Bill Nelson, NASA's Administrator, has made outrageous claims once more pertaining to the space endeavors of China. In the process of doing so, the claims ended up fueling the two countries' off-world rivalry.
Military Program?
Nelson shared during recent remarks given on Capitol Hill that they think that a lot of the so-called civilian space program of China is actually military in nature. The administrator adds that, in effect, they could be in a race.
The comments were made during a hearing in the presence of the House Appropriations Committee. This means that Nelson said this while seeking funding for NASA, which has asked for a budget of $25.384 billion for 2025.
Nelson also adds that China has taken great strides in the past decades. However, these remain extremely secretive.
He also expresses hope for Beijing to come to its senses and understand the peaceful uses that are meant to be served by civilian space. However, he adds that they did not see China demonstrate this.
Bold Claims Against Rival Country
It remains unclear what the evidence of Nelson's claims are. Nevertheless, this is not the first time that the administrator made such bold-claims about China's space endeavors.
For much of his term, Nelson has warned that the country could end up usurping the space advantage of America at any moment. He also made bold claims to prove this point.
He also made a claim just a year into the job and during a different hearing before the House Appropriation Committee. He straightforwardly accused China of stealing the spacecraft designs of America. He shared in May 2022 that they are quite good at stealing and that cybersecurity needs to be taken quite seriously.
A few months later, he claimed in a random German newspaper interview that China also wanted to steal the Moon. This prompted China to respond.
Zhao Lijian, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, shared in a statement that the US has constantly been making a smear campaign against the reasonable and normal space endeavors taken by China, adding that China opposes the irresponsible comments firmly.
On top of this, last fall, Nelson said that China has plans to hoard resources of the Moon for itself, which would be against the 1967 binding space treaty of the United Nations. In his more recent remarks, he reiterated such claims while asking for money.
Nelson shares that the latest that they said they would be going to the Moon would be in 2030. However, this keeps on moving up. The administrator adds that it is crucial for them to go first and make use of their research efforts for peaceful purposes.
With the number of receipts regarding this recurrent issue, it may make one wonder if China is offensive or if America is.
The US has plans to return astronauts to the Moon in 2026 during NASA'sArtemis 3 mission. On the other hand, China has similar plans to send people to the Moon by 2030.
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