China successfully lands a rover on Mars

China has successfully landed a rover on Mars, joining the U.S. and the former Soviet Union as the only other countries to land on the red planet. CBSN contributor Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of Strategy Risks, spoke with Lana Zak about what this means for the future of space exploration.

Video Transcript

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LANA ZAK: In space watch, China has successfully landed a rover on Mars, joining the US and the former Soviet Union as the only other countries to land on the Red Planet. The China National Space Administration says it took more than 17 minutes after landing the rover to send signals to ground controllers. Now that it's on Mars, it will collect data from the planet's soil and atmosphere. The rover is equipped with six scientific instruments, including a high-resolution topography camera.

For more now, I want to bring in CBSN contributor Isaac Stone Fish. Isaac is the founder of Strategy Risks, which provides research and analysis on China's impact on businesses. Isaac, usually when we are talking about US-China relations, we're talking about some of these bigger issues that feel more zero-sum. It's nice, actually, to switch gears a little bit. I'm hoping you can tell us just how big of an achievement is this and what this means in terms of Chinese space exploration.

ISAAC STONE FISH: It is nice. This is, compared to the other stories that we often talk about, like you were saying, much more benign and a really great achievement that shows, in many ways, the ingenuity-- I would argue less about the Chinese Communist Party and more about many of the brilliant Chinese scientists who made this happen.

LANA ZAK: Yeah, and on that note, how does China's landing on Mars affect US space exploration, global space exploration? Do you think that this will prompt other countries to continue investing more in potential scientific technologies that might benefit all of humankind?

ISAAC STONE FISH: I hope so. There's so many comparisons drawn between the US and China today to the US and the Soviet Union, and it's difficult to know how much the space race that the US fought and won against the Soviet Union will replicate itself with the US and China today. So what China did by successfully landing a rover on Mars was something that the United States did in the '70s, so it's not a Sputnik moment-- a reference to that famous satellite launch that the Soviets did in the '50s that really sped up US scientific research and development. But this is certainly a sign that China is playing this game at a very, very high level.

LANA ZAK: Well, let's get into some of the nitty-gritty details. Tell us where the rover landed, how scientists were able to get it to its destination, and anything more about, you know, in comparison, as you were starting to bring up, to the other times that we actually had either the Soviet or the US rovers there to try and advance some of this scientific exploration.

ISAAC STONE FISH: The lander landed on what is called Utopia Plane. And scientists in the US and in China described the landing part as seven minutes of terror and nine minutes of terror because that's often the most challenging part of the entire process, getting the details exactly right when you have so, so many different variables to figure out to really land that landing.

And what this rover seems to be wanting to do is trying to figure out that really pressing scientific question about the state of water or ice on Mars, the state of life on Mars, and whether or not the ice there could potentially sustain astronauts who are eventually going to visit Mars and then possibly, at some point in the future, sustain human life for the potential for any sort of colonies that might be able to be put there at some point in our lifetime or the lifetime of our children.

LANA ZAK: It is exciting to think about that. And it does seem like this is the latest in many different efforts from countries-- from all different countries to try and advance space exploration and our understanding of the cosmos. How does China's current mission fit into sort of a greater perspective about what China hopes to accomplish, in terms of space goals?

ISAAC STONE FISH: It's very difficult to know if what Beijing says it's looking for in space, which is peaceful development with the rest of the world, is what they're actually looking for or if it is a question of being a great power, being the greatest power, and using potential dominance in space to exert influence over other countries. I think, in many ways, this space race will reflect the US-China tensions more broadly. And the worse things are, the more contentious things will be in space, especially if the NASA space station that's due to be decommissioned in roughly 2024-- unless there's much bigger investment and push on that, it could be that the Chinese, in several years, are the only ones with a functioning space station in space, and that is going to be an intensely political tool for them. And the countries that they work with on that, they are going to exert a political cost for that in other parts of the relationship.

LANA ZAK: Interesting. It may spur a little healthy scientific competition. Isaac Stone Fish, thank you.

ISAAC STONE FISH: Exactly. Thank you.