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Space China Government Moon United States

US Must Beat China Back To the Moon, Congress Tells NASA (space.com) 114

Posted by BeauHD from the space-race dept.
With NASA's Artemis moon program now targeting September 2025 for its Artemis 2 mission and September 2026 for Artemis 3, some members of Congress are concerned about the potential repercussions, particularly with China's growing ambitions in lunar exploration. "For the United States and its partners not to be on the moon when others are on the moon is unacceptable," said Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator. "We need a program that is consistent with that theme. Artemis is not that program. We need to restart it, not keep it on track." Space.com reports: The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing about the new Artemis plan today (Jan. 17), and multiple members voiced concern about the slippage. "I remind my colleagues that we are not the only country interested in sending humans to the moon," Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) said in his opening remarks. "The Chinese Communist Party is actively soliciting international partners for a lunar mission -- a lunar research station -- and has stated its ambition to have human astronauts on the surface by 2030," he added. "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."

The committee's ranking member, California Democrat Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), voiced similar sentiments. "Let me be clear: I support Artemis," she said in her opening remarks. "But I want it to be successful, especially with China at our heels. And we want to be helpful here in the committee in ensuring that Artemis is strong and staying on track as we look to lead the world, hand-in-hand with our partners, in the human exploration of the moon and beyond." Several other committee members stressed that the new moon race is part of a broader competition with China, and that coming in second could imperil U.S. national security.

"It's no secret that China has a goal to surpass the United States by 2045 as global leaders in space. We can't allow this to happen," Rich McCormick (R-GA) said during the hearing. "I think the leading edge that we have in space technology will protect the United States -- not just the economy, but technologies that can benefit humankind." And Bill Posey (R-FL) referred to space as the "ultimate military high ground," saying that whoever leads in the final frontier "will control the destiny of this Earth."
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US Must Beat China Back To the Moon, Congress Tells NASA More

US Must Beat China Back To the Moon, Congress Tells NASA

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  • When developing new technology, unnecessary time pressure increases costs and makes accidents more likely.

    If we want a dick size contest with China, a more cost-effective solution would be to survey condom sizes in the drug stores of both countries.

    • Space races are effective though.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      If they want to actually send people to the Moon then they'd frelling well better budget for it. Instead the budget of the utterly useless pork barrel of the Space Farce outstrips NASA after existing for less than 5 years. Every president since Bush the Not-Incompetent has promised manned missions to Mars, but not one has spent ten minutes rounding up money to do it.

      "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."

      Let the US Space Farce lead the way and every bit of technology to come out of the program will be classified for decades.

    • We killed 3 astronauts on the launchpad during testing for Apollo 1 to keep our collective egos from getting hurt if the Soviets beat us to the moon. And look how many more died in 2 space shuttle disasters because of incompetence and time pressures. The moon isn't going anywhere. Sending us there didn't do anything for humanity and going back won't do anything for humanity. It's a huge gov't jobs program to make scientists look cool - nothing more.

      Don't get me wrong - the Apollo program was some really

  • Too much money given to the military. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Maybe they should stop giving so much money to the military. A small portion of the money they give to the military would make a huge difference in NASA's budget. Yet they keep increasing the military budget, and now it's about $1T. Meanwhile a couple of days ago, the Senate had to try rushing a spending bill to temporary fund government programs because of fear of government shutdown.

    • Maybe they should stop giving so much money to the military.

      The military budget is 3.4% of GDP.
      That is low by historical standards.

      make a huge difference in NASA's budget.

      If NASA has nothing better to spend money on than a pointless space race, then perhaps the money should go elsewhere.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        3.4% of GDP, but in nearly 20% of US tax revenue. The US either needs to cut back on military or massively increase taxes.
        • Uncle Sam doesn't need you talking about what he needs to do. You sound like you need some freedom and democracy dropped on you. /s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        The Untied States spends more than the next 10 countries **COMBINED**, 8 of which are our allies. We could cut the war budget by 70% and still be the largest spender by far.

        Conservatives are such cowards.

    • Maybe they should stop giving so much money to the military.

      I think military spending is too high, but this idea that the Pentagon is the monster that eats the budget is horseshit. From the Treasury Department's own stats [treasury.gov], it's 15% of the federal budget, which is low by historical standards. Meanwhile, 55% is taken up by Social Security, Health, Medicare, and "Income Security", whatever that is outside of SS. Entitlements have dominated the Federal Budget since the 1960's.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        15% of Federal spending, not the budget. Social Security and Medicare are not budget items.

