China launches moon mission in base race with US
SINGAPORE—Across China and among the global scientific community, Friday’s launch of a Chinese mission to collect samples from the moon’s far side has been hailed for its potential for a scientific breakthrough. But in the U.S., lawmakers and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are closely watching the expedition with trepidation: as a milestone in a rival’s campaign to build a base on the moon’s most strategic location. The latest frontier of the U.S.-China technological Cold War orbits 240,000 miles above us.
Though lacking the specter of nuclear war from the U.S.-Soviet space race six decades ago, this new rivalry puts this century’s superpowers on track to spar over lunar real estate, extraterrestrial weaponry and national pride. The lunar territory that both countries covet is the south pole. It contains resources that could sustain a crewed base, so supplies wouldn’t have to be schlepped in from Earth.
It has ice, which can be turned into water and oxygen for humans, and into hydrogen for rocket fuel. Some south-pole regions enjoy round-the-clock sunlight, a potential source of solar power. “My concern is if China got there first and suddenly said, ‘OK, this is our territory.
You stay out,’" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told a congressional hearing last month. Nelson said China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea offer a clue as to how Beijing would handle a potential lunar dispute. A crater near the south pole is the destination of the 53-day mission that lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern China on Friday afternoon local time.
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