“Distraction.” That’s how Elon Musk described NASA’s efforts to land a human on the moon. He proposed going directly to Mars, and already has a name for the first settlement there: Terminus.
President Trump’s close advisor could be getting his way. Trump, in his second inaugural address, promised to put an American on the Red Planet. He did not then mention NASA’s ongoing moon program.
But skipping the moon would be a disaster for America. The U.S. must put down stakes there as fast as possible and with as large a presence as possible.
China certainly has big ambitions for our closest neighbor in space. The China National Space Administration, with the help of Russian space agency Roscosmos, plans a colony near the coveted lunar south pole, which appears to have, among other things, large quantities of ice.
Beijing and Moscow announced in March 2021 the signing of a memorandum of understanding contemplating the building of the International Lunar Research Station. Later, they said they expect to complete the station’s first phase around 2035.
The Chinese effort has been impressive. China has had a moon presence since 2013, when Chang’e-3 put both a lander and a rover on the surface. Chang’e 4, which landed on the moon’s far side in January 2019, has been gathering data, presumably for a permanent location. Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 were lunar sample-return missions.
Unfortunately, China intends to do more than establish a base. Its leaders publicly talk about the annexation of the moon.
“The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island,” said Ye Peijian, the head of China’s lunar program in 2017, referring to features in the East China and South China Seas. “If we don’t go there now, even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to.”
Ye had, in essence, issued a warning because he compared the near heavenly bodies to islands and outcroppings that Beijing claims as sovereign territory. In short, Ye made it clear that Beijing intends to exclude others if it is in a position to do so.
American officials understand the meaning of the poetic language. Then NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told Politico that “we better watch out that they don’t get to a place on the moon under the guise of scientific research.”
“It is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory,’” he explained.
Chinese control of the moon would put the United States in grave danger. Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center pointed out to me that Chinese control of the moon would confer control of cis-lunar space, the portion of space between the Earth and the moon.
Control of cis-lunar space would give a country the ability to shoot down or otherwise disable deep-space satellites, which are essential for, among other things, the early warning of ballistic missile attacks.
Brandon Weichert, author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower,” told me, “Specifically, the race between the United States and China is for strategic dominance of the high ground.”
“A key element of this involves the quest to control not only the orbits around the Earth, but also to place permanent manned facilities on the lunar surface and, eventually, on Mars. China understands both the military and economic implications of dominating space,” he added.
As Weichert says, unfortunately, there is in the U.S. “a dangerous ambivalence about, even in some quarters, an aversion to, space dominance.”
Since the early 1990s, China has been building, according to Fisher, “a dual-use, civil-military mission capable space program to achieve hegemony in space in order to assure its hegemony on Earth.”
To that end, China has “dogfighting” satellites designed to take down American ones and is building, Fisher reports, “weaponized space platforms intended for Earth orbits but which can also be sent to lunar and Martian orbits to assure dominance for Chinese troops on the moon and Mars.”
The moon, in short, controls cis-lunar space. It is also the gateway to Musk’s favored destination, Mars.
Fortunately, President Trump’s pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, believes the U.S. can go to both the moon and Mars, something he emphasized early this month in his confirmation hearing.
Says Weichert, “We have a big enough public-private ecosystem that will allow for NASA to partner with private startups and even the U.S. Space Force, which absolutely needs a manned spaceflight capability, to get to the moon quickly while Musk’s SpaceX focuses on getting U.S. boots on Mars.”
Unfortunately, the U.S.-led Artemis program, with its goal of landing humans on the moon, is behind schedule.
China is showing more determination. It is working fast to get to the moon, and it has issued a veiled warning to those who see their future on the Red Planet.
In April 2021, Beijing announced that the name of its Mars rover is Zhurong. Zhurong, we were told, is the Chinese god of fire. As the literal name of that planet in Chinese is “Fire Star,” Zhurong was appropriate.
What Beijing did not say is that Zhurong is also China’s god of war and the god of the South China Sea. China claims about 85 percent of that body of water as “blue national soil,” a part of the People’s Republic of China.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America” and “The Coming Collapse of China.”