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China's Moon-landing Plans And Why the US Is So Worried (cnn.com) 50

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.

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

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.

    • Also, China has a higher tolerance for human deaths in pursuit of their goals.

      • Not saying you're wrong, but note that China has lost zero taikonauts out of a total of 46 in 16 flights. Whereas the USA has lost 17 astronauts out of a total of 400 (Challenger and Columbia flights, and Apollo 1 ground-test.)

        • Do you honestly believe this is a fair comparison? Or do I have to list out all of the reasons why it's not?

          • I'm not trying to argue that China's space program is safer than the USA's, nor is the risk of their missions comparable to those the USA has undertaken. I'm saying they haven't lost anyone in space or on the ground, whereas the USA has.

            Here are some updated numbers, after refining my search-phrases:

            - China has a total of 41 person-flights into space, by about 30 taikonauts.
            - the USA has a total of 914 person-flights into space, by 372 astronauts.

            Now, instead of rhetorically asking whether you "have to" lis

            • Beyond the obvious reason you just mentioned, China has essentially stood on the shoulders of the US & Russia in order to reach their position as a space power. By the time they became serious about space flight, the technology was already very mature. There's something to be said about being the last one to the technology party.

    • 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

    • 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.

  • 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:4, Insightful)

    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?

    • 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.

    • "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.

  • what this is, y'see, is an energy problem (Score:4, 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.

  • 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 t

    • 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.

    • Re:America is past (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian.bixby@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> 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]

    • Based on the state of education, students relying on AI, who we vote for, etc I'd say in a decade or so we'll be a nation of morons.

  • US Fear (Score:3)

    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]
  • By my count, the US government has had at least 4 different moon landing programs in the last couple of decades. In fact, there are probably more than that just in shuttle-derived programs. The Orion capsule was the only working system to come out of one of the earlier programs, which was then incorporated into the current plan. The whole human space flight program has been held hostage by congress, or several specific congressmen, who see it as a cash-cow for their states. They have held up, delayed, and
  • The Moon/Space is a total waste of money, There is Zero Return for the money you spent on it. So what if we find water or dirt. The Expense to the Tax payer is wasteful; I billionaires want to waste THEIR money go ahead. but Tax payers want their money spent on things that will benefit them in the near term not in 50 years. Space?= Flush your money down the drain.

  • Is it irony, complaining about China outstripping US space tech on a US "tech focused site" where the single technically capable company reasonably able to outmatch the Chinese is deeply and routinely despised here because it's founder/owner (now) associates with the "wrong" political side?

    I wonder if there's a parable here about priorities?

  • 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

  • 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

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