Over 50 years since it last sent astronauts to the moon, the US is now reentering a very different space race
The successful launch of the Artemis II lunar flyby marked one small step for NASA, while China’s already making giant leaps in its own space program.
On Wednesday, a group of NASA astronauts set off on a flight around the moon, the first crewed lunar flyby since 1972. The world of space travel, much like life on Earth itself, has changed a lot in those 54 years.
The Space Launch System, for example, is considerably more advanced technology than Apollo’s Saturn V rocket; the crew is one person bigger, and includes a Canadian; the pace of launches leading up to it has been much slower; and the mission comes amid a rivalry with an Eastern nation that isn’t Russia.
Red star, blue star
In the days preceding the Artemis II launch, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman commented that one of the main motives for the US to reinitiate its lunar exploration programs is the progress that China has been making in the space.
As outlined by The New York Times, China is the only country so far to have landed on and retrieved samples from the far side of the moon — the same side that the US aims to land human astronauts on by 2028 — with its seventh robotic mission exploring the lunar south pole slated for later this year. For its part, China aims to place its own astronauts on the nearer, Neil Armstrong-trodden side of the moon by 2030.
Right now, China’s astronomical ambitions appear to be slightly leaner than America’s, and are moving at a slower rate. Dr. Yuqi Qian, a lunar geologist at the University of Hong Kong, told the NYT, “I don’t think China regards this as a race.” Still, that hasn’t stopped the US from ramping up its moon mission efforts in recent years.
Data from the NASA archive shows that the US kicked its lunar program back into motion in 2022, when the agency launched six missions in a single year, followed by five further missions in the years since. Russia’s lunar efforts have all but plateaued following the mid-20th-century space race, while China’s have accelerated significantly since it first launched its lunar initiative in 2004.
The lunar the better
Regardless of speed, both the US and China have similar plans once they get to the moon’s surface, including establishing outposts there to tap oxygen, water, hydrogen, helium, and rare earth elements and building nuclear reactors to power deep space missions.
Until then, wherever you are in the world, at least we can all find some strange comfort in the fact that there are officially 10 toilets in space right now (though this will go back down when Artemis II lands in nine days).
