Commentary By late April or early May, it’s expected that China will have started construction of its first large space station. Given its importance to China’s larger ambitions, it should be called Space Station Hegemony. On Jan. 14, 2021, the Global Times reported that “China’s space station construction has come close to the implementation stage,” according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office. Global Times also stated that “China will carry out 11 launches, including four manned spaceships and four cargo spaceship flights in the next two years, as it aims to complete the building of the country’s first space station by around 2022.” The other three launches will orbit the three main modules of the early version of the space station. While the Chinese name for the space station is Tiangong (Heavenly Palace), the first habitation module will be called Tianhe (Heavenly River). It will weigh about 22 tons …