  • National security? Come on, be serious. Space travel being free and open? Really?

    The summary sounds like nothing more than "'Merica! is the best and we need to show people!" Get over yourselves. The US has been in decline for some time and is getting worse, if you just looked at it that way, maybe you could change things?

  • Perfectly possible, just not for the US government (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Thursday January 18, 2024 @04:04AM (#64169183) Homepage

    Establishing a research outpost on the moon is perfectly possible. Just not for the US government.

    Why? Because NASA has long since succumbed to Pournelle's Iron Law. And any new program established by Congress will use established contractors, to spread pork evenly across as many Congressional districts as possible. Resulting in something like ULA, with generous cost-plus contracts, years behind schedule and crazily over budget.

    Space technology is finally within reach of the private sector, as demonstrated by all of the rocket and satellite companies out there. If you want a moon landing, all you need to do is create some serious prizes. Artemis is budgeted at around $100 billion (but will cost multiples of that, see above). Put that $100 billion up for grabs, as a set of prizes for achieving various milestones. Not winner takes all, but (for example) $10 billion for the first company to do X, $5 billion for the second, $2 billion for the third, etc... Ensure that the milestones are objective and easily measured. Stand back, and watch the progress happen.

    Alternatively, throw money at the ULA and other contractors. Give them cost-plus contracts, so that they have an incentive to waste time and money. Watch those Congressional bank accounts swell. That's also success, of a sort.

    • Yeah, sounds like a great idea. Cue Steve Buschemi's classic line in Armageddon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (Running time: 0:00:27)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Established players? The two lunar landers being worked on are being made by SpaceX and Blue Origin, both relatively new to the industry.

      SpaceX hasn't got Starship to orbit yet, and needs to demonstrate in-orbit refuelling too. Blue Origin haven't got to orbit, period. Both of them are relying on SLS to get astronauts to the moon, they aren't covering that part of the mission.

      In other words, to beat China to the moon, NASA did the right thing by having multiple groups working on different parts of the missi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BigZee ( 769371 )
        I don't really see an issue with SpaceX carrying the astronauts to the moon. It always seemed bizarre to me that the relatively tiny Artemis capsule would dock in lunar orbit with a much larger and more capable craft that is only going to take the astronauts to the surface.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          If Starship had to take the astronauts all the way, it would need to be man rated for the whole trip. That includes things like a launch abort system, and being inhabited during in-orbit refuelling. It would also need to be rated for a longer duration of habitation, and for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, and landing. The only way it can land is upright, which is much harder to do in Earth gravity than on the Moon.

          Basically it would add a huge amount of development to the mission, that would need to t

  • Space is a Toilet bowl of money waste. You send a ship to the moon for what? Collect Dirt? Big Woop. Then You have a Bag of billion dollar Dirt, which we already know about. IF China wants to Spend billions that it doesn't have on it, let them, make them dig their hole deeper. The US can spend the money more wisely in infrastructure improvements that's more important and affect the people more than the bag of dirt can.

    • Use high orbit stations as a transit destination from launch facilities on each continent. Intercontinental travelers who spent several thousand dollars each way to take several days will find that travel time reduced to a few hours - with an opportunity to become space tourists to boot

      Increasing population on high orbit stations spur investment in industries that benefit from microgravity manufacturing and easy intercontinental distribution (i.e., pharmaceuticals, etc.)

      Near Earth bodies (asteroids, etc.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        A lunar colony will be a necessity first, since building the high-orbit platforms will require massive amounts of material and you don't want to have to drag all of that out of Earth's gravity well. The high-orbit platforms will also need radiation shielding, and the best way to do that which we know of is hide behind dense mass.

  • time to spend money on space stuff instead of sponsoring genocidal states

  • Why? Nobody remembers second place (Score:3)

    by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Thursday January 18, 2024 @05:33AM (#64169271)
    USA already won, nobody remembers second place

    • This is a race to prove who has maintained their ability. Think of it as the old boxers looking for a rematch after retirement to prove who is still number one. Maybe for that extra "we got this still" we could pull some astronauts from the Apollo, Gemini, or STS programs to ride along.

