China Takes Leap in New Race to Moon --- Unmanned mission is step in contest with U.S. to build permanent outposts

"There is a new space race, this time between the U.S. and China. On Tuesday, China took an important step forward.

A Chinese spacecraft returned carrying the first-ever rock samples from the far side of the moon. A scientific breakthrough in itself, the success also advanced China's plan to put astronauts on the moon by 2030 and build a lunar base by 2035.

That is worrying American space officials and lawmakers. Both nations seek to build permanent outposts on the moon's most strategic location, the lunar south pole. And as they gear up, it is looking likely that tensions in orbit will mirror those on Earth.

Some U.S. officials fear China plans a land grab. Chinese officials suspect the same of the Americans and are teaming up with Russia and other friendly nations for its south-pole outpost.

The outlines of a rivalry in which superpowers and their allies jockey to exploit the moon's strategic importance are already emerging. Tuesday's success with the Chang'e 6 mission shows that, by one measure, China leads.

The recent scoreboard is "4 to 0.5," said Simone Dell'Agnello, an Italian researcher who collaborated with Chang'e 6. China's lunar program has soft-landed on the moon four times since 2013, the latest mission scooping up rocks near the south pole. 

The U.S. this year sought to end a decadeslong moon-landing hiatus, with two American companies launching missions under contracts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

One lander tipped over after touchdown. The other didn't try to land because of technical problems.

All this is piling pressure on the world's most storied space agency. At least two more private missions with NASA funding are slated to try to get to the moon this year. Through its Artemis exploration program, the agency plans in the coming years to conduct multiple landings, develop a logistics station in lunar orbit and eventually build permanent camps on the moon. But Artemis, relying on a complex mix of government workers and private contractors, has faced repeated delays and cost overruns.

An uncrewed test mission, Artemis I, went around the moon in 2022. This year, NASA pushed back the next two flights, including Artemis III, meant to be humanity's first crewed landing on the lunar surface since Apollo 17, in 1972. NASA is collaborating with contractors, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is developing a lunar lander for Artemis.

Some space experts say Artemis III's new target date of 2026 is still too optimistic. NASA has been considering altering the plan so as not to include landing astronauts on the moon, people familiar with the matter said.

Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator, said in an interview that landing astronauts in 2026 is indeed possible, pointing to SpaceX's work advancing the vehicle it will use for that operation.

The idea that the U.S. was in a race with China was amplified in 2017 when Ye Peijian of the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences compared the moon and Mars to disputed Pacific territories claimed by China -- but also Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. 

Then in 2021, China and Russia agreed to build a research base on the lunar south pole.

"My concern is if China got there first and suddenly said, 'OK, this is our territory. You stay out,'" NASA's Nelson told a congressional hearing in April. There may be only a few spots in the lunar south-pole region with the resources needed for human outposts, he said.

China's foreign ministry has said it is the U.S., not China, that threatens peace in outer space.

A decades-old treaty signed by more than 100 countries, including the U.S. and China, generally precludes sovereign claims on the moon. But it doesn't spell out what would happen if two countries tried to build a lunar base on the same spot. Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the University of Mississippi's Center for Air and Space Law, said whoever builds a base could argue that under the treaty it is entitled to a 100-kilometer perimeter to protect its equipment.

"Whichever country leads the exploration of space, whether it is back to the moon or on to Mars, you basically get to set the rules of the road for how we operate," Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Science Committee, said in an interview.

The U.S. in 2020 started recruiting countries to sign the Artemis Accords, a newer framework for peaceful space exploration. More than 40 have signed. China hasn't, instead recruiting 10 countries, including Russia, Pakistan and South Africa, as partners in its south-pole base. China's foreign ministry, in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal, said "each side has different views on whether the Artemis Accords align with existing outer-space laws."

For all its accomplishments, China's space program has faced its own struggles. Its Long March 5 rockets, which launched the rock-sample mission, were delayed for years, and China trails the U.S. in several aspects. It hasn't yet developed powerful reusable rockets, as the U.S. has.

Compared with equatorial regions where the Apollo missions went, the lunar south pole is tougher to land on because of rougher terrain and poorer lighting. 

But the U.S. and China think it is worth the effort because of the resources, especially water ice, a potential source of water and oxygen for astronauts and hydrogen for rocket fuel.

And researchers have found evidence of what may be metal deposits, which they envision could be mined to build rockets on the moon. Some NASA officials and researchers believe it is more cost-effective to launch missions to Mars from the moon.

In China, state media provided enthusiastic updates on the Chang'e 6 mission. Before it took off, the probe drew the Chinese character for the country's name in the lunar soil. The picture of the scrawling went viral on Chinese social media." [1]

Flights from the Moon are much more economical because the Moon is much smaller than the Earth, so the gravitational pull of the Moon is less, and it costs less fuel to launch the same payloads into orbit from the Moon. Therefore, the Moon becomes a gateway to the further conquest of space. No wonder everyone is so nervous here.

1. World News: China Takes Leap in New Race to Moon --- Unmanned mission is step in contest with U.S. to build permanent outposts. Woo, Stu; Leong, Clarence; Maidenberg, Micah.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 26 June 2024: A.7.