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Shortly after New Year's Eve, a gold coffered spacecraft made a soft landing on a corner of the solar system never visited Earth: the hidden face of the moon, sometimes called the "dark face".
The craft began sending images of reddish craters never seen before, bouncing them onto a satellite orbiting above. In the days that followed, he launched a robotic robot, created a colony of silkworms and even experimented with growing plants such as cotton and potatoes. NASA's director Jim Bridenstine praised the mission as part of an ambitious plan to send humans back to the lunar surface as a "first for humanity and a great achievement."
If you have not heard of it and have not heard much about these historical images, there is a reason. The most ambitious and successful lunar ship in decades has not been sent by NASA. He was sent by China.
Fifty years after the Apollo landing, the Moon is now the target of the largest wave of human activity in history, even more intense than at the height of the Apollo program. And that largely depends on countries other than the United States. India plans to fly to the South Pole of the Moon later this summer as it plans to send an orbit, lander and rover as a test to send humans to the surface in the next three years. The Japanese space agency has teamed up with automaker Toyota to build a lunar rover. This spring, Israel sent a privately funded robot to the moon, a mission that failed after crashing to the surface but is already trying to retry. Russia, for its part, has announced plans to build a lunar colony.
Unlike the first race on the moon, a largely symbolic conflict of the cold war in which the United States decisively defeated the Soviet Union, this region has big ways. In this new race, fueled in part by private companies and new high-performance space vehicles, the winners have an increasingly realistic chance of claiming the mineral resources and other untapped resources of the Moon and marketing them.
The most ambitious and ambitious newcomer is China, which plans to track its Chang & # 39; e 4 landing with more robotics to explore the icy poles, thus offering a revolutionary perspective of extracting water from the deposits. ice and use it to energize the space. vehicles and support life. China is also stepping up its manned space flight program, and plans are in place for a permanent Chinese colony scheduled for 2030.
The moon is also leading the space program of the Trump administration, at least in theory: Vice President Mike Pence said in March that the United States intended to send American astronauts back to the United States. Moon surface by 2024, four years earlier than planned, as a first step towards building a permanent presence by 2028. However, the United States is facing a challenge that could be more serious than the technical issues that swirled around the program in the 1960s. His sense of mission is much more fragmented now, and there is little consensus on how to take the next steps off the ground or why.
Pence's announcement caught unawares much of the space community and his own boss cast a doubt about the seriousness of the administration in a tweet from last week. The attention paid to the moon has exacerbated a debate that has raged for decades in NASA, the Congress and the space community as a whole, on the question of whether to give priority to manned spaceflight or unmanned missions; how much to spend the extent to which private space companies can lead the way; and what should be the role of NASA.
The main rival of the United States, for its part, is much clearer. As a rising world power, China is strongly motivated by the kind of national pride that animated the United States two generations ago. "If we do not go now, even if we are able to do it, our descendants will blame us," said Ye Peijian, head of the Moon program to China last year. And under this rhetoric, the Chinese government has a much more pragmatic logic: the economic ambition. Its methodical strategy, managed centrally, aims not only to plant a flag on the moon, but also to pave the way for the industrialization of space.
At NASA, Bridenstine downplayed his rivalry: "We are really two different countries operating under very independent approaches," he told POLITICO in a recent interview. "From our point of view at NASA, we do science, we make discoveries, we explore. We are very interested in what they do. When they landed on the other side of the moon, we were very interested in that. "
Some insiders see this new space race as the first real risk for American leaders in half a century. As a concentrated rival with resources that surpass most of its competitors, China has a real potential to win, if not exceed, the pre-eminence that America takes for granted.
"We do not have this national program capable of beating the Chinese," said Lt. Col. Pete Garretson, who recently led the Space Horizons working group at the University of the Force. and studied in depth the efforts of the Chinese space. "They have this strategic offensive really very smart."
IN BOTH ISSUES and achievements, the United States is by far the leading space actor. The list of 39 astronauts is larger than any other country. Its scientific exploration program is light-years away from the world. And NASA has an impressive track record in recruiting other nations as partners, even the former opponent of Russia. He is the main sponsor and operator of the International Space Station and has already signed a partnership with Canada for his lunar projects and is looking for others. (China is one of the countries with which it can not associate.) It is legally excluded, fearing that Beijing will steal US technology for military purposes.)
Crucially, the United States also boasts of a booming private space industry, driven in part by high-profile billionaires willing to spend their fortune to send humanity to the outside world. . The best known are Blue Origin, founded by Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos, who has just unveiled his own lunar lander designed to reach the South Pole of the Moon, and SpaceX, led by Tesla founder Elon Musk, who wants to send humans to Mars with its SpaceX rockets. The industry extends well beyond these big names, with a multitude of companies having big ambitions to help NASA to colonize the space.
But an exploration-of-space initiative also requires massive public ownership and investment, and in this respect the United States is now potentially at a disadvantage compared to China. According to Washington standards, NASA is an under-funded secondary strategy and an easy target for cuts to fund more earthly priorities.
