US will now apply to study China’s moon rock samples: Nasa
www.scmp.com
In exception to congressional Wolf Amendment, the space agency is encouraging applications to its Chinese counterpart.

This news is going absolutely viral in China.

Basically NASA has decided to make an exception to its 2011 “Wolf Amendment”, which forbids NASA from communicating with China, in order to formally request permission to study recent Chinese moon samples.

People in China are like “are you freaking kidding me?”: the US banned China from the International Space Station and then forbad any collaboration in order to kill Chinese progress in space exploration. As a result China had to re-learn everything on its own and, against all odds, succeeded: it’s now the only country in history to have its own national space station and it’s doing its own exploration missions in space.

But now that they have something that the US doesn’t have - these recent moon samples - the US suddenly makes an exception and is happy to communicate. Even more unreal, in their request they have the guts to write this: "This allowance [to exceptionally communicate with you] applies specifically to Chang’e 5 mission samples; the normal prohibition on bilateral activity with PRC on Nasa-funded projects remains in place”. In other words, this is purely one-sided, we only make an exception because it benefits us… The entitlement is absolutely unbelievable!

https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1731137252913492000

  • Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    9 months ago

    If it were up to me, I would functionally laugh at the US . The audacity of the US to ban China from the ISS and then turn around to beg for a favour when China outdoes them (yet again).

    This is, admittedly, one of many reasons I am not a head of state.

    I could definitely see China being the bigger man here honestly, but they should also be able to leverage it into getting something in return. If they can get something worthwhile, I could see them allowing it. At the very least, they should lift the formal billateral prohibition.