      • This is a race to prove who has maintained their ability. Think of it as the old boxers looking for a rematch after retirement to prove who is still number one. Maybe for that extra "we got this still" we could pull some astronauts from the Apollo, Gemini, or STS programs to ride along.

        Some scientifically minded philosophers believe that the moonshot happened for humanity about a century to century and a half earlier than it should have, if we simply followed technological progress as it existed at the time. It was a push to beat the other guy that made us try. And now? Sadly? We're doing it again, or at least trying to make it look like we're doing it again. Only it's China rather than the USSR. I'm not exactly sure why we have to tie exploration and scientific research into tribalism an

        • For humanity to unite means we make the borders of the world more porous. I doubt we will make borders disappear, because even in a utopia we'd likely have borders to define regions for their climate, time zones, and so forth. To turn national borders from walled off areas to administrative regions in some global nation means the nations we have will fight for what their utopia looks like. China wants to rid the world of borders as much as anyone, but that's not likely the kind of utopia you and I envisi

          • For humanity to unite means we make the borders of the world more porous. I doubt we will make borders disappear, because even in a utopia we'd likely have borders to define regions for their climate, time zones, and so forth. To turn national borders from walled off areas to administrative regions in some global nation means the nations we have will fight for what their utopia looks like. China wants to rid the world of borders as much as anyone, but that's not likely the kind of utopia you and I envision.

            It's USA vs. China to show which set of ideals is the best for the people. If China gets to the moon first then that is a sign that the Chinese ideals are better for everyone. If the USA does it then that shows the USA has things better. This is in a way like the Olympic Games, a competition among nations on who can produce the best.

            Even if there was a one global government we'd still see people compete. Think SpaceX vs.Blue Origin. People are going to compete to show who has the better idea. If humanity is to progress then we need competition. We should encourage competition.

            Yeah, I envision a world government being more like the United States in practice, except simplified. We created way too many beauracratic hurdles to getting literally anything done. I'd rather see it be lots of individual countries as somewhat independent entities, sending reps to a global summit a few times a year to make sure nobody's cluster-raping anybody else for resources.

            I do think there's a huge difference between semi-friendly competition between competing ideas, and all out war. We seem really re

            • I envision a world government being more like the United States in practice, except simplified.

              Why would it be simplified? The trend for governments is to become ever more baroque. The most likely outcome is exactly the opposite of what you imagine, with the government continuing to expand to consume all available resources.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            It's USA vs. China to show which set of ideals is the best for the people.

            Only if you're a Westerner. China's system works very well for the Chinese culture, and their history is long enough that they're quite aware it wouldn't be appropriate for all cultures. We of the West haven't learned that yet, we seem intent on "proving" that ours is the only way to live for everyone on the planet.

    • nobody remembers second place

      Literally nobody, I guess.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not a race to be first, it's a race to be the forerunner in space exploration, and to lay claim to any valuable resources on the moon and ultimately Mars and asteroids.

    • Nobody remembers second place

      Not true. History is littered with companies which started later and eventually dominated. Walmart and Sears in retail. Tandy, Commodore, and Apple versus Wintel in PCs. Yahoo and AltaVista versus Google in search. Heck, USA versus Brittan and France in world influence. Need more examples?

  • Let's get to the moon before China. They shot down a satellite in orbit before we did so we had to shoot down a satellite in orbit to show we could do the same. This is Space Race 2.0, China V. USA Edition. They started this race, I say we end it.

    Keep Artemis funded and on schedule. If it means diverting some manpower and assets from the Space Force, Navy, and Air Force then do it. Because there's also a few little wars going on around the world we will have to loosen up some purse strings, and a few r

    • Let's get to the moon before China. They shot down a satellite in orbit before we did so we had to shoot down a satellite in orbit to show we could do the same. This is Space Race 2.0, China V. USA Edition. They started this race, I say we end it.

      Keep Artemis funded and on schedule. If it means diverting some manpower and assets from the Space Force, Navy, and Air Force then do it. Because there's also a few little wars going on around the world we will have to loosen up some purse strings, and a few rules, so people and assets get to where they need to go. Get as many of our allies on board as we can, which should not be too difficult.

      Maybe we should stop playing so nice with Russia. Consider abandoning the ISS. Either strip the thing of any valuable American assets and walk away, or take it a bit further and detach the entire USA segment of the station and put it on a re-entry burn. The ISS is redundant, or will be soon once we have our base in lunar orbit.

