFP that "We've noticed the increase in the number of close passes since Starlink started getting deployed."
He added that more objects are entering the earth's orbit with higher frequency, which is the main reason behind the chances of collision between different space stations.
Tiangong has entered into orbit and is expected to become fully operational next year.
The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has been severely criticized by Beijing, although he is famous in China.
One user on Twitter commented on Weibo that
"How ironic that Chinese people buy Tesla, contributing large sums of money so Musk can launch Starlink, and then he (nearly) crashes into China's space station."
Although Tesla, Musk's electric car maker, is also very popular in China, most people are turning towards Tesla electric cars.