The new Moon race: Assessing Chinese and US strategiesby James Clay Moltz
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| What factors will matter most for success in cislunar space and who has the advantage? |
China indeed has some early momentum, given its greater number of recent lunar missions than NASA. Some fear it will seize first-mover advantage on the Moon, possibly acing out US-led missions to stake out critical regions like the lunar poles and their valuable reserves of water ice. As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson warned in a recent NPR interview, if Chinese taikonauts arrive at the lunar South Pole before US astronauts they are likely to set up operations and tell others “this is ours, you stay out.” Such concerns about the United States lagging have only increased since China’s success in late June in becoming the first country to carry out a sample return mission from the far side of the Moon.
Given this debate and its relevance to US national security, it is worthwhile to examine some of these arguments to assess their accuracy. What factors will matter most for success in cislunar space and who has the advantage? Starting with Cold War lunar strategies as a baseline, this essay analyzes current Chinese and US cislunar strategies and tries to answer the basic question: which one has a better chance of establishing a cislunar leadership and then sustaining that role?
A brief look back… and forward
The US-Soviet Moon race featured government-funded, highly nationalistic, and state-run efforts to be the first to land humans on the Moon. Thanks to strong Congressional support, impressive technology, brave astronauts, and some critical mistakes on the Soviet side, NASA prevailed in this highly symbolic and influential competition, reaping tremendous international respect and soft power. Management of the Apollo program was a top-down, government-led effort. Innovation came from contractors building technologies under specifications supplied by NASA. But it cost 4% of the federal budget at the height of the Apollo program to do that. Unfortunately, those days are not coming back.
In the face of tight Congressional budgets, bureaucratic slowness, and rising threats, the 2010 National Space Policy proposed a new strategy, which outlined goals of enhanced engagement with the commercial sector and with space-capable allies. After nearly 15 years of establishing the mechanisms for these relationships, this new “networked” strategy is now being put to the test in the Artemis Program.
Meanwhile, China is relying on the state-run, Cold War model for managing its cislunar program. Why? Because Xi Jinping’s government insists—for political reasons—on controlling the direction of its space enterprises, their technology, and their data. Such a highly autonomous and nationalistic strategy can work when budgets are flush. But it doesn’t fare so well when one’s economy flattens or begins to decline. Governmental controls can also slow innovation.
The new US strategy has largely abandoned old, cost-plus contracting and focuses increasingly on fixed-price contracts for services, letting commercial companies do what they do best: build, operate, and update their technologies. This new approach has thus far yielded both cislunar failures (Astrobotics) and successes (Intuitive Machines).
But critics of the new approach are not convinced it will work. Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin stated in Congressional testimony in January 2024 that the United States should abandon its plans to use complex and untested SpaceX and Blue Origin technologies for landing on the Moon, and instead focus on what he called a more reliable route of using government-run programs and assets. The problem, though, is that the SLS launcher costs $4 billion a flight and the average NASA mission takes years to plan and requires hundreds of millions of dollars. The United States is unlikely to be able to afford that approach. The good news is that there are now new options for countries able to attract partners.
A 21st century strategy for cislunar space
Partnering with the commercial sector means that certain spacecraft may not be as well-tested or well-funded as government missions. As a result, they may be more likely to fail. But failure can be good. It allows countries to learn things, and then to try again with that new knowledge. Using cheaper and more frequent commercial missions to work out some of these bugs allows NASA to focus on bigger missions, while still making progress. Working with the commercial sector means taking some additional risks, such as relying on SpaceX’s and Blue Origin to transfer astronauts from NASA’s Orion capsule to the lunar surface. But these two companies have every incentive to develop safe procedures and reliable technologies. Notably, SpaceX has a perfect record thus far with its Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station.
| The Artemis Accords are shaping the narrative in the United States’ favor at the international level. |
A second set of potential partners involves US allies. During the first Moon race, foreign governments mattered only as locations for ground stations or emergency landing sites. No foreign technologies played a significant role in any of the Apollo missions to the Moon. This time, their contributions are going to be very different. Forty-two countries have joined the US in Artemis Accords so far, subscribing to a set of voluntary principles, with many offering important technological and financial support.
International contributions to Artemis
Unlike with the design of the International Space Station, US allies are now providing “critical path” technologies to the Artemis effort. Japan is building life support equipment and a cargo supply vehicle for the Lunar Gateway and a pressurized rover for lunar surface operations. Two Japanese astronauts will also land on the Moon. The European Space Agency (ESA) is providing the Orion Service Module to carry the crewed capsule from the SLS into lunar orbit, and the European Large Logistics Lander will deliver cargo for the planned lunar base. Three ESA astronauts will fly on early Artemis missions. Canada is supplying a robotic arm for use by the Gateway, and the United Arab Emirates will build an airlock for it. Finally, India, South Korea, and several other countries are funding technologies and missions in support of Artemis.
