A French-Chinese satellite blasted off Saturday on a hunt for the mightiest explosions in the universe, in a notable example of cooperation between a Western power and the Asian giant.
I would also like to see more collaboration, and there are many nuanced reasons why the US would rather not. Just one of them is that this launch resulted in this:
I can’t imagine being one of the scientists designing and cheering on this mission and then realizing my country’s funds caused that scene. Thank goodness the US doesn’t drop empty stages (containing extremely dangerous chemicals in this case) on populated areas, this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated.
I would also like to see more collaboration, and there are many nuanced reasons why the US would rather not. Just one of them is that this launch resulted in this:
https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1804542638034661522
I can’t imagine being one of the scientists designing and cheering on this mission and then realizing my country’s funds caused that scene. Thank goodness the US doesn’t drop empty stages (containing extremely dangerous chemicals in this case) on populated areas, this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated.