I'm John Batchelor's research analyst Jack Burnham at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

watching the People's Republic of China, and here watching their manned space program,

not just low Earth orbit, but lunar orbit and lunar landing and maybe lunar colony.

All these big plans are ahead of us.

Question is, how is the U.S. doing in its ambition to return to the moon and or go on to the

Mars Earth system? Unknown, except Jack has some recommendations. First, Jack, your measure of

the manned space program in China, are they ready to get to the moon now or do they need

components that they're still building? Thank you. I don't think they're quite ready to go to the

moon yet, but I would say that China, particularly

having collaborated with Russia on various space programs, is certainly leaning in that direction.

The domestic space, the private sector space program in China has increased. The CCP has put

more effort to develop this private industry, particularly having seen the

success of Elon Musk's SpaceX here in the United States, really in the wake of that success,

China wanted to copy it and wanted to develop its own private industry that could really

support a public-private partnership between the traditional state-run

conglomerates that developed dual-use technologies, you know, often the same companies that

developed China's first generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles or military rockets

would also develop rockets that could carry civilian

payloads.

And you also see a burgeoning private sector that has certainly connections to the state,

but is also more interested in building out communications, satellites, lower orbit,

and potentially looking at manned space travel as well.

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