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China's Moon-landing Plans And Why the US Is So Worried (cnn.com) 165

Posted by EditorDavid from the bad-moon-on-the-rise dept.
"We are in a 21st century space race," U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has said. And this week CNN noted a competition that for decades loomed in the background of geopolitics "is now roaring to the forefront," with China "demonstrating rapid advances in space technology" while the U.S. is "ratcheting up rhetoric about a looming battle for control of the cosmos." It's the fact that China plans to build a permanent settlement on the moon by 2040 that has prompted an urgent response from [U.S.] lawmakers... They've declared a new space race, and NASA is pledging to build a lunar outpost of America's own.... Both the United States and China plan to send robotic explorers to the south pole later this year, paving the way for human explorers to follow close behind.

The US is relying on the private sector to develop and build low-cost, exploratory robotic landers... Meanwhile, China is aiming to launch its robotic Chang'e-7 mission as soon as this month. The complex endeavor will seek to use four different robotic vehicles — an orbiter, lander, rover and mobile "hopper" — working in tandem to attempt to gather unprecedented data. The effort will include tools to drill for and directly analyze water ice, a feat that the US will only attempt with robotic missions slated for next year at the earliest. "If lunar water ice is successfully located, it could significantly reduce the cost and time required to transport water from Earth, facilitating the establishment of a human base for long-term activities on the moon and enabling further exploration of Mars or deep space," Tang Yuhua, the deputy chief designer of the Chang'e-7 mission, said in a 2025 interview with state media.

The oncoming flurry of south-pole-centric activity, with few established international laws to govern the outcomes, is heightening the drama of this rivalry... But with a much more ambitious goal — a future in which people attempt to flourish within permanent settlements rather than just visit the moon — the stakes of this new space race are even higher, according to Clayton Swope, the deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan nonprofit. "The long-term vision will take generations to execute on," Swope said. "But in my mind, it's a scenario where there are people being born, people dying, their families, children growing up in a place that is not Earth — so that looks a lot like a city, more than it looks like an expedition to the south pole." If such a future comes to fruition, Swope added, his hope is that such extraterrestrial colonies would be governed by rules reminiscent of Western ideals and democratic principles. Whether China would be on the same page is an open question.
China is already fine-tuning its plans for a lunar settlement, CNN writes: The country envisions the International Lunar Research Station, or ILRS, as a sprawling science-focused facility on the moon's surface that can be operated robotically, "with the prospect of subsequent human presence," according to a government's ILRS website. China could partner with Russia to build a massive nuclear reactor to power the base, though questions remain regarding how the war in Ukraine may impact Russia's ability to deliver... China and Russia were mapping these plans long before the US announced its own intention to build a nuclear reactor on the moon last year and detailed its plans for a lunar settlement spanning hundreds of square miles... Who will write the rules? And how, exactly, will the use of lunar resources be policed on the international stage?
Meanwhile, NASA "still does not have a vehicle capable of getting astronauts down to the lunar surface," the article points out: Returning to the moon is not as simple as repeating Apollo. The space agency cannot — and does not wish to — replicate its 20th century lunar-landing success. The supply chains, skilled machinists and factories that built Apollo's rockets, landers and command modules no longer exist. And while the Apollo landings stuck close to the lunar equator, landing near the south pole is substantially more complex and requires more powerful vehicles.... China, meanwhile, has been laser focused on its lunar exploration program since 2004, using its top-down, central planning system to keep resources flowing toward specific goals.
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China's Moon-landing Plans And Why the US Is So Worried More

China's Moon-landing Plans And Why the US Is So Worried

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  • China will beat the US (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:09PM (#66291960)
    NASA is so bureaucratic and heavy it just won't happen.

    • NASA is so bureaucratic and heavy it just won't happen.

      Speaking of short-lived plans, canany government actually afford an extended lunar vacation?**

      So you went to the moon. Now prove you’re not on a fiscal journey to bankruptcy faster than a six-pack family snorting pure Mickey on a Disney cruise through a Disney hotel in a Disney theme park.

