Can U Put a Tracker on a Car
The Next Neil Armstrong May Be Chinese as Moon Race Intensifies
Fifty years after Neil Armstrong took his one small step, there's a renewed race to put human beings back on the moon—and the next one to land there may send greetings back to Earth in Chinese.
China, which didn't have a space exploration program when Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969, is planning a series of missions to match that achievement. China could have its own astronauts walking on the moon's surface and working in a research station at its south pole sometime in the 2030s.
On the way there, they may stop over at a space station scheduled for assembly starting next year.
America's Lunar Lead
Manned missions and moon probes
Source: NASA/GSFC/LROC, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University
Those ambitions trouble President Donald Trump's administration, which is locked in trade and technology-transfer disputes with China that raise fears of a new Cold War like the one between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that spawned the Apollo program in the 1960s. With the U.S.-China rivalry extending into the cosmos, Trump wants to create a military branch called the Space Force and accelerate NASA's timetable for returning to the moon.
"Make no mistake about it: We're in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s, and the stakes are even higher," U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in March.
Chinese officials are just as emphatic about the importance of the space program to their national identity. A moon shot is intended to open the heavens for more-distant missions as China strives to be a dominant space power by the time the Communist Party celebrates its centennial anniversary of rule in 2049.
"I wouldn't be at all surprised if the next voice from the moon is speaking Mandarin," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor and space-policy expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
Buzz Aldrin, with Neil Armstrong reflected on his visor during the Apollo 11 mission. Source: NASA
Trump's New Timetable
China already is a galactic pioneer after landing the first probe on the far side of the moon in January. It's plotting lunar missions to bring back crust samples, and it intends to send a probe to Mars by next year.
When Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, they fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's 1961 call to put an American on the moon by the end of that decade.
Trump wants U.S. boots back there by 2024, shaving four years off the previous timetable and empowering NASA to use contractors such as Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin LLC to make it happen.
The proposed landing at the lunar south pole—the same region China is eyeing for its research station — would be a precursor to a sustained presence by 2028.
NASA's current budget is $21.5 billion, and the Trump administration is seeking another $1.6 billion for the current fiscal year to fund its lunar return, a program called Artemis. NASA will need billions of dollars more to meet the 2024 deadline.
Shoot for the Moon
Science, space and technology outlays as a percentage of total U.S. government spending
Source: United States Office of Management and Budget
"We're building an architecture that enables us to go to the moon to stay for long periods of time with commercial partners and international partners," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a July 2 interview.
"It's my intent to make sure that we remain the preeminent spacefaring nation."
NASA hasn't had its own rockets for launching crews into orbit since the space shuttle program ended in 2011, so it pays Russia more than $80 million a seat for rides to the International Space Station. The rocket that's supposed to meet Pence's new timeline–Boeing Co.'s Space Launch System—is struggling with years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns. It won't be ready for what was a planned June 2020 mission orbiting the moon.
China Catches Up
Spacecraft deployed by country or region
Source: Space Launch Report
Bridenstine stands behind the SLS, which has strong political support, and said it's the only vehicle suitable for getting NASA back to the moon.
The agency will consider using commercial companies for a lunar lander and key aspects of the Lunar Gateway orbiting platform, which may help lower the estimated $20 billion-$30 billion price tag for a moon mission, he said in the interview.
Reusable rockets from Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX already are deploying satellites and resupplying the space station, and are contracted to ferry astronauts there.
Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin signed an agreement with NASA to develop commercial lunar-lander systems. Bezos unveiled the Blue Moon lander in May and said he hoped missions could commence by 2024.
Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang conducts the nation's first spacewalk in 2008. Source: Beijing Space Command and Control Center via Xinhua/AP
Why China May Be First
NASA had several manned spaceflight programs after Eugene Cernan stepped off the moon in 1972 as the last visitor, but none returned humans there.
President Barack Obama in 2010 canceled the Constellation mission to reach the space station, moon and Mars because he said it was over budget and behind schedule. He favored seeding private space transportation to help lower costs.
That didn't sit well with Armstrong.
"Other nations will surely step in where we have faltered," he told Congress in 2010.
Mission whiplash continues to this day. After urging NASA to speed up its moon schedule, Trump then tweeted in June that the agency should focus on other missions, including Mars.
Jeff Bezos introduces Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander on May 9 in Washington. Photographer: Patrick Semansky/AP
While U.S. space policy is subject to swings of the political pendulum, that's not the case in a nation with one-party rule. Interstellar research and exploration are linchpins of Chinese President Xi Jinping's blueprint for boosting high-technology manufacturing and reducing reliance on the U.S. and other countries.
