NASA's New Boss-to-Be Sees China's Success In Space

FOTO: South China Morning Post

JAKARTA - In the past year, China has successfully landed rides on the Moon and Mars. This has left former astronaut and future NASA boss Pam Melroy worried.

Unknown, Melroy is one of three candidates for NASA deputy administrator nominated by United States President Joe Biden. Not long ago, Melroy appeared before the US Senate to answer several questions, including about China's activities in space.

"It's not just the landings on Mars, which is very impressive, but also some landings on the Moon, and of course new construction to launch a space station in low-Earth orbit," Melroy said.

Quoted from Space, Sunday, May 23, looking back some time, in 2019 China managed to land the Chang'e 4 rover on the far side of the Moon. The mission was followed by Chang'e 5 in 2020 which successfully brought the Moon's samples home to Earth.

Similarly, at the end of last week, China successfully landed the Zhurong rover on Mars as part of the Tianwen-1 mission. Because of this achievement, China became the second country to successfully land a rover on the Red Planet after the US.

However, Melroy has no intention of joining China at all. He will still support the current law that prohibits NASA from engaging in space activities with China without the support of the U.S. Congress, otherwise known as the Wolf Amendment.

"China has made its ideals very clear - to take space glory from the US. So, we reserve the right to worry, if you add other concerns about intellectual property theft and aggressive behavior in space", Melroy said.

"However, we had to operate together in the space domain. So there are times for the common interest of the US to talk to China", he added.

Melroy also spoke about a recent incident, in which the core stage of the Chinese Long March 5B rocket crashed uncontrollably to Earth on May 8. Although the fall of the core stage of Long March 5B no casualties was reported, the first fall in 2020 appeared to have caused property damage in the West African country of Ivory Coast.

"NASA developed orbital debris standard mitigation practices, which have proliferated around the world, in-laws and policies as well as how good technical norms and safety norms should proliferate. We also need to call China - as Administrator Nelson did - when they violate those norms", Melroy said.