      ** Until we discover and start mining the lunar unobtanium element for warp drive fuel, every trip to the moon is a vacation. We have enough space museums, which would ironically lose their government funding. Bec

    • Re:China will beat the US (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @11:21PM (#66292162)

      NASA itself is fine. The meddling from congress over pet projects and slashed budgets is the problem. Leave NASA alone and let them do their job.

    • China had bureaucracy for literally thousands of years before the USA was even invented.

    • NASA is so bureaucratic and heavy it just won't happen.

      The US is relying on the private sector to develop and build low-cost, exploratory robotic landers.

      Definetily not going happen when you are counting on someone else doing it for you.

  • if you do not pay the excess profits charged for oxygen and water so some ceo like musk gets a bigger bonus you get unalived err sorry cut off.

  • To What End? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:25PM (#66291978)

    Does China gain some actual advantage or upper hand if they are first, or even only on the moon?

    The U.S. landed people on the moon several times. Starting 57 years ago. They haven't been back for nearly 50 years because there was no point. No reasonable justification.

    Now China says that they are going to build a base. Great. But for what? And what difference would this make to the U.S.? Why on Earth, or Moon, would the U.S. be "worried"?

    • do they get mineing rights?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 )

      1. Resource extraction: The moon is rich in resources such as helium-3, which could be used as a clean and abundant energy source on Earth. Extracting these resources would require a permanent lunar base.
      2. Scientific research: A permanent base on the moon would provide a stable platform for scientific research, particularly in the fields of astronomy, geology, and physics. The moon's lack of atmosphere and minimal magnetic field make it an ideal location for studying the universe and the Earth-moon system.

      • Re:To What End? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @08:07PM (#66292028)

        I believe the question assumed reality, your answers do not. Why doesn't China just build a fleet of starships instead?

      • And where will the money come from to pay for all these things? Except for helium-3 extraction (which is unproven and still has many technological hurdles, let alone be cost effective), all of these could be investments we could make, you know, on Earth, to solve problems that we need to address for our sustained life on Earth. #2-#6 are all good things, but the argument you have to make is that investing in that on the MOON is BETTER than doing that same investment on Earth.
    • We don't know if AI data centers will be important in the future.

      We don't know if AI data centers in space will be important in the future.

      But if they are, a moon base will probably be useful to supply them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shmlco ( 594907 )

        Ah, no.... it will be decades before enough lift exists to move even the smallest chip fab to the moon. Not to mention resource extraction, mining, etc..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        Supply them with what?

        "We don't know if AI data centers in space will be important in the future."

        No, we do.

    • Re: To What End? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:44PM (#66291998)
      "The only reason that we set up a Red Base here, is because they have a Blue Base over there. And the only reason they have a Blue Base over there, is because we have a Red Base here."

      "Yeah. That's because we're fighting each other."

      "No, no. But I mean, even if we were to pull out today, and if they would come take our base, they would have two bases in the middle of a box canyon. Whoopdee-fucking-doo."

    • They want to paint the Moon red.

    • My guess would be trying to bankrupt the USA. It worked against the soviets.

    • Came here to say the same thing. Actually two things:
      1. Who decides which side has won, and at what point they've won?
      2. What do you get for winning? Does FIFA give you a small gold statue?
    • It isn't about what China would find on the moon, but rather that the whole process would mean they are doing fundamental research and this would lead to advancement for them. Since the US is mostly doing "rent seeking" and much less advancement like that, this would lead to the US falling back in the tech compared to China. At least that's the theory, and why some on the US side are frightened by a tech China on the moon.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      As TFS mentions, there are potentially legal issues arising from this. At the moment it seems like whoever gets there first has some substantial legal claims to resources and land. Even on Earth, just putting a flag on something doesn't actually mean all that much, but settling does.

