S8 Ep826: Preview for Later Today: Guest Rick Fischer. Fischer attributes the slow pace of China's moon landing program to extreme risk aversion within the Communist Party culture. They prioritize avoiding technical failures over competing directly with American ti
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Preview for Later Today: Guest Rick Fischer. Fischer attributes the slow pace of China's moon landing program to extreme risk aversion within the Communist Party culture. They prioritize avoiding technical failures over competing directly with American timelines. 3/6
NOVEMBER 1955
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is John Batchler, conversation with my good colleague, Rick Fisher, of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, about the Chinese plans for the Earth-Moon system and for the landing and building on the surface of the moon for their astronauts. Why slow? I asked Rick, is it the booster problem? Long March 9 and Long March 10 are not perfected. |
| 0:24.1 | One is to be a recoverable, wrong March 9. Long March 10 has a lift, but is a one-time use. No, says |
| 0:31.8 | Rick, it's not the booster. It's this other thing, risk aversion. Here, Rick Fisher explains Chinese technical engineering and the influence of the Communist Party. |
| 0:45.0 | Much more of this later and in the coming months. |
| 0:48.8 | John, I don't think the Chinese are being held back. |
| 0:51.6 | They're just moving along at their own pace. They are, |
| 0:56.9 | they are in a sense, the tortoise here, and they don't want to make any mistakes. |
| 1:03.0 | The communist culture, technical culture, is extremely risk-adverse., the worst thing for the Communist Party would be for their first moon lander |
| 1:16.7 | to fail somehow and strand or cause the death of their first two astronauts to reach the moon. |
| 1:25.6 | So they're going to be very, very sure that all of their kit works before they send it out there. |
| 1:34.2 | And that's what's holding them back. |
| 1:36.0 | Not anything that the Americans are doing, at least for now. |
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