On the other hand, the leaders of Beijing see their ambitions on Earth and their objectives in space related to the highest level. In the US, focused on mainstream digital technology, space travel is almost at the origin of national ambitions, while Chinese leaders shamelessly evoke "the spirit of aerospace" and the "dream as part of their efforts to rejuvenate the nation. .
"The universe is an ocean, the moon represents the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island," said Ye, head of the Chinese lunar program, in his speech last year, in the comparing with the country's expansionist conceptions of the islands of the South China Sea. .
It is difficult to determine the annual expenditure China spends on its space exploration efforts, in part because its space budget is supplemented by spending on defense. Namrata Goswami, a leading researcher on Chinese space operations at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in India, estimates that China spent $ 8 billion last year on its space program. This figure represents less than half of the US space budget, but it's almost impossible to compare apples to apples: the US budget is split between a large number of targets and the military part of China's budget n & # 39; 39 is not separated from the "civil" division. programs like landers and settlements.
Goswami's analysis indicates that China is rapidly moving towards the development of commercial space. "Given the vast economic potential of the resources of outer space," she says, "China is already using a lot of its resources to invest in space solar energy research, asteroid extraction and capacity development to ensure a permanent presence in the world. space."
Goswami observed that the Chinese leaders clearly associated his space achievements with the legitimacy of the Communist Party itself, an emphasis on the recent reward of miraculous political posts by leading Chinese scientists from space. Ma Xingrui, former chief executive of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, has been named governor of Guangdong Province, one of the strongest in the country. Yuan Jiajun, former president of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and chief commander of the Shenzhou Manned space program, is now governor of Zhejiang Province. And Xu Dazhe, who was the chief administrator of the space agency, is now governor of Hunan Province – which is particularly symbolic for Goswami, as it was Mao Zedong's home province.
UNITED STATES perhaps still the only country whose astronauts have affixed a plaque to the moon, but its national space program is led by an agency with a very different approach from that of China and much further away from the heart of political power. Placing human beings in space has always been a secondary mission of NASA and the rest.
On the contrary, the space agency is very committed to scientific and cultural projects. His key achievements are probes and telescopes deployed to zoom distant planets and immerse their eyes in the universe. This is an aspect strongly reflected in the last budget request of the space agency, which also devotes a large part to the scientific missions centered on the Earth.
NASA plans to spend $ 7 billion its $ 21 billion budget – the largest share – of science; he asked for $ 5 billion for human exploration. Even the optimists recognize that it will take much more than that to put in place any human return to the moon in the years to come.
"We are going to need additional means," Bridenstine said in early April to agency employees in a city hall after the administration's announcement of the 2024 lunar goal. "I do not think that anyone can take this level of commitment seriously unless they have additional means. "
We do not know where these additional means will come from. In May, the White House asked Congress an additional $ 1.6 billion for next year, which she called a down payment for the ambitious goal set for 2024. But we can not say how much would cost the mission. Some influential members of Congress, who will have the final say on NASA's spending priorities, say they simply do not see the reason for returning to the moon.
Texas Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson, who chairs NASA's Science Committee in the House, downplayed the importance of returning to the moon and emphasized his support for NASA's science portfolio, including research on climate change.
"The simple truth is that we are not in a space race to get to the moon," said Johnson at Bridenstine at a hearing earlier this year. "We won this race half a century ago."
She also criticized those who see her as a new race for primacy. "The obsolete Cold War discourse on an opponent who seizes lunar strategic heights raises only the question of why, if it is the fear of the Vice President, the Department of Defense, with his budget request of more than 700 billion dollars, does not seem to share this fear. and is not responsible for preventing it from happening, "she said.
NASA, aware of Congressional mistrust, insisted that moon money would not be at the expense of the agency's scientific portfolio, which maintains strong support from both sides.
TRUMP DID a series of movements to reinvigorate the US space program even in the absence of a deeper consensus. Shortly after his inauguration, he relaunched the White House National Space Council, defeated for 25 years, and appointed Pence to lead it. He has issued multiple presidential directives to encourage private space companies to enter into contracts with traditional aerospace companies and encourage them to invest in new technologies. And last year, Trump officially hired the United States to return to the moon.
"This time, we will do more than just plant our flag and leave our footprints," he said at a meeting of the National Council of Space. "We will establish a long-term presence, expand our economy and lay the groundwork for a future mission to Mars, which will take place very quickly." The senior managers of some space entrepreneurs, such as Musk and Bezos, were very well placed. He added that the United States counted on them to help achieve its ambitious goals. "And, you know," said the president, "I've always said that wealthy men seemed to like rockets … If you beat us to Mars, we'll be very happy and you'll be even more famous."