      It is also part of the shift away from the US being some kind of "leader of the free world" and in technology. While an international moon base wouldn't necessarily provide much raw value in terms of resources or military strate

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      The pols are the ones worried. This makes them look bad, especially the ones whining about China. Then there is the financial aspect. If the pols can create the "Holy Shit!! Look at what they are doing, we must compete with that", which is shortly followed by bills to spend money on industries in their states that would support space stuff, especially the ones siphoning off that money for campaign contributions to the pols. Think of it as mutually recursive backscratching.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

      High orbits, kinetic weapons, the usual stuff.

    • My guess would be, mostly internal propaganda, sort of like a military parade on steroids. Moon is a lifeless rock, any mining operation there would be absolute light years away from being economical, never mind that it may well be logistically impossible to get the necessary mining equipment there or maintain enough people there to run any sort of mining operation. Any 'permanent settlement' there would as far as I see it be their own version of ISS, with hookers and blackjack, just based on a big asteroid

    • Does China gain some actual advantage or upper hand if they are first, or even only on the moon?

      The U.S. landed people on the moon several times. Starting 57 years ago. They haven't been back for nearly 50 years because there was no point. No reasonable justification.

      Now China says that they are going to build a base. Great. But for what? And what difference would this make to the U.S.? Why on Earth, or Moon, would the U.S. be "worried"?

      Some level of competitive bragging rights, most likely. It's gonna be tough to continue to tell us commoners that America is the best of the best of the best at everything that ever could be bested if we have some other country actively trouncing us in some new area, even if there's no immediately obvious profit advantage in that new area. Since profit is, of course, our main priority these days, and exploration and research are no longer considered positives in their own right without a profit result easil

    • First one to get there and setup a settlement can take the best spot.

      Best resources? Best location for power generation? Best place to communicate with earth easily? Best something else?

      Thats assuming anyone knows what is the absolute best spot by the time the settlement is made.

    • There's nothing much to say that China won't share either. China is not the USA. The USA keeps looking in the mirror and thinking it is seeing China.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msk ( 6205 )

      Maybe to throw rocks.

      Better consult Adam Selene.

  • what this is, y'see, is an energy problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by zephvark ( 1812804 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:39PM (#66291990)

    America needs to plant a moonbase first, and the problem is just getting enough petroleum there to fuel it. You know for certain that China is just going to run its moonbase on free solar energy, or what we call "Communist" energy, which is against American national security interests, but I'm sure President Trump has it well in hand and we will get our gold-plated Christian Nationalist Trump Moonbase as soon as he's finished prosecuting the vandals who tore up his beautiful American-blue painted reflecting pool, finished the ballroom, and erected the Arch d'Trumph.

    Praise him and pass the collection plate! The bidding donations start at $1,000,000,000.

    • As soon as Trump finds a contractor willing to paint the craters American Flag Blue (with gold trim around the edges), he works out how to grift off it and he gets told his name will be on the base he will be right onto it. In fact, I reckon he'll be able to post on the socials at least 15 times between now and the end of the year that he has already won the race.

    • Arch d'Trumph. Lol

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Yah, more like the Brandenburg Gate. I'm sure Elmo can supply him with swastikas to put on top.

  • America is past (Score:4, Insightful)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:50PM (#66292002)
    Sadly, we've destroyed ourselves. It's just like with a lot of the former HUGE corporations. Sears, IBM, Xerox, American auto industry etc. They get too big for their britches, don't innovate, and someone else comes along. Of course the BIGGEST problem was what Nixon did in 72 by opening up China to trade, then Carter signed the trade agreement in 1980 "most favored nation" status. The Corporate CEO's LOVED that! Production in the United States slowly died off because everything was moved to CHINA where they had CHEAP labor. Not only that, the workers can't demand higher wages, unions like they did in America. America's glory days are behind it. Once all of the data centers are built in China, it's one more needle in their ever growing haystack. Don't think that is where the data centers will be built? Look up on Google Earth all of the HUGE, and I do mean HUGE solar panel & solar mirror farms along with large lakes to provide water. You can bet they didn't build that for their "people".

