ANALYSIS – They might be. And this could be devastating to us. Even as America's planned manned return to the moon, via the NASA/SpaceX Artemis effort, is mired by bureaucracy and delays, Communist China is forging ahead with its own plans for space colonization.
I have written a lot about China's expansive space and lunar ambitions, including how we may need to fight them for the moon.
But things may be even worse than they appear. China's space program is in warp drive, and it could be well on its way to beating the U.S. in landing astronauts again on the moon, and beyond.
“Chinese ambitions for both the moon and Mars should be taken very seriously,” said Dean Cheng, senior adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“Because from their perspective, it's not just about planting a flag. There's a whole freight train worth of baggage and meaning associated with both of these missions.” The military aspects are the most concerning.
Whichever country wins this race could dominate space and Earth for years to come.
As one U.S. intelligence official noted: “They don't want to be the space power of the 2020s.” The official added: “They want to be the space power of the 21st century, the way we were in the 20th.”
China's first surprise ‘Sputnik' moment (named for the Soviet Union's first satellite launch in 1957 that shocked the U.S. into later landing on the moon) came shortly after New Year's Day in 2019, when China landed an unmanned spacecraft on the far side of the moon.
In this effort, the Chicoms could claim they had gone where no other space mission had gone before.
As Stripes reports:
The landing was a wake-up call in Washington. China's space program was advancing with unexpected speed. Beijing would soon assemble in record time a space station orbiting Earth, catching U.S. officials off guard once again.
U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge that China's sudden advances had surprised them. They are no longer surprised. The intelligence community now assesses with confidence that China is poised to succeed in landing humans on the moon and constructing a permanent base camp at the lunar south pole by the end of this decade, four intelligence officials told McClatchy, just as NASA has fallen behind its own deadlines to achieve similar milestones.
It is the first time intelligence officials have publicly detailed their concerns that China may win the race to return people to the moon and establish a lunar outpost — an achievement that could set back U.S. plans for human space travel for decades to come.
But some say, fear not, because our intrepid vice president, Kamala Harris, oversees our strategically significant space efforts. The VP, who is the director of the National Space Council, recently assured us in a written statement that: “The United States will continue to lead the world.”
Harris added: “Our unrivaled network of allies and partners will power our deep space exploration, inspire the next generation of explorers, and will ensure that advancements in space benefit all of humanity.”
She would likely never have been able to say these things out loud without mangling the words into oblivion. Still, how much confidence can we have in our border and immigration czar's assurances?
Sadly, not much. Stripes continues:
Since landing a rover on the far side of the moon, China has more than doubled its number of satellites orbiting Earth, and has launched a space plane that remained in low-Earth orbit for several months before ascending and releasing a projectile, defense officials said. Beijing is already fielding weapons in space, including electronic and cyberspace equipment, but also devices that can stalk and latch on to satellites to disrupt their orbit.
Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has repeatedly expressed concern that China may reach the moon with humans first, with a landing on the strategic lunar south pole.
This would allow Beijing to dominate critical moon resources, such as frozen water hiding in the permanent darkness and solar energy from lunar mountain tops receiving constant sunlight.
As G. Scott Hubbard, NASA's first Mars czar and former director of the Ames Research Center at NASA warns: “If China were to land and begin an outpost there, I think it would be a [another] Sputnik moment for the American people.”
“They could claim it as their own.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: Political Forecaster Shifts Battleground State Race Towards GOP
