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FROM EIR DAILY ALERT


China Succeeds in Launching Chang’e-4 Heading to Far Side of the Moon, May Spur U.S. Cooperation

Dec. 8, 2018 (EIRNS)—In the early morning hours of Dec. 8, China sent a spacecraft into Earth orbit that will make history early next year when it lands on the far side of the Moon. As spaceweather.com aptly acknowledged, “if the mission succeeds, it will catapult China into the forefront of lunar exploration with a landing that no other nation has even dared to attempt.” If there were ever a reason for the U.S. to change course and re-commit to the exploration of space, this is it.

This must be the “New Sputnik-Chang’e-4 Shock,” for the United States, said LaRouchePAC National Policy Committee leader Kesha Rogers, from Houston where she is an international spokeswoman for advancing space R&D. Rogers called today’s launch, “A wake-up call for the future ... it is a unifying mission for the nation.”

Considering that the impetus for President John F. Kennedy’s initiation of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo manned programs were in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, China’s Chang’e-4 mission has provided U.S. policymakers with a perfect entry-point to put aside failed approaches such as public-private partnerships, and assert federal responsibility for major breakthroughs in science, and the development of revolutionary new technologies for the economy.

Rogers pointed out that it is fortuitous that China’s launch of the Chang’e-4 came when it did. It should remind Americans of the legacy this country has in lunar exploration. On this day, 46 years ago NASA launched the last U.S. manned mission to the Moon, Apollo 17. With sadness, but irrepressible optimism, Commander Gene Cernan remarked,

“as I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come—but we believe not too long into the future—I’d like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. …we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind.”

Rogers said that China is carrying out now what Lyndon LaRouche has long proposed, a program for space exploration, as seen in the 1988 video LaRouche commissioned, “The Woman on Mars.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute president, joined in Rogers’ call, joined in the call for the U.S. to respond to a second “Sputnik Shock,” which means “not as a competition in space exploration, but for cooperation.” Zepp-LaRouche observed that, a year ago, President Donald Trump issued a video on space exploration.

Christmas Eve, two weeks from now, will mark 51 years since mankind first laid our own eyes on the far side of the Moon, in the first manned lunar orbit mission, Apollo 8. Now, decades later, China is sending a small lander and rover to pick up the baton, and make the first, intensive onsite study of this intriguing hemisphere of the Moon.

The Change’-4 lander and rover are carrying major scientific instruments from Sweden and Germany, indicative of China’s opening-up of its lunar program to international cooperation.

Imagine what could be accomplished if the United States, too, opened up to cooperate in what is a leading international lunar exploration program: Will the U.S. live up to its legacy and join China in exploring the Moon?

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