Just as importantly, the Artemis Accords are shaping the narrative in the United States’ favor at the international level. It’s building a growing coalition of countries that support cislunar cooperation, transparency, and peaceful development. While many principles and procedures need to be further developed, such as how conflicts over proposed “safety zones” for mining operations will be settled, the member states have already begun regular meetings to discuss these issues. This is how international norms are developed.
By contrast, recent Chinese and Russian behavior seeking to block efforts at the United Nations to halt kinetic anti-satellite testing and even to reaffirm long-standing principles from the Outer Space Treaty prohibiting the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit have increased international skepticism of Beijing’s and Moscow’s intentions in space. This is a public relations battle that China and Russia are losing. The evidence can be seen in the almost complete absence of international support for the ILRS among major spacefaring nations and the lack of major financial or technological contributions.
China and Russian cooperation: Mind the gap
The one exception is Russia. Moscow recently mentioned that it might contribute a nuclear power reactor for the ILRS. But funding for that expensive project in the mid-2030s remains far from clear. The Roscosmos budget has plummeted in the face of Ukraine war expenses. Notably, Roscosmos director-general Yuri Borisov complained in an interview last year (RIA Novosti, February 10, 2023) about his concern that Beijing will exploit Moscow’s space know-how for the ILRS but leave it “without contracts.” In other words, Russia is expecting China to pay for its participation. But Beijing’s list of missions now only includes Chinese spacecraft. The limits of this cooperation are highlighted by Borisov’s admission that the two sides have not even discussed including Russian cosmonauts in future ILRS missions.
Meanwhile, no other Chinese ILRS partners have the capacity to provide significant funding or technologies. This means that—despite the “international” name—the ILRS is going to be a Chinese-dominated affair and that Beijing will likely be on the hook to pay for everything. As with its Belt and Road Initiative, that approach worked fine when the Chinese economy was booming. But it will force increasingly difficult tradeoffs when military and economic needs on Earth begin to conflict with the high costs of cislunar space.
| The ILRS is going to be a Chinese-dominated affair and Beijing will likely be on the hook to pay for everything. |
Trying to copy US success, China recently announced that commercial companies will be involved in the ILRS. The government has for some time been pumping money into commercial space incubators. But the bulk of these small startups are run by former state officials, and President Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian rules also require entrepreneurs to share technology and information with the Chinese state. Without greater freedoms and financial protections, innovation is likely to suffer, particularly if the state budget falls on hard times.
A possibly more serious problem is how China is going to launch all the payloads it will need to deliver to sustain its cislunar operations. In the coming few years, a critical Chinese requirement is going to be launching thousands of communications satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) to populate its answer to Starlink. China’s current Long March 5 rocket can carry 25,000 kilograms into LEO, but it is not reusable. This is going to create difficult tradeoffs.
For Artemis missions, besides the reusable Falcon 9, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy can lift up to 63,800 kilograms to LEO, and NASA’s SLS Block 1 can lift 95,000 kilograms. India, France, and Japan can also launch missions to the Moon. On the horizon, Blue Origin’s New Glenn will be an option, and SpaceX’s Starship will carry at least 100 metric tons, and both will be reusable. These concerns forced Beijing last year to redesign its planned heavy-lift Long March 9 booster to make it reusable and reduce costs. But this rocket—a key to China’s lunar program—won’t be ready until the mid-2030s.
Some legitimate concerns for the future
Despite the advantages of the new US strategy, there are admittedly some risks. A string of commercial mission failures, Congressional stinginess in providing funding, or unexpected technological glitches in the lunar landers, rovers, or regolith-use systems for oxygen, water, and construction could slow Artemis down. The United States faces upcoming gaps in next-generation lunar space situational awareness, communications, and lunar observation systems. This means that building the kind of infrastructure called for in the US National Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy should be a high priority. Finally, economic hardships or political feuds with allies and partners in the program could create capability gaps or other delays. But China faces even more challenging odds as it seeks to build and sustain its cislunar infrastructure largely on its own. This is also not a recipe for cislunar leadership.
| Despite the current narrative of China’s “lead” in the new Moon race, the United States should not panic. We should stay the course. |
In sum, the competition to return to the Moon is accelerating and now involves an increasing number of countries and companies. Fortunately, the evidence so far is that the United States is building a more powerful and enduring coalition for sharing costs and pooling capabilities, which should serve it better than China’s largely self-contained and self-funded program.
Despite the current narrative of China’s “lead” in the new Moon race, the United States should not panic. We should stay the course. By funding NASA at reliable levels, partnering with the commercial sector, and cooperating with our space-capable allies, we can succeed in building sustainable cislunar leadership.
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