US and China launch new space race from Moon

China’s entry into the scene

We are no different today. Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, has practically disappeared as a space power, despite the number one nuclear-armed missile, but the US has to contend with China, which is building its own space station. Perfect on the hidden face of the moon. The overall scene is dominated by alarmingly growing satellites in low orbits between 300 and 1,000 kilometers. Thanks to advances in reusability and miniaturization of carriers introduced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, we have more than 5,000 over our heads, along with a numerical explosion due to a drop in launch costs.

Satellites are operational for 80 countries

Today, putting a small satellite into orbit is within the reach of practically every institution, even a university, and in fact at least 80 countries have satellites in operation, a little-known fact. There are various constellations planned for monitoring the region or even for transmissions, with Italy and Europe leading the next programs for remote sensing and transmission.

Return to the Moon

The real arena of challenge, hopefully not conflict, however, is the new race to the moon, ostensibly launched by the United States with the Artemis program, which will bring the first female astronaut and the first black astronaut to the moon by 2026. Although the schedule is still subject to revision. Artemis, goddess of the moon, sister of the god Apollo in ancient Greek mythology, a name chosen to compensate for the male presence in the events of the first race to the moon.

NASA adopted a different policy from previous missions, signing contracts with the European Space Agency, ESA, but directly with individual states, creating some problems with delegation. In any case, the new race to the moon, led by the United States, now has about forty participants.

A “new” expansion

Artemis is a very ambitious project that will not stop at returning to the Moon. In fact, it is planned to come to the moon, build houses, initially very simple, then more structured, operate laboratories, dig mines to extract precious materials, especially lithium and other materials. The world of technology. It is necessary to build roads and landing sites for vehicles that are supposed to continue from Earth or from the yet-to-be-built cislunar space station, the Moon for telecommunications and time-keeping and synchronization systems. In short, it will not be withdrawn, on the contrary, it will instead be an expansion on our satellite, this time involving private individuals immediately, to kick off a new lunar economy, let’s face it, and there should be more. was discovered.