      Don't let China win this. While we are at it don't lose sight of the fight over the Arctic. China is building icebreakers to open up trade and/or drilling in icy waters. The USA needs nuclear powered icebreakers to keep up. Not just one or two will do, we need at least four, possibly six, maybe eight.

      For what it's worth, there's already a plan in place to deorbit the ISS in the 2030s. No need to let our little hissy fit about China's space program, one of the few things they do that isn't directly tied up in some of their more nefarious actions, accelerate that plan.

  • The title of "US Must Beat China Back To the Moon, Congress Tells NASA" makes it sound like the Chinese originally came from the Moon. I guess that's the source of their Moon Rabbit legends?

  • To everyone else else, lets collaborate and beat the US there!

    • Hint: The US was there when you were in diapers. You can't beat someone e in a race they won decades earlier.

      No one here is more pro-America than me. This is stupid shit of the highest order. We don't have to beat anyone anywhere. Those days are long over. He's trying to drum up money for his NASA buddies using a false appeal to nationalism.

      Pushing an existing program forward is very expensive. If he cares about US v China, that money is better spent rebuilding our weapon stocks and improving our manu

  • That show was supposed to be entertainment but it's getting close to reality again.

  • We must be the first to send Congress to the moon (Score:4, Funny)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Thursday January 18, 2024 @08:12AM (#64169487) Homepage Journal

    We should be the first nation ever, to send Congress to the moon. This would do wonders for their 10% approval rating, especially if we let Congress have full control on the design of the return mission.

  • good time to ask, anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Thursday January 18, 2024 @08:19AM (#64169497) Journal

    It's an election year. Almost like clockwork, vast, far-sighted and generous promises about ample funding and cool space projects are promised in election years.

    I mean, it never amounted to much since Apollo but hey it's the thought that counts, right?

    • Going to the MOON is stupid and Mars even more stupid. Space robots already surpassed humans in nearly every way and we'd be wise to evolve robotics instead; it has and will produce more benefits on earth as well.

      The democracy wasn't falling into collapse in the past like it is today. Capitalism hadn't turned into a wild fire and was only starting to escape the engine... hell, people thought it was so great in the 60s (forgetting the real reasons for success) we had pyromaniacs starting fires all over the p

      • I'd disagree with you on the "stupid" part.

        If one were to take it seriously, I think it's far sighted and wise. But we don't DO that anymore in the US nor west in general - we simply don't plan on decade and longer timeframes - meaning that anything proposing to do so it 99% likely a bullshit political stunt.

        To the concepts as concepts, though? No, I think there's absolutely rock-solid good reasons to do both.
        - the moon is critical strategically. Planets (and countries) at the bottom of a gravity well ar

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          For any sort of inter-planetary development, whether in high Earth orbit or further out, will need a moon base to provide raw materials for building. Too expensive to drag it all up from Earth, and we don't know enough to be able to mine the asteroids yet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Every president since Bush the Not-Stupid has promised to send men to Mars, not one has spent ten minutes rounding up the funding to actually do anything about it.

  • Without a complete overhaul of the mission plan, Artemis is not going to get people on the Moon before China. Even if Artemis stayed on track with its current schedule, which is very doubtful, it's not going to happen. And there is no way for NASA to pull the schedule in, without changing the laws of physics or using a different rocket.

  • ..but I fear it will be at least 3 years before Starship can be man-rated.
  • There is 1 company I would trust to make the timeline - SpaceX. Give them more approval to launch, get them to make the spacesuit (as there is currently none for on the moon). Past that, I am not sure you could speed them up much more.Give them as much money as Artimus and that would do it though...But they would properly only need like 1/8th of that budget to do it.

  • and get the f*ing bureaucracy out of the way.

    • NASA is risk adverse while SpaceX is not and while NASA self promotes more than maybe any government service it doesn't come close to SpaceX's self promotion.

      SpaceX is over hyped and relies heavily upon NASA for everything it has done and even it's tiny amount of innovation pulls heavily from NASA... which has a problem with politicians interfering but also has been tasked with helping create commercial industries. They do expensive boring work that industry needs, can't afford, and does not open source.

      Bur

  • "It's no secret that China has a goal to surpass the United States by 2045 as global leaders in space. We can't allow this to happen,""

    Why? Seriously? Why is for Americans everything a Glaubenskrieg?

