The Worldwide Space Race

With guest host Jane Clayson.

Global plans for outer space. We’ll look around the world at who has what agendas for out there.

There’s a lot we humans are not doing in space. Nobody’s chatting with Houston or singing Beach Boys’ songs back to Earth from the surface of Mars.  But there’s a lot of exploration, a lot of research going on day by day that we barely notice. And it’s not just the Americans and the Russians anymore. A lot of countries are getting into the game. There are a ton of technical challenges. Money, politics, and even geopolitics get in the way. But the human race is hard at work, and we may be entering the space age for real, soon. This hour On Point: The world's space agenda.
-Jane Clayson

Jeff Foust, senior staff writer for Space News. (@jeff_foust)

Geoffrey Forden, physicist at Sandia National Laboratories. Former principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Joan Johnson-Freese,  professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College. Author of "Heavenly Ambitions," "Space as a Strategic Asset" and "The Chinese Space Program."

Anatoly Zak, journalist, author and space historian. Editor of RussianSpaceWeb.com. Author of "Russia in Space." (@russianspaceweb)

Popular Mechanics: SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Breaks Up During Launch Vehicle Failure — "SpaceX won't have the opportunity to try its third barge landing in earnest. A launch vehicle failure has caused the Falcon 9 rocket to break up on ascent just about two minutes after launch. For the time being, it's unclear exactly what the problem was. According to preliminary statements by SpaceX, it appears the Falcon 9's initial takeoff went fine, with all engines firing appropriately, but the cause of the failure and disintegration are still unknown."

Defense One: Pentagon Rushing to Open Space-War Center To Counter China, Russia — "The Pentagon and intelligence community are developingwar plans and an operations center to fend off Chinese and Russian attacks on U.S. military and government satellites. The ops center, to be opened within six months, will receive data from satellites belonging to all government agencies, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Tuesday at the GEOINTsymposium, an annual intelligence conference sponsored by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation."

Space.Com: US-China Cooperation in Space: Is It Possible, and What's in Store? — "There's a growing debate over whether China and the Unites States should cooperate in space, and the dialogue now appears to focus on how to create an "open-door" policy in orbit for Chinese astronauts to make trips to the International Space Station (ISS)."