Space Policy Edition: Should the U.S. be in a space race with China?

Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

The Planetary Society

Science, Technology

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2019

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

China's space program notched an impressive "first" last month when its Chang'e 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon. The U.S. space program, in contrast, was in the midst of an extended shutdown. Some observers expect China's growing space capability and lunar ambitions to trigger a new space race. Not Dr. Roger Handberg, Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Florida. He discusses how the current geopolitical situation differs from the Cold War standoff between two superpowers, and how we shouldn't expect dollars to flow back to the U.S. space program as a consequence of China's space successes. Cooperation, or even friendly competition, is a much more likely outcome than a new space race. More resources to explore this month’s topics are at http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2019/space-policy-edition-34.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome space policy fans. This is the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio coming to for February of
0:17.0	2019, right on time too.
0:19.6	I'm at Kaplan, the host of the weekly version of Planetary Radio,
0:23.2	that I hope you're also enjoying.
0:25.9	And I am joined once again by the Chief Advocate
0:28.3	for the Planetary Society, Casey Dreyer.
0:30.4	Welcome back, Casey.
0:31.4	Hey, Matt, I am unfurlowed though I we're all in
0:35.8	furloug now not that I was ever furloughed but I like to associate myself the
0:39.2	shutdown's over maybe we should say that the shutdown's over at least for now. Yay! Yes, and I celebrated that in the weekly show.
0:47.2	It was published just before this. Bill Nye was celebrating the same thing
0:51.7	and hoping that we don't have to face this again in well less
0:56.2	than three weeks now as people hear this but it is worth celebrating right?
1:00.3	Oh yeah hopefully we can have a we can cross the low bar of being happy that the United States
1:06.3	the space program has no longer furloughed 90% of its employees and made the rest work for free.
1:12.0	Yeah, I mean it's it was so funny I had just
1:16.6	finished an interview in the morning last Friday with a reporter talking about who knows when this is going to end,
1:24.1	here's all the bad stuff happening,
1:25.6	and as I wrote about in my follow-up article on planetary.org,
1:29.8	it really reminds you how quickly, seemingly endless things can end.
1:35.8	Politics can just flip so fast.
1:39.1	And we have a temporary funding deal that keeps NASA and other federal science agencies and other agencies
	...

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