After the fall of the semiconductor barrier, another technical barrier of the United States was about to be lost, and before the space race began, NASA directly surrendered, demanding "cooperation" with China and demanding China's scientific research results.
A few days ago, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo said at the annual defense forum held in Simi Valley, California: It is hoped that U.S. companies will assist the government in preventing China from obtaining cutting-edge semiconductor and artificial intelligence technologies. However, just after Raimondo announced that she would block China's high technology, the United States suddenly changed its face.
On December 3, according to the South China Morning Post, NASA officially submitted a report to the U.S. Congress at the end of November, asking the U.S. Congress to lift the ban on cooperation with China in the space field and allow NASA-related scholars to apply to China for lunar soil collected during the Chang'e-5 lunar exploration mission in 2020 for research.
The reason given by NASA is high-sounding: the area where Chang'e-5 explored and collected lunar soil is an area that has not been covered by previous American manned lunar landings and unmanned probes on the moon, and these lunar soil samples have irreplaceable value, and have been opened to allow scholars from all over the world to apply for research, but many scholars funded by NASA or employed by NASA cannot participate in the grand event, which is a very regrettable thing, and it is necessary to ensure that American researchers have the same research opportunities as scientists around the world.
At present, NASA is very anxious, because with China's understatement of its own manned lunar landing program, China's aerospace has entered a peak period of lunar missions, and due to the late-mover advantage, China's probes often choose a more harsh environment, the United States has rarely set foot in the previous lunar exploration and lunar landing programs, it can be said that although the United States got up early in the field of lunar exploration, there is a huge first-mover advantage, but there has been no large amount of capital investment in 30 years, and there is a hidden danger of backwardness in this field.
In 2024, China's planned Chang'e-6 probe will be the first to land on the far side of the moon and bring back samples of lunar soil, which marks a big step forward in the process of human exploration of the moon.
It's unclear how the U.S. Congress will consider NASA's request, but it's not hard to imagine that they will have a hard time making a decision.
On the one hand, there is the political correctness of the so-called "science without borders", and on the other hand, it is a matter of face for the United States, just like during the Cold War, the United States could not cooperate with the Soviet Union to explore the moon and land on the moon under any circumstances.
Science without borders is a false proposition after all, and NASA first considered the resistance of the US Congress, and did not seem to have carefully considered the possibility of the Chinese side rejecting them.
In a deliberately leaked "internal email," NASA told Congress that requesting samples would ensure that U.S. researchers have the same research opportunities as scientists around the world.
It's as if they can get their hands on the valuable research materials brought back by these Chinese probes whenever they want to.
So far, more than 250 research institutions and universities around the world have obtained a total of 77.76 grams of samples, and the total mass of lunar soil brought back by Chang'e-5 from the moon is 1731 grams.
It's just that in the final analysis, this is still a matter of face for the US Congress, if people know that NASA, which was once the leader in the space field, has been mixed up to the extent that it needs to count on handouts from hostile countries, NASA as a research institution certainly doesn't matter, and it is the face of the US government that is lost, because everyone knows that NASA is now poor and sour because Congress does not give money.
Since the end of the Apollo program to the moon, NASA's funding has been cut by 80% In addition, coupled with the end of the Cold War, the United States has lost its development momentum in the field of space technology, because space technology itself is a by-product of the development of ballistic missile technology, and in this context, today's NASA funds are no longer enough to support high-level space projects, and NASA has not adapted to the operation mode under tight funds in history, so that today it has almost lost the ability to lead large-scale high-level space projects, and has degenerated into the "library" of private space enterprises in the United States.
At the same time, the U.S. government pinned its hopes for iterative updates of space technology on private companies such as SpaceX, which cooperated with NASA in a somewhat "scientific research by archaeology" model, and the results were very limited.
Compared with playing the role of Iron Man, Musk is better at playing with concepts and doing business, and he is not good at playing rockets, but he is very successful in the field of electric vehicles! In the long run, it may only be a matter of time before the United States is overtaken by China in the aerospace field or even significantly behind.
And not only aerospace, the United States in almost all high-tech fields have shown a weakness to cope with China's industrial upgrading fatigue, aerospace and semiconductors are the most representative fields, less than three years after the blockade of China's semiconductors, China's semiconductor technology has caught up with the United States, if there is no supply chain of overseas enterprises controlled by the United States, the United States' own semiconductor industry has no advantage over China, aerospace was backward and slow.
Perhaps compared with the unattainable goals of spaceflight, landing on the moon again or landing on Mars, the attitude of the US Congress is still very pragmatic, focusing on things on the earth and not caring about those ethereal things. How to wage a successful war and absolutely destroy the Chinese navy in the East or South China Sea is more concerned with the US Congress than landing on Mars.
But the more terrible thing is that the reason for the gradual backwardness of the United States in aerospace is not necessarily a financial problem, because China's space field has never been sufficient, the DPRK next door has long tightened its belt and rubbed missiles, Chinese astronauts are also rubbing rockets in a similar way, the final budget amount of China's lunar landing program is placed in the United States, in fact, there are not a few aircraft carriers, so what is the problem? It cannot be said that the Americans are inferior to the Chinese in intelligence, and from this point of view, all backwardness is attributed to the "budget" It's still an ugly fig leaf, but without this fig leaf, everyone will see that the United States can't play horizontally and vertically, and it will be a shame.