    • Re:America is past (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @07:56PM (#66292010) Homepage

      Only idiots think that China is able to do all of this due to cheap labor, especially when labor is becoming a vanishingly small portion of the cost of anything,

      China graduates roughly 1.3 million to 1.5 million engineers each year. This drastically outpaces the United States, which produces about 130,000 engineering graduates annually. This creates roughly a 10-to-one gap in raw engineering degree output between the two nations.

      • "cheap labor" They make it sound like their space program is based on thousands of people with shovels.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's interesting to compare how the US, the Soviets, and China are approaching this.

        The US Apollo programme relied on developing a lot of new technology. Very powerful rocket engines and a very large rocket to get the huge mass into orbit in one go. Two person lander. The Soviets were planning to use a single person lander to save on weight, and even though they still needed a large rocket, it didn't need to be as large as a Saturn V.

        The Soviets also wanted to use multiple smaller rocket engines. That has p

    • Re:America is past (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian.bixby@nOsPam.gmail.com> on Sunday August 16, 2026 @08:22PM (#66292050)

      The Western business world has changed its focus completely to short term high profit business, because the executives' pay packages are focused on quarterly returns and yearly stock price rises. China on the other hand typically takes the long view. For one example, which is currently receiving a lot of attention:

      They saw companies abandoning low-profit long-payback mineral mining and refining operations and picked up the majority of that industrial sector. It's taken decades to pay back the investment, which they planned on, and now they control the critical resource streams feeding our modern civilization. Every Patriot air defense interceptor requires two kilos of rare earth elements, several of which China controls 90-100% of WORLD supply. A Patriot missile requires 2 kilos of REE, an F-35 over 30 kilos, modern advanced radars require gallium, which is ONLY available from China. As someone here on SlashDot remarked a while back, "China doesn't feel a need to help the US to build the weapons it wants to use against them", and they're banning suppliers from selling to Western weapons makers.

      This is a very interesting Substack that I follow, this American lives in China and works in the export business, which is mostly what he writes about (with occasional insightful digressions). https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]

    • This pattern has worked in both South Korea and Taiwan, so the assumption was made that the Chinese would similarly move to democracy as their people flourished. This proved to be incorrect, but it's not fair to blame one party for this; everyone assumed it.

      The crucial shift was their admission to the World Trade Organisation in about 2000 - which gave them largely unfettered access to Western markets. They have played the game amazingly well - in practice stealing tech from joint enterprises as well as mor

    • It doesn't have to be. China doesn't much care if the USA is successful or not; only that China isn't held back, which seems to be the USA's MO of late.

      Perhaps the USA and China can cooperate.

      Lol, I know, I know. The USA is too proud/arrogant/ignorant for that.

      Still, it would be nice to see.

  • Y'gotta stop cutting education and vaccine funding.

  • US Fear (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @09:12PM (#66292084) Journal

    The US can't stand the thought that we'd have to treat another nation as an equal and not as a client state.

  • What's the big deal? Elon will offer the Nazis some SpaceX stock and they'll be best of buddies. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1... [imdb.com]

  • US trajectory (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday August 16, 2026 @11:38PM (#66292182)

    Russia's been a brutal kleptocracy longer than I've been alive. It's slapped a fresh veneer on a couple of times, but that's about it. Despite this, after the burst of progress after WWII and the decline afterwards, here we are decades upon decades later and Russia is still able to launch rockets into space. We laugh at them because they're generally not consider as safe as other nations' space programs, but they do it. For a while longer, anyway.

    Maintaining capability is a lot different from creating new capabilities. The US is diving so rapidly and enthusiastically into the kleptocratic model, combined with a revival of rabid anti-intellectualism, that I don't think it will be able to establish a lunar base before it finds it has lost the ability to engineer one.

  • Lost technology (Score:3)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Monday August 17, 2026 @12:13AM (#66292202)

    For anyone who thinks it's ridiculous that the US can't reproduce the Apollo missions, consider this: we can't (due to environmental factors) produce wrought iron anymore (because there are no longer any facilities setup to do so), as a species, and therefore, could not build the Bay Bridge in San Francisco (and I'm sure, any number of others, like the Brooklyn bridge).

