Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science · The Planetary Society

Space Policy Edition: Is there really a space race between the US and China?

·1 hr 9 min·5 clips

Bisha rejects the phrase "space race" and calls it a "strategic space competition."

Casey Dreyer frames the conversation around China's growing importance to U.S. space policy. He introduces Patrick Bisha as a former NASA strategic advisor, the founder of the Global Space Group, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and a former lead for Asia, particularly China and India, in NASA's Office of International and Interagency Relations. Bisha's background also includes long-term research on China and China's space program, along with Mandarin fluency. Dreyer notes that Bisha recently testified before the House of Representatives in fall 2025 about China's space ambitions and what the United States should do in response. The episode takes apart the rhetoric that casts China as a geopolitical rival the United States must match in space capability, then turns to how NASA thinks about risk. Bisha says risk at NASA is complicated and tied to the agency's ambitions. He then compares that with China's program, which he describes as very risk averse and highly incremental. In his telling, Chinese missions usually focus on the primary objective first, with a few secondary goals kept modest; later missions are where more risk appears, including technology demonstrations and other objectives that could jeopardize a spacecraft. He points to the Chang'e lunar missions as the clearest example: the first mission stays conservative, while later missions such as Chang'e 2 and Chang'e 4 take bigger swings. The result is a discussion that pushes past simple slogans and looks at how NASA and China manage ambition, caution, and risk in practice.

As heard by us

A measured policy conversation about U.S.-China space competition, risk, and NASA decision-making.

Planetary Radio's Space Policy Edition treats the U.S.-China space question as a policy problem first, and a geopolitical one second. Casey Dreyer brings Patrick Bisha into a conversation that feels grounded in experience, from NASA to work on Asia and China, plus the Global…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want the U.S.-China space policy stakes explained without the usual chest-thumping.

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