US Space Firms Tell Washington: China Will Take Over the Moon if You're Not Careful (yahoo.com)

The US space industry is prodding the US government into refreshing its outdated laws on commercial activity beyond earth: scare it with talk of Chinese galactic domination. A report adds: At a Senate hearing on the space industry this week, companies that build rockets and space habitats and manufacture electronic goods in space spoke about a standard laundry list of complaints, from regulatory burdens to fears of subsidized competitors. But their message was wrapped in patriotic concerns about China's growing capacity for space action. These companies are eager for the US government to allow and invest in commercial activities in orbit and around the moon. Many think the laws governing action in space, and particularly the UN Space Treaty, need refreshing for an age when private companies are close to matching the space capacity of sovereign nations. The last major change was a law on asteroid mining passed in 2015.

Comments

There's one way

[TFlan91]

There's one way to get Trumps attention.

Put it in terms of China.

Trump, if we don't fund science, China will be #1 in RD
Trump, if we don't fund NASA, China will own the Moon!

Heck, it worked the first time

[Chris Mattern]

When it was the Russians. Worth a try.

Undeserving.

[Gravis Zero]

Considering that the US legislature has done everything they can to impede progress in space exploration, I don't think they deserve any say about the future of space exploration. China isn't great but at least they are investing in science instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying global warming is a hoax.

Re:The Germans already have

[Anonymous Coward]

So much potential, but such a crappy result.

Re:So give us your tax money

[Applehu Akbar]

There is no economic case for space exploration.

If this is true then we have nothing to worry about when space is exploited by China, and Silicon Valley billionaires will have no interest in it.

Not any more

[SuperKendall]

I'm quoting you: "...repressive government and the wrongful imprisonment of dissenters".

As I seem to have to continually remind people on Slashdot, Hillary is not president.

Who exactly has Trump imprisoned wrongfully? Or are you saying it is wrong to imprison people who set cars on fire and loot shops? I know many on the left bellive this to be true but I had hoped that rot had not spread to the more rational denizens of Slashdot.

It's just their sheeple, drink the Kool-Aid given to them and think the other is more evil.

While that is indeed true of many Statists, it's not really true of the other more libertarian side of that equation - which only makes sense as the larger a government gets, the more unfeeling and cruel it becomes... so you can imagine what happens in essentially a world-wide government.