To arrive on Mars or even return to the Moon, Trump will also need NASA with his vision for the development of private space, and this seems less certain than the billionaires' affection for rockets. The agency has always been the main player in the field of manned spaceflight, pushed by the examination of the limits of the possible. he did not see his mission pave the way for other efforts. "There has never been a strong voice within NASA in favor of space industrial development or space colonization," said Garretson, the air force colonel recently. retirement. "There has never been a strong camp in NASA that really wants to build a sustainable infrastructure and technology that allows a broader segment of society to follow."
Many observers believe that the ambitions of Trump and Bridenstine imply a major change for the agency: a guardian role, which will lay the groundwork and rules for private companies. Bridenstine has become one of the main voices to make NASA more commercial and a private business incubator, including a series of partnerships with the space industry for the lunar mission.
Under Bridenstine, NASA has taken some initial steps to harness the capabilities of this expanding space sector. For example, its newly released Commercial Lunar Payload Payload Services program, in which the space agency shares the costs with nine private space companies for the development of lunar landing gear capable of delivering supplies to the surface of the moon. In previous decades, NASA would have been the only developer. The effort is expected to cost the space agency about $ 2.6 billion over 10 years.
The Advanced Cislunar and Surface Capabilities program, which aims to provide start-up capital to private space companies to develop spacecraft that can bring humans to the surface of the moon. In its new budget request for fiscal year 2020, NASA is requesting $ 363 million for the project, double what it was looking for last year. And at the end of May, NASA chose the first contractor for the Lunar Bridge project: the construction of a space station in orbit around the moon that would serve as a bridge for astronauts living and working on the surface.
According to Bridenstine, this is a new approach for NASA, a collaboration that will change the course of the manned space flight program. "We do not buy, own, or operate the equipment. We buy the service, "he told POLITICO. "We will invest in this material, but we expect that they will also invest in this material," he added.
"The idea is to make these investments because they know there will be customers who are not NASA," he said. "These customers could be international customers, foreign governments. These customers could also be tourists.
In a sense, this is the kind of long-term vision needed to make big changes in a program as deep-rooted as NASA's. But Bridenstine is a political representative who works for a president whose political priorities seem to change from one week to the next. In addition, there are serious doubts that he can reorient the agency of 17,000 people and his army of subcontractors to a new way of thinking. Even a relatively modest NASA program takes a decade to materialize; Trump's team will have to build political coalitions around its priorities to survive its presidency.
IN THE SPACE OF TODAY 'HUI For some, some see a useful analogy in the early days of the American West's colonization in the 19th century, when it was a massive land grab that fueled the nation's growth. "In the Wild West, we learned that possession is a 9/10 law, so it's important to get there first," said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, a member of the National Council. the space of the White House.
But the installation of the US border was also hampered by massive government investments, calling on the US military, cash grants and high-risk expeditions to help secure the territory, clear land and to create the necessary infrastructure for private prospectors.
On this front, China enjoys an intrinsic advantage. Beijing is providing massive subsidies to its commercial space companies, helping them attract international customers for space launch services and other products, while simultaneously boosting its space program as a whole.
Some of the Trump administration's key allies are unsure whether Capitol Hill's skepticism and the resistance of NASA's entrenched bureaucracy can be overcome. Homer Hickam is a NASA rocket scientist who was hired by Pence last year as an advisor to the Space Council. Mostly known for his hit memoirs "Rocket Boys", he has long been "a strong advocate" for NASA's unmanned robotic missions.
"But I also want human activity in the space," he said in an interview. "I believe that humans in this dangerous place should be for practical reasons as well as for science. If humans want to go there, I think they should identify and use available resources, especially on the moon, to help the Earth's economies and to create new industries and new businesses. "
"I do not really know if NASA can do it or not," he said.
Dennis Wingo, an aerospace engineer who oversaw NASA's first attempt to support a private lunar lander in the 1990s, is worried that NASA "might be too institutionally constructed" to follow up on NASA's proposal. Trump administration.
While the prospect of a new concentrated competitor in China has added a strong note of urgency to the question of NASA's transformation, others believe that the US still has time to address it, in part because that China's ambitions may exceed its true success. "Chinese progress has been incredibly slow given the access that they have had to all of this and half a century of history to analyze," said Greg Autry, a professor at the Marshall Islands. School of Business of the University of Southern California, which specializes in space entrepreneurship and advised NASA. "They did zero new things beyond going to a different place on the moon."
He says he is particularly unimpressed by China's manned spaceflight program, which has done far less spaceflight than NASA during the Apollo program in the 1960s. "They are still far, far behind," said Autry. . "There is no reason to panic. But it's good to have a competitor. It gives us a sense of mission. "
Nevertheless, Autry also sees little evidence that the United States is ready or able Build the kind of complete investment in money and energy needed to recalibrate the space program to tap into potential resources.
"The White House is clearly committed to economic development," Autry said. "But frankly, no one at NASA is ready to receive this message and follow it. They are talented and talented people. Many of them call themselves "pro-commercial", but they have never lived in the commercial world. A significant cultural change is needed.
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