Will China beat America in returning astronauts to the moon? We hear this question time and again. It is a perennial concern, both from a prestige and national security standpoint. But it is the wrong question. What we really need to assess is whether or not China is on track to dominate America in space.
Today, the United States has framed the next moonwalk as a “race,” with rhetoric from officials proclaiming American intent to beat China as if it were a track meet. But we are very far from making a credible attempt to even get on the field of play. The Artemis program, the NASA initiative to return Americans back to the moon for the first time since 1972, is not equipped to even offer a challenge against China’s lunar program timelines. Government officials are intent on using the Space Launch System, a program designed by “old space” primes like Boeing and Northrop Grumman, but the program is full of pork for congressional districts and has blown past its original objective of being prepared for launch by 2024.
SpaceX’s Starship program is being underutilized by the Artemis program, and is behind schedule, due to flight test failures, extended FAA investigations every time there is a test failure, and the lengthy process of undergoing environmental impact statements for increasing launch cadence across different locations. If the U.S. wants to correct the course, it needs to set up special economic zones for the space industry to sidestep regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles, and incubate in these zones the space technology companies that will build out an American presence on the moon, surpassing the simple “footstep and leave” approach that the nation adopted over half a century ago.
