China has essentially sparked a new "space race" against the United States as it prepares to master the Moon through its new strategic lunar plan.
Knewz.com has learned that this is the first time China has officially acknowledged the U.S. as its competitor in the field of lunar exploration.
Reminiscent of the race between the American and Russian space programs during the Cold War, the China National Space Administration has stated in its new lunar plan that it envisions the U.S. and Chinese space programs to compete over the next couple of decades.
The China National Space Administration's ambitious plan, which was unveiled in April 2024, aims to carry out the large-scale construction of infrastructure on the Moon.
The Chinese space program intends to harness the minerals found in the lunar soil – especially titanium and iron – that it could use in the manufacture of spacecraft components.
Furthermore, China has also discovered water molecules on the Moon and has gathered samples with the aim of utilizing hydrogen and oxygen molecules trapped in lunar soil particles to produce rocket fuel, water, and oxygen for astronauts in future missions.
It is worth noting that the American Apollo lunar missions failed to obtain similar samples from the Moon, unlike China.
The Chinese space program believes that if the latest plan is a success, other nations will stop following the U.S. space program and notice the merits of Chinese efforts to harness lunar resources.
Per the new strategic lunar plan, drafted under the leadership of the deputy director of the China National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Centre, China intends to conduct a detailed survey of the relevant resources available on the Moon and work on the technology required to harness them.
"The utilisation of lunar resources is a scientific challenge, a technological drive and an economic reward. Efficiency and benefit will be the core evaluation benchmarks, guiding the construction, operation and sustainable development," the new Chinese lunar plan stated, per reports.
By 2035, China intends to commence "carry out large-scale energy acquisition, large-scale material extraction and large-scale lunar-based construction."
The extracted materials will have "engineering applications such as oxygen and water production from lunar soil, mineral resource collection and extraction, metal-based component production, and lunar-based building construction," the plans further read, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
The plan envisions that China will be able to construct power plants, factories, scientific research institutions, rocket launch sites, tourist centers, and a small underground city by 2045.
The end goal for the latest strategy is simple: to place China at the pinnacle of human deep space exploration activities within the envisioned time frame, replacing the U.S. as one of the top names in the field.
Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of the China National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Centre, commented on the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Russia during the Cold War in the new strategic lunar plan.
"In the historical context of that period [the Cold War], the race to demonstrate superior political strength made lunar exploration unsustainable," the plan read.
"It is foreseeable that in the next 20 to 30 years, China’s International Lunar Research Station and the US Artemis programme will compete in terms of technology and operational efficiency on the same historical stage and at the same geographical location (the south pole of the moon)," it mentioned, naming the U.S. as a "space race" competitor for the first time officially.
"The utilisation of lunar resources will become the focus of the competition."
On the other hand, the U.S. has already long considered China to have been engaged in a "space race," as pointed out by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a January 2023 interview.
"It is a fact: we’re in a space race... And it is true that we better watch out that they don’t get to a place on the moon under the guise of scientific research. And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory," Nelson said at the time.