Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 24, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher While the ongoing and unpredictable United States presidential campaign promises to highlight partisan political divisions on numerous issues, the last decade has seen U.S. space policy tending toward a basic consensus stressing three pillars that can be credited, two to Republicans and one to Democrats. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 10, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher The China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) coalition to establish permanent Moon bases in the 2030s has gained new members in recent months: Nicaragua and Thailand in April; Serbia in May; and on July 3 Kazakhstan became the 12th member state of the ILRS. Though […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 3, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In China, space related crashes or falling debris from space launch vehicles (SLV) are not cause for celebration. They are usually cause for embarrassment and as they usually happen over populated areas, they can also be very dangerous for Chinese especially if the crash involves […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 26, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In the last week China has advanced its ambitions for Moon control and space control via two operations: first on June 26 China recovered the world’s first Moon samples from the far side of the Moon; and on June 23 the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 19, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher China has presented evidence that its manned Moon program is real, not just an endless collection of journal articles, power point briefings and curious models. On June 14 the principal Chinese state owned space conglomerate, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), conducted a […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 12, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher For its fourth flight — in less than a year — on June 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship epitomized what the SpaceX mission announcer called their “rapid iterative development” process, exploiting a crash or “failure” to produce data that improves the next mission. Perhaps the […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 6, 2024 An alien world orbiting a star made famous as hosting Spock’s home planet of Vulcan in Star Trek was nothing but a celestial illusion, scientists say. In 2018, much to the delight of Trekkies, the discovery of the planet was first announced. It was thought to be orbiting the […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 5, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher The Chinese and American “new race” to the Moon was advanced by two major developments in the first week of June 2024. On June 4, China’s second sample-return Moon landing probe, Chang’e-6, successfully launched its 2-kilogram (4.4 lbs) Moon sample carrying ascending stage into Lunar […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 29, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher China’s play was a classic exercise in coercion straight out of a 1930s gangland movie: Pay me and I will make sure my crazy cousin does not thump you! But in this case, on March 26 China had gathered in Seoul, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 15, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher Despite its many self-inflicted crises and its increasing political-economic subordination to China, Russia is still striving for a superpower level space program with ambitions to compete with the United States and China on the Moon. But in addition, Russia’s space program is growing less transparent […]
