China's space program, with NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao

This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome Leroy Chiao, a NASA astronaut who flew three shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station for over six months. Leroy is also very knowledgeable about China's space program and was the first American astronaut to visit the Astronaut Center of China outside of Beijing. He discusses the abortive history of Sino-American space collaboration, attitudes toward China's space program in the U.S., and China's impressive accomplishments and its grand ambitions for space.

4:27 – How Leroy became an astronaut

9:09 – The effects of long-term weightlessness

15:10 – Leroy’s access to the Astronaut Center of China

18:16 – The peak years of Sino-U.S. collaboration in space exploration

23:11 – The Wolf Amendment and the end of Sino-American space collaboration

26:36 – Leroy on the most impressive accomplishments of the Chinese space program

37:53 – U.S.-China competition as a driver of advances in space technologies

48:04 – Sino-Russian space cooperation?

49:12 – The weaponization of outer space

52: 58 – Recommendations

A complete transcript of this podcast is available on SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

Jeremy:  Nuremberg Diary by G.M. Gilbert.

Leroy: Old Henry, a micro-Western film

Kaiser: Putin by Philip Short; and a preview of a forthcoming paper about the Cyberspace Administration of China, CAC, written by Jamie Horsley

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