Well, the Chinese have finally done the man in space thing. Congratulations to them on a successful flight.
My take on the whole “new space race” issue is that this development isn’t likely to have any direct impact on NASA’s goals or activities. No one mentioned it at work today (other than myself), so it clearly wasn’t of much concern. Nor should it be, right now, as they have a lot of catching up to do to really be a rival — though given the fact that they can learn from the mistakes that we and the Soviets/Russians made over the years, they will probably catch up with us in a much shorter time than it took us to get to where we are (if such is their goal).
What remains to be seen, however, is whether this will spawn a space race between China, Japan, and India. Some news articles I read at lunch today indicated a degree of concern over China’s flight among the Indians and Japanese, and in the case of Japan the worries centered on national prestige — some saw it as “backward and poor” China showing up the Japanese by doing something their once-powerful but deteriorating economy cannot support.
It ought to be interesting to see what comes of this, if anything.