    The same limitations apply here. They have to redesign the vehicle on first principles because the foundational engineering (not scientific understanding) being used no longer exists. Most people simply do not realize how precariously our technological world hangs in the balance. It's why highly advanced ancient cultures collapsed, in large degree: they couldn't just start at the lower level again before working their way back to 'advanced civilization', they had to start all the way at zero again.

    Here's a fun one I like playing with my kids, kind of the nerdy science version of the polysci "go back in time to kill Baby Hitler: which one scientific understanding would you bring back in time to Ancient Rome/the American Revolution/the 1950s/etc. and why? Dollars to donuts they'll say something like "the lightbulb" and not consider that it's at least 3 distinct discoveries and inventions, nevermind the engineering.

    • we can't (due to environmental factors) produce wrought iron anymore (because there are no longer any facilities setup to do so), as a species, and therefore, could not build the Bay Bridge in San Francisco (and I'm sure, any number of others, like the Brooklyn bridge).

      The Bay Bridge was not built with wrought iron. Nor was the new eastern section which we just replace.

      Not having wrought iron production around anymore is not due to the decadence of the "species" and quite the opposite. It is due to advancement in technology making that material obsolete.

      • I believe that was the parent's point. We could not simply build another bridge the same way we built it originally. In the case of a bridge, as you say, newer technology exists and we could build a new bridge with those. In the case of technology to bring humans to the moon, those new technologies do not yet exist. But we could not simply build a 60's era capsule and rocket.

  • Afterward it's America's turn again to get the red flag.

  • Why is it important that democratic market based societies beat the communists to the moon and beyond? Because space is the ultimate high ground. Whoever controls the high ground in a fight has an advantage. Space has an unlimited amount of resources. If we fail to expand and grow we die here on earth. If we move to space we have the chance to reach the stars. Which choice would you rather leave your childern: Become a Borg drone or an officer of StarFleet?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      I'm confused. Which system are you saying produces the borg drones? It's not at all clear.

      Besides that was a bad analogy. The UFP (and Starfleet) always was a socialist utopia.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by noshellswill ( 598066 )
      No. Humans have no-repeat-no chance of sending a human crew to the stars. Even our own solar-system is so vast that 100 years from now humans would take another century building a solar-system size gravitational telescope . FTL travel can't happen; period. So-called "generational ships" are fairy-tales. Better to send robots to Mars & IO than waste human resources better targeted on deep-ocean exploration. When the NEXT SHTF: like asteroid or volcano or plague or sun-spot

  • U.S. Plan Much More Ambitious (Score:3)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Monday August 17, 2026 @10:40AM (#66292772)

    The Chinese manned landing program includes a lander with just a bit more mass than Apollo. The U.S. plan includes a 100+ft tall Starship-based lander. It's a huge amount of mass to get to the moon and far beyond what any earth-launched rocket could get to trans-lunar orbit without refueling. Hence, the U.S. program being dependent on multiple in-orbit refuelings. They'll need to launch at least half a dozen rockets from earth to get anything to the moon, while the Chinese only need one.

    Given that the Starship is still nowhere close to its planned 200T to low-earth orbit (v3 is supposedly capable of 100T, but V2 was only 30T), the U.S. concept is still a long way from being ready. Meanwhile, the fairly conventional Chinese launch vehicle (Long March 10) has already launched and is gearing up for its first orbital test next month. To be fair, Starship has flown too and is also gearing up for an orbital launch, but they still don't have the payload, refuel, and heat shields fully figured out. Unlike the Starship, they aren't trying to make the Long March 10 reuseable.

  • JFK initiated the "space race" with his call to send a man (i.e., an American) to the moon and safely return him. When it finally happened in 1969, his arch-enemy Nixon was president, so it is Nixon's name which is on the commemorative plaque sitting on the moon.

  • I suppose it's too much to hope that the people in charge of watched this insightful series.

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