Guest:  Dr. Namrata Goswami;  Topics:  China with reference to culture, space, Covid-19, commercial space, propaganda against US, lunar and Mars mission, space policy and goals and much more.

We welcomed back to the program for a two segment 126 minute discussion on China and space, Dr. Namrata Goswami.  We started our discussion with Dr. Goswami by talking about Chinese space policy, lunar and Martian plans and missions, goal setting and accomplishment, policy toward the US, Covid-19 and much more.  For a good idea of all the topics discussed during this fast moving and comprehensive first segment, take a look at the key tags used as program descriptions.  Most of those topics were first segment detailed discussion topics with our guest.  In fact, to save time with this summary, refer to the tags, repeated below, as a type of Table of Contents for our discussion. Also, you will want to read her May 18, 2020 Space Review article titled " Explaining China's space ambitions and goals through the lend of strategic culture" (see www.thespacereview.com/article/3944/1).  

Tags repeated here:  China, Chinese space policy & goals, China's Covid 19 White Paper, Chinese lunar plans, Chinese Mars program, Covid impact on Chinese space program, Chinese space law, SpaceX impact on China, reusability, CCP (Chinese Communist Party), China US space race, China US Cold War, Chinese burned treasure ships, Ming Dynasty, India, Chinese and safety zones, China's Belt and Road Initiative, China and Africa, Chinese global project funding, The Artemis Accords, The Outer Space Treaty, China and space as a global commons, lunar resource mining, Chinese solar power plans, Trump Administration space policy, US refocus on Moon and Mars, Chinese GEO asset threat, US vs. China's space security strategy, Chinese culture for space, Pew Research Center on China and space, 5G technology and China, Chinese view of current day US, international space law and China, Russia as a space actor, US coming presidential election

In our comprehensive discussion of most of these topics, we fielded emails from listeners and we received a few listener phone calls.  One listener call, coming after several listener emails, was from Robert in Houston.  Robert had a pretty bad cell connection but wanted to talk about the importance of China and the Moon regarding the ability to convince the American public and Congress that it was valuable and important for us to get back to the Moon.  In addition, to develop a strategy to somehow deal with China which he did not think we were doing at this time.  Don't miss this discussion. 

We blurred the separation between the first and later segments of the show.  I also forgot to call out to our sponsors.  That said,

after multiple additional short China and US policy topics, including Chinese space solar power plans, Ft. Worth John called regarding comments made by General Steve Kwast when he was last a Space Show guest.  In specific, John wanted to know if Namrata concurred with General Kwast that China posed a threat to our GEO satellites.  The short answer was yes but listen to all of what our guest had to say on this topic.  Namrata included commentary about Chinese international political support and relations with Italy, Greece, Macedonia, Africa, New Zealand and other nations. She talked about their money influence through loans and joint projects. I asked about strings attached and why countries took the help and money when they knew there were often unwanted strings attached to taking the money. As you will hear, most of the time the only source of financing for these countries was China so choices were limited or nonexistent.  Our guest provided us with multiple examples regarding Chinese policy and behavior in this area, plus she talked extensively about the Chinese policy known as The Belt and Road Initiative.  For more information on this policy, see www.beltroad-initiative.com/info.  It is a controversial policy with lots of available information about the controversy and more.  Check it out.  Dr. Goswami explained this policy in detail and illustrated how it worked.  Listeners asked her about the US trade policies with China, wanting to know about the impact.  Namrata talked about the work by the top trade person in the government, Peter Navarro.  At this point, we took an email from Houston Robert asking how we bring up certain "conversation when China increasingly leverages it’s control over our social media and news media organizations."  Our guest was not so certain about China exercising control over social media. Robert then sent us several examples via email and some UPI headline stories, especially regarding Twitter and China.  I always thought what Robert was saying was understood to be reality but evidently our guest was not that up on the subject.  I will be checking in with her on that topic later on. 

Before ending the program, we talked about China and 5G technology.  Much was said on this subject so be sure to listen.  This conversation led us to talking more about strategic cultures.  I also asked what the fear was all about if China got to the Moon before we did.  I commented that they could not control all of the Moon or enforce Chinese law and policy for the Moon, even with Chinese safety zones.  I also said The Artemis Accords had safety zone language and policy in it as well.   Listen to how Namrata replied to my comments.  Don't miss a word, it was a very important commentary.  If you have comments and opinions about it, do post them on the blog for this show.

Before signing off, we talked space law, The Artemis Accords, both Chinese policy and Russian policy, and additional US legislation in the context of the Outer Space Treaty and The Moon Treaty which neither the US or the Soviet Union signed. There was more said about space resources, private sector space, the idea of a commons, even policy impacts from our upcoming election.

Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog.  You can reach Dr. Goswami through me.