Chinese Rover on Mars Ushers In New Space Race

Geophysical sciences professor Edwin Kite pores over a steady stream of data and images originating from U.S. and Chinese rovers and crafts simultaneously exploring Mars."I am interested in solar system and exoplanet habitability,” Kite explained to VOA from his University of Chicago laboratory. His field of study has traditionally been accomplished using telescopes and analyzing meteors in addition to the few moon rocks returned to Earth by U.S. astronauts who landed there in the 1960s and 70s.But today’s on-the-ground missions exploring Mars are helping him and his colleagues obtain a more direct and complete understanding of the red planet.“You can quickly go through a loop of making a discovery, forming a hypothesis based on that discovery and sending a new spacecraft to test it,” Kite told VOA. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to discover.  We don’t know which country’s investigation is going to stumble over something that unlocks the next stage of exploration.  The more countries doing that exploration, the better, for everyone.”FILE - Then-Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., speaks in West Palm Beach, Fla.Testifying remotely at a recent U.S. congressional hearing, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and former U.S. senator from Florida, signaled alarm at the recent success of the Chinese space program, which he said wasn’t confined to Mars exploration.“They want to send three big landers to the south pole of the moon. And that’s where the water is,” he said. “And we are still a year or two away from a much smaller lander going there.”Artemis programNelson is urging lawmakers to support NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to return humans – including the first woman – to the moon, with Mars as an eventual destination.Nelson said China is on a similar path.“I think that’s adding a new element as to whether or not we want to get serious and get a lot of activ