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Ling Xin

Steve Durst, a US space entrepreneur who spent decades building rare bridges with China’s space sector despite restrictions on official cooperation, has died aged 82.
Durst, who founded the non-profit International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA), was publishing on China’s astronaut training as early as 1980, when the country’s human space flight ambitions were still little known to the outside world.
He died at his home in California last month, shortly after attending a workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand.


There, his team and collaborators from mainland China, Hong Kong and Thailand reviewed progress on a small but cutting-edge optical camera that ILOA helped fund, which will fly aboard China’s Chang’e-7 mission to the moon’s south pole, scheduled for later this year.
“The telescope will stand as Steve’s final, major space legacy, and it’s both poignant and profoundly fitting,” said Quentin Parker, director of the University of Hong Kong’s Laboratory for Space Research, a key international partner in the project.
“Steve was a proud and patriotic American,” Parker said. “He loved his country, its pioneering spirit and its long history of trailblazing achievements in space.”
But he also invested time, energy and both political and financial capital in building constructive, practical collaborations with China’s space community “at a time when doing so was neither straightforward nor fashionable in some Western circles – and is increasingly difficult today”, Parker added.
Xue Suijian, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) who worked with Durst on the Chang’e-7 lunar camera project, recalled their first meeting in Beijing around 2010.
Durst had knocked on doors at NAOC to introduce himself and was eventually directed to Xue, who was then deputy director in charge of international collaboration.
A Stanford history graduate shaped by the Apollo era, Durst spoke passionately about Chinese history and lunar exploration.
Xue said: “I thought – interesting guy. He did not have any official background, but he certainly seemed enthusiastic and determined.”
With Xue’s support, Durst signed memorandums of understanding with the NAOC and Chinese space authorities. These included agreements on data exchange between the ultraviolet telescope on Chang’e-3 and an ILOA-backed telescope precursor slated for a lunar landing in 2015.
In December 2013, Durst was invited to watch the Chang’e-3 spacecraft touch down at the mission control centre in suburban Beijing.
“I’ll never forget that day,” he told Xue in Chiang Mai last month. “It made me want to keep working with China.”

Durst had long dreamed of placing a telescope on the moon – to watch the Milky Way rise above the lunar horizon, inspire the public and observe astronomy. He was among the first to submit an expression of interest after China opened its call for Chang’e-7 international payloads.
The telescope, known as ILO-C, is a small optical camera with a 20mm aperture that will be mounted on the side of the Chang’e-7 lander. From the moon’s airless surface, it will capture wide-field images of the Milky Way and other celestial objects while testing technology for future lunar observatories.
But once the proposal won approval from China’s space agency, it ran into a familiar geopolitical barrier: US export controls. A Canadian company that had long worked with ILOA was unable to obtain a permit because its systems contained American components, Durst told the South China Morning Post last year.
After an extensive search, the team turned to the Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, a research arm of China’s main spacecraft developer, the China Academy of Space Technology, whose instruments have flown on Chang’e lunar missions and the Tianwen-1 Mars probe.
Durst was encouraged by the progress of ILO-C during the Chiang Mai workshop, Xue said. This November, when Chang’e-7 is expected to touch down near the rim of Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole, the camera will capture the Milky Way from a surface free of atmosphere and marked by long stretches of darkness.
“Those of us privileged to be involved in ILO-C have a responsibility to honour Steve’s memory not with platitudes, but with professionalism and ambition,” Parker said.
“We’ve ensured the instrument is as capable as it can be, that the science plans are robust and inclusive, and that the data will benefit a global community of researchers and students.”


Parker said Durst’s death came at a time when geopolitical tensions often overshadowed the shared excitement of exploring the cosmos.
“That is precisely why his legacy matters,” he said. “He showed that one can be an unapologetic patriot and still work constructively and respectfully across political divides.
“One can acknowledge differences without being defined by them. One can see in the moon not a prize to be claimed, but a science laboratory and a beacon for all humankind.”


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Durst, who has died aged 82, bridged a political divide for the ‘shared excitement of exploring the cosmos’


Durst, who has died aged 82, bridged a political divide for the ‘shared excitement of exploring the cosmos’.


Steve Durst – the US citizen space diplomat who reached out to China

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Durst, who has died aged 82, bridged a political divide for the ‘shared excitement of exploring the cosmos’

Durst, who has died aged 82, bridged a political divide for the ‘shared excitement of exploring the cosmos’