Europe's space industry, cash-strapped as a result of the debt crisis, wants to step up cooperation with China, which has an ambitious program and is building a moon-landing vehicle and capsules for manned missions. Such an alliance would likely cause tensions with the U.S.

An unmanned Chinese space rocket launching from the Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province last November. Photo by DPA.

Thomas Reiter is a man who isn't easily impressed. He is a former test pilot with the German Air Force, and he also flew into space twice for Germany. Since last April, the 53-year-old has been one of the directors of the European Space Agency (ESA). When it comes to the technology that transports people into space, Reiter has seen just about everything -- so he was all the more astonished by what he saw during a trip to China in late 2011.

In Beijing, government representatives took him through factory buildings where satellites and rocket engines are being built. He could see how the Chinese are building a moon-landing vehicle and capsules for manned space missions. At the end of his trip, Reiter was able to observe a rocket carrying the "Shenzhou-8" lifting off from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert, headed for China's Tiangong 1 space station. "It was a perfect lift-off," Reiter says enthusiastically.

There is hardly any other area in which China is as active today as in space technology. In late December, the government in Beijing unveiled a five-year plan that ranges from the increased exploration of the earth via satellite to the preparation of a manned mission to the moon.

China's foray into space presents a challenge to the West. The United States is determined not to allow anyone to usurp its dominant position in space. The Europeans and the German government, however, see the Chinese as less of a rival than a potential partner.