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More than 50 years since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the world is racing to the lunar surface again.
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NASA had been slated to land astronauts on the moon’s surface earlier than China but has announced delays.
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On Wednesday, Congressional leaders said China could land first and become a space power.
Congressional leaders warned on Wednesday of possible consequences for the US and its allies if they lose the new race to the moon, as America’s National Space Agency announced a delay in its Artemis crewed missions.
Their concerns focused heavily on China’s efforts to establish its own space dominance and land astronauts on the moon within the next decade.
“The Chinese Communist Party is actively seeking international partners for a lunar mission, a lunar research station, and has stated its ambition to have human astronauts on the surface by 2030,” said Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma at Science, Space, and Hearing with the House of Technology Committee about the Artemis project.
“The country that lands first will have the ability to set a precedent for whether future lunar activities are conducted with openness and transparency, or in a more restricted manner,” said Lucas, the committee’s chairman.
He and other House representatives said they were concerned about the delay from NASA, which said on January 9 that its Artemis 2 launch – which aims to send US astronauts to the moon – would be delayed by a month from November 2024 to September 2025.
NASA is trying to fix problems before the launch
The Artemis missions comprise NASA’s latest effort to return to the moon, more than 50 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface.
Its first launch was an uncrewed test flight in 2022, and the second launch, now scheduled for 2025, will send four astronauts around the moon but not on it. A third mission, now delayed from 2025 to September 2026, would finally put American crews on the surface.
NASA said it had to delay the missions because it first needs to fix problems with its spacecraft’s heat shield, which protects crews from extreme temperatures as they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere.
The space agency said it is also working on problems with the craft’s life support system and the emergency ejection system, which releases the crew capsule from the rocket if necessary.
James Free, associate administrator at NASA, said at the delayed announcement that safety is the agency’s “number one priority.”
“And we will send when we are ready,” he said.
However, Mike Griffin, the former head of NASA, cast doubt on the agency’s prediction that it could launch its man-on-the-moon mission in September 2026.
“I think the Artemis orbiter mission is very doable on the timescale that NASA has stated,” said Griffin, who served as NASA administrator from 2005 to 2009. “I don’t think Artemis 3, the lander mission, is on at all realistic. scheduled.”
Lawmakers provide if China wins
Congressional leaders on Wednesday acknowledged safety as a priority but repeatedly expressed nervousness about the delays.
“It is no secret that China’s goal is to overtake the United States by 2045 as world leaders in space. We cannot allow this to happen,” said GOP Representative Rich McCormick of Georgia. Space technology will protect the United States, not only the economy, but technologies that can benefit humanity.
“Whoever controls space will control the destiny of this Earth,” said Republican Representative Bill Posey of Florida, calling space the “ultimate military high ground.”
“I support Artemis,” said Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California. “But I want it to be successful, especially with China at our heels.”
However, NASA has said that even with the delay, it should be comfortably ahead of China’s national space agency.
“I think China has a very aggressive plan,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on January 9. “I think they would like to land in front of us because that might give them some PR coup. But the truth is I don’t think they will.”
China plans to become the second country, and the United States the first and so far only country, to land astronauts on the moon, as part of its push to become a significant space power.
Beijing has announced plans to establish a lunar base on the moon’s south pole by 2040 and be fully operational by 2050.
The lead-up to the lunar base via the Chang’e mission, which China opened for international cooperation in October 2023, involves crewed flights to the moon.
“We firmly believe that the spring of space science in China has arrived, and we have the determination, confidence and ability to firmly complete the mission,” said Maj Gen. Jing Haipeng, a Chinese astronaut who is the mission commander, according to the Associated Press.
Nelson, NASA’s chief executive, told Politico in January 2023 that the world was “watching out better” for China’s spaceflight efforts.
“It is a fact: We are in a space race,” he said.
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