{"id":472358,"date":"2026-02-16T17:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/472358\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T17:55:09","slug":"steve-durst-the-us-citizen-space-diplomat-who-reached-out-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/472358\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Durst \u2013 the US citizen space diplomat who reached out to China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Durst, a US space entrepreneur who spent decades building rare bridges with China\u2019s space sector<\/a> despite restrictions on official cooperation, has died aged 82.<\/p>\n

Durst, who founded the non-profit International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA), was publishing on China\u2019s astronaut training as early as 1980, when the country\u2019s human space flight ambitions were still little known to the outside world.<\/p>\n

He died at his home in California last month, shortly after attending a workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

01:57<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Chang\u2019e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon\u2019s far side<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Chang\u2019e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon\u2019s far side<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Chang\u2019e-7 mission to the moon\u2019s south pole<\/a>, scheduled for later this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe telescope will stand as Steve\u2019s final, major space legacy, and it\u2019s both poignant and profoundly fitting,\u201d said Quentin Parker, director of the University of Hong Kong\u2019s Laboratory for Space Research, a key international partner in the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve was a proud and patriotic American,\u201d Parker said. \u201cHe loved his country, its pioneering spirit and its long history of trailblazing achievements in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he also invested time, energy and both political and financial capital in building constructive, practical collaborations with China\u2019s space community \u201cat a time when doing so was neither straightforward nor fashionable in some Western circles \u2013 and is increasingly difficult today\u201d, Parker added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Durst, a US space entrepreneur who spent decades building rare bridges with China\u2019s space sector despite restrictions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[550,219146,2356,158122,199219,144,219148,86364,5425,219144,19409,219147,219145,79,193,219149,2024],"class_list":{"0":"post-472358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-beijing-institute-of-space-mechanics-and-electricity","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-change-7","12":"tag-chiang-mai","13":"tag-china","14":"tag-china-academy-of-space-technology","15":"tag-china-daily","16":"tag-hong-kong","17":"tag-international-lunar-observatory-association","18":"tag-milky-way","19":"tag-national-astronomical-observatories-of-china","20":"tag-quentin-parker","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-space","23":"tag-steve-durst","24":"tag-thailand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}