Logos and the Written Sign: A Comparative Study of Space Naming — Civilizational Semiotics and Political Symbolism in Chinese and Western Space Programs
This study builds upon the problem consciousness of the preceding paper and offers a genealogical analysis of the historical experience and political symbolism embedded in China’s space development naming system. In particular, it traces—on the basis of textual evidence, chronological reconstruction, and tabular analysis—the symbolic politics through which the Long March (長征) launch vehicles and the Dongfanghong (東方紅) satellite are genealogically connected to the subsequent series of Shenzhou (神舟), Tiangong (天宮), Tianwen (天問), and Zhurong (祝融). The analysis examines how these names organize national identity, socialist revolutionary memory, and traditional cosmological and poetic resources, exemplified by Qu Yuan’s Tianwen. Chapters 1-3 provide a detailed reconstruction of the internal genealogy of Chinese space naming practices, while Chapters 4-5 present a comparative civilizational analysis in relation to Western naming conventions, with supplementary reference to Russian, European, Japanese, and Indian cases. The core arguments of this paper are threefold. First, Chinese space naming interweaves revolutionary memory, traditional cosmology, and national strategy through the pictographic and semantic condensation characteristic of the logographic Chinese script (漢字). Second, the “revolution–technology” transformation mechanism established through Dongfanghong and Long March is systematized in the Shenzhou, Tiangong, Tianwen, and Zhurong programs. Third, this constellation of names simultaneously targets domestic mobilization and international branding, narrating a trajectory of self-reliance, national strengthening, and expansion toward deep space.