Today the guardian.com reports the Chinese government launched a communications relay satellite that is an integral part of their effort to be the first country to land a space craft on the dark side of the moon.
The Queqiao relay satellite was launched from Sichuan province, according to Chinese state media. With Queqiao in place, China will be able to send a lunar probe to the side of the moon that never faces the Earth. No space program has ever reached that part of the lunar surface because of communications difficulties.
Queqiao – which means “Magpie Bridge” and comes from a Chinese folk story in which an arc formed by birds reunites two lovers separated by the heavens – will then act as a bridge between ground stations and the lunar probe.
Meanwhile here in America the orange haired buffoon in the White House is a long way from making science great again in the U.S. Despite the fact that President Trump claims he wants to send astronauts back to the moon he has not budgeted any additional money for that undertaking – planned for his second term!
In fact the future success of U.S. space exploration or any science-related initiative (other than his EPA ignoring climate science) from the Trump administration is looking distinctly poor.
An article in gov.exec.com, Science in the age of Trump, explores at length Trump’s science policies. The authors note that despite being in office over a year Donald still hasn’t even bothered to name a White House science advisor. The person handling those duties through default is a 31-year-old Michael Kratsios, a former political science major who had been chief of staff for PayPal founder and Libertarian futurist Peter Theil. I imagine the Trump administration would argue with typical incoherent bravado that Kratsios therefore has a science background.
Physicist Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, explains his observations about Trump and his science policy: The administration does not have an overall science policy “that I am able to discern,” Holt said. “Some areas seem pretty clear, as in the ideological position on climate change, some matters related to space, and some aspects of education, such as sex education. But there’s no clear policy on science education.”
What has been perhaps most visible to the news-consuming public appears as a combination of proposed budget cuts, removal of climate change materials from agency websites, recasting of scientific advisory panels to bring more industry input, and a contentious proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of “secret science” in rule-making.
Trump did announce that sending American astronauts back to the moon (by his second term) is a priority. But that looks like another hollow promise: budget cuts, censoring of climate science, and allowing climate change deniers a voice sure doesn’t sound like a successful scientific formula for anything but failure.
In the meantime via the “Magpie Bridge” we will hearing from the Chinese on dark side of the moon.