Xi said earlier this year the party will "pursue the nation's unyielding dream of flying into the sky and reaching for the moon."
China's State Council in 2016 outlined a five-year space strategy that included developing a super-heavy rocket to carry big payloads into orbit, launching a telescope to study black holes and building a space station.
That station is expected to be fully operational by about 2022, according to the state-run China Daily.
Yang Liwei waves after returning from first flight in space in 2003. Source: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The strategy also called for manned spaceflight, exploring and sampling the moon and eventually sending probes near Mars and Jupiter. The country will send its first rover to Mars next year, the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily reported in April.
China wants to place a scientific research station near the moon's south pole in about 10 years and conduct missions with astronauts on the lunar surface, Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, said during the annual Space Day celebration in April, according to China Daily.
"It's entirely plausible that China will have a more sophisticated space program than NASA or SpaceX or Blue Origin," said Blaine Curcio, founder of Orbital Gateway Consulting in Hong Kong.
China's first man in space, Yang Liwei, was a fighter pilot who orbited the Earth in 2003. Just five years later, Zhai Zhigang conducted the nation's first spacewalk and, in 2012, Liu Yang became the first Chinese woman blasted into orbit.
Now China is embarking on more ambitious missions. The Chang'e 4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon in January. Chang'e 5's launch, scheduled by year's end, will be China's first try at collecting samples and returning them to Earth.
What China Wants Up There
The sampling program signals that China is interested not just in planting its flag in the lunar soil but also in exploiting the resources underneath, analysts said. The State Council's plan repeatedly references using the program to further economic development.
Water submerged at the moon's poles could help sustain human life and propel spacecraft further into the universe, and elements rare on Earth—such as helium-3—could be shipped back to generate almost unlimited energy.
China isn't alone in looking at moon mining. The U.S., the European Space Agency, India and others have expressed similar interests, as has Bezos. India also announced plans last year to become the fourth nation to launch humans into space.
Chang'e 3 Panorama Shot from the Moon
Touch and drag to view 👆
Source: Image from CAS/CNSA, stiched by Andrew Bodrov/360cities.net via Getty Images
The state-run enterprises and government agencies overseeing China's space program didn't reply to faxes seeking comment.
Given the complexities of rocket science, China still faces many challenges in reaching for the moon. The program suffered a major setback in 2017 when a Long March-5 heavy-lift rocket failed within six minutes of liftoff.
China may try again this month, the official Xinhua News Agency reported in January, citing the vice president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., Yang Baohua.
The failure is a reminder of the difficulty China faces in closing the gap with NASA. Any Chinese astronaut stepping on the moon would be doing so more than half a century after Armstrong and Aldrin were there.
Ambitious Space Plans
Sources: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Xinhua, Chinese government
"I have heard a lot of people talk about China landing on the far side of the moon, but it's important to remember that a few months before that happened we landed on the far side of Mars," Bridenstine said, referring to the InSight lander. "The United States of America is well ahead. I don't see it as a race."
Yet Johnson-Freese said China likely will sort out the glitches and have a heavy-launch rocket capable of propelling astronauts to the moon. China may be able to put astronauts on the moon in about a decade, she said.
A Space Silk Road
China's space spending last year was an estimated $8.48 billion—less than half of NASA's—though actual spending may be higher and likely includes military research, said Rich Cooper, a vice president at Colorado Springs, Colorado-based researcher Space Foundation.
U.S. law curtails NASA from working with China for fear of espionage. To compensate, China is spanning the globe to attract space partners.
The China National Space Administration signed an agreement with Pakistan in April to cooperate on manned missions. Chinese scientists also are working with counterparts from the ESA, Brazil and France.
At home, the government is encouraging private-sector startups to emulate SpaceX and Blue Origin by testing rockets and planning orbital launches.
The Chang'e-4 lunar probe launches at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Dec. 8, 2018. Photographer: Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua
"China's growth strategy is focused on establishing a Space Silk Road," Michael Gold, a vice president of satellite provider Maxar Technologies Inc., told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in April.
Relations between the U.S. and China haven't deteriorated to the levels that motivated the 1960s space race, but some analysts say it's inevitable the two countries will compete for supremacy in the cosmos.
In an interview with state TV, Ye Peijian, a top official with the lunar exploration program, explained why China wanted to go to the moon.
"If we are now capable of going but we don't go, future generations will blame us," he said. "If others go there, then they will take over."
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-us-vs-china-moon-race/
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