Space Policy Edition: China’s growing space science ambitions

If the United States is indeed in a space race with China, then we cannot abandon space science. That’s the claim made by Maxwell Zhu and The Planetary Society’s chief of space policy, Casey Dreier, in a recent op-ed in Payload Space. Their piece contrasted the growing ambitions of China’s coming space science program against the draconian cuts proposed by the White House in 2026. The results are stark: where China is pursuing new missions, the United States is abandoning them. Casey and Maxwell explore why this is the case, whether China sees this investment as part of a competition at all, and the structural challenges of integrating space science into a geopolitical context. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/maxwell-zhu-on-chinas-space-science-ambitions See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.