Can Elon Musk’s Starship upend the strategic order? A Chinese think tank warns it might

China should seize a potential strategic window opened by Elon Musk’s plans for a reusable launch vessel to stay competitive with the US as it faces the risk of a new power game in space, a Chinese research institute has urged. In 2022, the US Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Musk’s firm SpaceX a five-year contract to explore how Starship – which it is developing with the aim of creating the world’s largest and most powerful launch vehicle – could be used for “global rapid mobility”, which...