Geostrategy-Direct
By Richard Fisher
As the Trump Administration and new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Jared Issacman review and reassess the Artemis Moon Program and determine the best way to pursue President Donald Trump’s additional priority to put Americans on Mars, it is also important to keep in mind that China is focused on the Moon and is building crucial momentum to reach its goal populating the Moon starting in 2030 or perhaps earlier.
There are several basic differences between the U.S. and Chinese Moon program:
• The U.S.-led multinational Artemis Moon program is very expensive, with an estimated $92 billion price tag from 2012 to 2025:
• It is heavier starting with the requirement to put four astronauts on the Moon;
• It is complex, employing three unique space launch vehicles (SLVs) and two unique moon landing systems, a small Moon orbiting space station with a satellite constellation, and the requirement to sustain a coalition of 53 countries.
However, the U.S.-led Artemis program is vulnerable to the potential changing goals or even a rationalization demanded by the Trump Administration, that could force an extension beyond the current 2027 goal for reaching the Moon, and China/Russia instigated major conflicts on Earth could also quickly sap U.S. funding for the Artemis program.
By contrast, the Chinese program is lightweight with:
• The goal of transporting only two astronauts, whichWith its smaller size and expense, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will have a greater chance of sustaining funding and focus for its Moon program, even as it contemplates regional conflicts such as invading Taiwan or joins into global conflicts with Russia.
• Allows the employment a smaller/simpler/cheaper architecture of one type of space launch vehicle, one type of Moon Landing vehicle, plus a lunar satellite constellation and a possible manned lunar space station placed strategically at the Earth-Moon Lagragian Point One (EML1) between the Earth and the Moon.
• China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) Moon coalition has only 13 members starting with Russia plus other mainly authoritarian states, and as their Moon programs will be largely funded by China, they will follow China’s dictat.
But beating the U.S. and its Artemis coalition back to the Moon would give the Chinese Communist Party an amazing political victory that it will use to bolster its domestic dictatorship, trumpet the weakness of the U.S. and the democracies, and that could attract many Artemis coalition members to also join the ILRS coalition.
Beating the U.S. back to the Moon and sustaining its construction of multiple Moon Bases plus its EML1 lunar space station could also quickly enable the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Controlled space program to build a dominant military position on the Moon to deny access to the U.S. and its Artemis coalition and even deny the U.S. access to Mars.
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