Hello and welcome to the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. I'm Casey Dreyer, the Chief of Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio.

I'm Casey Dreyer, the chief of space policy here at the Planetary Society,

bringing you another episode of the monthly show that explores the processes and policies

that enable space exploration.

This month, I'm delighted to welcome Maxwell Zoo, who is a graduate

student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, recently completed an internship at the

United States Senate working on the Committee for Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

But most importantly, and most saliently, was a co-author with me and worked with me on a project this summer

to look at the development of China's space science program.

The op-ed that we wrote, which was published in payload space newsletter that will be linked to in this show notes,

was called Space Science is part of the space race

with China.

And we did two things.

We built out the upcoming future of China's space science program, demonstrating arguably

a surprising increase in capability, maturity, and ambition from China Space Science's initiatives, and contrasted

it against the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for NASA, which propose a significant 47%

reduction in NASA space science activities.

And you compare the two, and you see a surprising, almost one-to-one comparison where NASA is

canceling projects or giving up development of future ambitions.

China seems to be building out those very capabilities.

This is interesting for an administration and for a large majority of the U.S. Congress that

frames the current situation of geopolitical situation between the United States and China as a

...