SYDNEY -- When Australia announced a deal for $150 million Australian dollars ($102 million) to ensure its space industry's participation in NASA's Artemis mission, it was leveraging its 50-year collaboration with the U.S. space agency. It was also a show of shrewd but potentially risky space diplomacy as China readies to become America's most powerful space adversary.
The AU$150 million deal, spread over five years, was the minimum Australia would give its small but ambitious space sector to supply components and services to the Artemis mission.
