Special to CosmicTribune.com, January 17, 2024

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

The United States requires a strategy to establish a clear lead over China in the race to dominate the Moon; The Jan. 9 announcement that the Artemis-3 next U.S. manned Moon mission is delayed to September 2026 puts the democracies in a dead heat with Communist China — which could put Chinese on the Moon by 2029 or 2030.

During a Jan. 9 news conference National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Bill Nelson said: “I really do not have a concern that China’s gonna land before us…I think that China has a very aggressive plan. I think they would like to land before us … but the fact is that I don’t think they will.”

But NASA and the United States broadly are fighting to sustain a dominant schedule on two levels.

First, NASA is fighting delays inherent in the requirement to develop new technology and space systems that will allow for an increasingly efficient path to the Moon.

Problems with perfecting the heat shield on the new Orion crew capsule, plus issues with its electronics and safety mission abort system have delayed the first manned circumlunar Artemis-2 from late 2024 to late 2025.

In addition, delays with the SpaceX Human Landing System, based on the reusable 100-ton to the Moon Starship SLV, which may now require the launch of ten refueling missions to support each Moon mission, has forced NASA to delay the first manned Artemis-3 mission from late 2025 to September 2026, but this schedule is regarded as “aggressive” and may not hold.

This raises the second major factor forcing a US delay, that Washington and its democratic allies are increasingly unable to deter China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from initiating wars that would force immediate diversions of NASA funding to pay for wars.

Were China to initiate a war against democratic Taiwan, which successfully held its fourth free presidential election on Jan. 13, a huge political defeat for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the U.S. likely would not be able to afford to continue support Ukraine in its war against Russia and fund an “aggressive” Artemis Moon program.

But China and Russia now have “proxy” nuclear-armed North Korea and soon, nuclear-armed Iran to help fund and escalate additional wars, as China-enabled Iran has been responsible for funding and leading the Oct. 7, 2023 China-supported Hamas War against Israel.

Because the CCP leads a dictatorship that does not have to respond to public demands as it instigates and funds more wars around the world, it can force declining living standards on the Chinese people in order to pay for multiple wars and its aggressive Moon program.

China has targeted 2029 or 2030 for its first manned Moon mission.

On May 29, 2023 state media China Daily quoted Deputy Director of the China National Space Administration Lin Xiqiang saying, “The overall goals are to realize China’s first manned landing on the moon before 2030, carry out scientific exploration and related technological demonstrations on the lunar surface, develop a commutation and short-term stay system for crews, and develop human-robot integrated testing and other key technologies.”

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