    Who the funk cares what the Chinese do in space, on the Moon or Mars or beyond?

  • " And Bill Posey (R-FL) referred to space as the "ultimate military high ground," saying that whoever leads in the final frontier "will control the destiny of this Earth."

    I think he's completely wrong. I know we're a long ways from it, but I think the true leader in the final frontier will give less than a shit about this Earth. You want to take the final frontier, it's not going to be a simple "sure we can pop up there anytime" fantasy. It's going to have to be living capability up there. Probably as satellite stations first, traveling biomes of some sort later, and those living capable ships and satellites will be considered "home" to people. Until we get to that point, it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Space habitats will be so fragile for the next several decades that any dream of militarization is a waste of time. We're going to have to learn to cooperate or everyone dies, it's just that simple. Perhaps that can be the single most important thing that humans can learn from the exploration of space.

      • Space habitats will be so fragile for the next several decades that any dream of militarization is a waste of time. We're going to have to learn to cooperate or everyone dies, it's just that simple. Perhaps that can be the single most important thing that humans can learn from the exploration of space.

        If we can get established habitats out there at all, I agree with you. But it may take cooperation to even get there, and I don't think we have that cooperation in us right now. Hell, we can't even agree that taking care of each other should be a priority for all of us, and suggesting it sends some people into such a froth that they turn into an 'ism' accusation machine. Maybe smaller teams of humans out there can find a better way. I think the overpopulation problem is manifesting in full-specie mental ill

    • I think he's completely wrong. I know we're a long ways from it, but I think the true leader in the final frontier will give less than a shit about this Earth. You want to take the final frontier, it's not going to be a simple "sure we can pop up there anytime" fantasy.

      1) Stuff from earth can affect orbitals, and stuff from orbitals can affect earth. That means war is possible.
      2) Orbitals will be dependent on Earth for the foreseeable future.
      3) Orbitals will therefore want to be in control of Earth's resources. That means war is inevitable.

      EVENTUALLY we might reach the condition you specify, where elements of humanity in space are not dependent on Earth. But there's going to be a long period before the first substantial orbital habitat where all of that is irrelevant, and

  • I'm unclear: what bad thing happens if China has a manned lunar mission before the US? Are they going to plant a CCP flag and claim the entire place for China? They legally can't do that and practically can't enforce such a claim.

    Other than pure jingoism I don't see why you'd frame this as a competition. There might be other things we care about, e.g. our ability to launch satellites for national security reasons. I don't see the national security issue with having a moon base unless UFO [imdb.com] was a documentary r

    • fallacy, Chinese have private space companies too. Reality is it's just numbers game and US will lose dominance in everything in this world soon

      • fallacy, Chinese have private space companies too. Reality is it's just numbers game and US will lose dominance in everything in this world soon

        Ah. I see I didn't word that carefully enough. I am confident private space companies, American, European, Indian, or Chinese, will out-engineer anything the US government or Chinese government will accomplish.

        Here's the thing: "the US" isn't a monolith and isn't, in itself, dominant in anything. Individual organizations, e.g. MIT or SpaceX, might be best-in-the-world at certain slices of things but even a company as vertically integrated as SpaceX needs to work with partners. Some of those partners will be

        • SpaceX isn't profitable though, just burning through investor cash less the bit it makes from government contracting and spacelink. It may flop.

  • Before anyone starts labeling me as anti-American and Communist, know that I am very red-blooded American and very much a proponent of both Capitalism and democracy. I know it goes against everyone's nationalistic grain - but why don't we see if we can partner with China - and others - to return to the moon? Can't guarantee that China would be on board with this idea, and certainly won't try and overlook the severe gap between the two nations right now - but every bit of money spent in competition would go

  • It's been a long time since the last game.

  • It's probably easier for our government to go to the moon than to fix our real problems facing the US. Im not even saying it's the governments job to do this stuff but we have to get out of dept! Stop the welfare as a way of life! Our kids do whatever they want. Kids having kids, no husband+wife teams anymore. welfare to a viable wage unpassable on one side People working 60 hours weeks with no freedom on the other side. We are a house divided against itself. (Abraham Lincoln quoting the Bibl
  • seriously, fat sons feed on cost plus can't do time pressure. Musk IS time pressure.

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