A new space race? China lends urgency to US return to moon

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WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s not just rocket fuel that’s powering America’s first moonshot after a half-century hiatus. The rivalry with China’s thriving space program is helping spur NASA’s efforts to return to space on a larger scale as both nations push to put humans back on the moon and set up the first lunar bases.

American intelligence, military and political leaders are making it clear that they see China’s space program as a host of strategic challenges for the US, in an echo of the US-Soviet rivalry that sparked the 1960s moon race. That’s because China is rapidly catching up with US civilian and military achievements in space and making new ones of its own.

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On the military side, the US and China are exchanging accusations of wanting to arm space. Senior US defense officials warn that China and Russia are building capabilities to take out the satellite systems that underpin US intelligence, military communications and early warning networks.

The space race also has a civilian side. The US fears that China is taking the lead in space exploration and commercial exploitation, and pioneering the technological and scientific advances that would lead China to power in space and prestige on earth.

“In a decade, the United States has gone from being the undisputed leader in space to one of two contenders in a contest,” Senator Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said at a Senate Armed Forces hearing this week. “Everything our military does depends on space.”

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At another hearing last year, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson showed an image transmitted by a Chinese rover that had just landed on Mars. “The Chinese government… they’re going to put people on the moon soon,” he said. “That should tell us something about getting rid of our duff.”

NASA, the US civilian space agency, is awaiting a new launch date for its unmanned test moonshot Artemis 1 this month or October. Technical problems have scrubbed the first two launch attempts in recent weeks.

China also wants to send astronauts to the moon in this decade and set up a robotic research station there. Both the US and China intend to establish bases for intermittent crews at the moon’s south pole thereafter.

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Russia has joined China’s lunar program, while 21 nations have joined a US-initiated effort aimed at bringing policy and order to civilian space exploration and development.

The parallel effort comes 50 years after US astronauts last closed the doors of an Apollo module and blasted it off the moon in December 1972.

Some space policy pundits balk at talk of a new space race, seeing stark contrasts to John F. Kennedy’s Cold War efforts to surpass the Soviet Union’s Sputnik and be the first to put humans on the moon. This time around, both the US and China see lunar programs as stepping stones in phased programs to explore, colonize, and potentially exploit the resources and other untapped economic and strategic opportunities offered by the moon, Mars, and space as a whole.

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Aside from the technological, scientific, and job-related gains that come with space programs, Artemis proponents point to the potential of mining minerals and frozen water on the moon, or using the moon as a base for searching for asteroids — particularly the Trump administration stressed this mining prospects. There is potential in tourism and other commercial endeavors.

And speaking of space more broadly, Americans alone have tens of thousands of satellites overhead in what the Space Force says is a half-trillion-dollar global space economy. Satellites guide GPS, process credit card purchases, help keep TV, radio and cell phone feeds going, and predict the weather. They ensure that the military and intelligence agencies can keep tabs on perceived threats.

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And in a world where China and Russia are working together to try to outpace the US in space, and where some are pointing out that private space efforts led by US billionaires are making costly NASA rocket launches unnecessary, the US would regret giving up the glory and strategic advantages of developing the moon and space solely for the likes of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Tesla magnate Elon Musk, Artemis proponents say.

The lunar programs signal that “space will be an arena of competition on the prestige front, demonstrating advanced technical expertise and know-how, and then on the military front as well,” said Aaron Bateman, professor of history and international affairs of George Washington University and a member of the Space Policy Institute.

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“People who support Artemis and people who see it as a competitive tool want the United States to sit around the table in shaping the future of exploring other celestial bodies,” Bateman said.

There is no shortage of such warnings as the Artemis program nears launch. “Beijing is working to match or exceed US capabilities in space to reap the military, economic and prestige benefits Washington has reaped from space leadership,” the US Secret Service warned in its annual threat assessment this year.

A study group commissioned by the Pentagon claimed last month that “China appears to be on track to surpass the US as the dominant space power by 2045.” It called this part of a Chinese plan to promote authoritarianism and communism here on Earth.

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It has occasionally sparked heated words between Chinese and US officials.

China’s space program will be guided by peaceful principles, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in July. “Some US officials keep smearing China’s normal and reasonable space enterprises,” Zhao said.

Artemis 1 flies on the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA and is aiming for a five-week demonstration flight that would take test dummies into lunar orbit.

If all goes well, US astronauts could fly around the moon in 2024 and land on it in 2025, the culmination of a program that will have cost $93 billion in more than a decade of work.

NASA intends that a woman and a person of color will be part of the first US crew to set foot on the moon again.

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Lessons learned from returning to the moon will help take the next step in manned flights to Mars, the space agency says.

Meanwhile, China’s ambitious space program is a generation behind that of the United States. But his secretive military-linked program is rapidly evolving, creating distinctive missions that could put Beijing at the forefront of space travel.

China already has this rover on Mars, joining a US rover already there. China has made a first by landing on the far side of the moon.

Chinese astronauts are overhead now, putting the finishing touches on a permanently orbiting space station.

A 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, which was to begin shaping the guard rails for space exploration, prohibits anyone from claiming sovereignty over a celestial body, establishing a military base on it, or launching weapons of mass destruction into space.

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“I don’t think it’s coincidence or coincidence that the United States is actually investing the resources to go back now in what people are saying is another great power competition,” said Bateman, the space scholar and national security. “Time will tell if this becomes a sustainable program.”

Competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Does the rivalry with the Chinese “make for a more sustained interest in our space program? Sure,’ said Coons. “But I don’t think it’s necessarily a competition that leads to conflict.

“I think it can be a competition – like the Olympics – that just means every team and side is going to push higher and faster. And as a result, humanity is likely to benefit,” he said.