Perhaps man’s entry into space can be considered as an event similar to the departure of primitive man from Africa and the beginning of a new era of human evolution on Planet Earth; an ambiguous start, because of the prospect of resource depletion and towards new surprises; but the story of man’s departure from Earth to space, or to put it in a better way, the extension of human realm from Earth to space, has also become a political issue with competition.

The rivalry was initially in the form of the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States. Half a century ago, the Soviet Union first launched its first satellite into space, but then the United States snatched the ball from the Soviets. However, collapse of the Soviet Union did not end the space race.

Today, however, the scope of this competition has widened, shifting from a bipolar state to a multipolar state. Although the nature of competition is the same as the competition between the developed world of the West and the developing world of the East, a new competitor has emerged that even the quality of Russia’s future presence in this competition depends on the quality of competition and its space power. That rival, is China.

China’s strategy for developing space power has been to cooperate with Russia, but it is accelerating its activities, pursuing ambitious plans despite the 2011 law approved by the US Congress for NASA not cooperating with the Chinese Space Organization because of the threat of espionage, which were first implemented by purchasing Russian equipment to build a space station.

China is now looking to complete its third station, called the “Heavenly Palace”, which will be completed with 11 launches and will orbit the Earth for at least a decade.

The implication of the above-mentioned points is that a new rivalry has formed between the United States and China, and the probability of their spatial confrontation is very high. The trade war between the two economic powers on Earth could extend to their space war for control of space realms.

Although China in its field rivalry on the Planet Earth has not taken steps towards  arms warfare and has pursued a strategy of building dependence and debtorship, the nature of competition in space is as such that it requires at least confrontation or indirect or even soft war. Therefore, it is possible up to some extent that soft space wars or even limited space wars will be ahead.

However, China has stated that foreign astronauts can also use its station; although, the prospect of a massive effort for human habitation in space and the efforts that have been made to do so on Mars complicate matters beyond simple scientific applications.

Another aspect of China’s space program at the Heavenly Palace station is to help develop water, mineral and energy resources that allow astronauts to survive for a short period of time and provide a base for deeper space exploration.

Presence of minerals such as helium-3 on the moon, which is a source of atomic fusion, is an example of those development axes in which the United States is currently taking the lead.

Although such points show the competition for the monopoly position of political and economic power, they also mean the continuation of China’s strategy of technological and economic war for world domination.

In this way, China avoids the exorbitant costs of developing military armaments and cleverly pursues its technological and economic agenda in order to outperform its competitors.

The Moon Agreement of the United Nations (1979) on the impossibility of claiming ownership of celestial bodies seems to reduce the likelihood of confrontation or even space warfare, but the most important change since that time is mankind’s current vision to escape the gradual erosion of the Planet Earth and seek survival on other planets, which will make the challenge of space property rights a serious challenge in the very near future.

Therefore, the spatial rivalry between the big powers can proceed in two completely different directions, which can also be considered as two ends of a spectrum.

One path is space warfare and the attempt to establish a monopoly pole in dominating space resources (minerals or even earth), and the other path is cooperation or constructive competition to develop space technology and help solve problems on the Planet Earth.

Although an approach close to the path of constructive competition seems more likely, the external consequences of a spatial confrontation for the inhabitants of the Planet Earth in terms of the cost of war or killing make the path of war, even in a limited form, not to be unlikely.