A space race is a good thing, and we must get ready to win it

The U.S. and a coalition of international and commercial partners are engaged in a second race to the moon with China. The goals are to be the first to land human beings since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and to be the first to establish a lunar base.

Most people like good competition, which is why sports are so popular around the world. Not among the people who are cheering on NASA and its partners in the competition with China are the editorial board of the venerable British journal Nature. They believe that space exploration should be a strictly cooperative venture without the alleged messiness of a race or competition between superpowers.

The article notes that the recent Artemis II mission was a cooperative venture, with a Canadian astronaut, a European Space Agency service module and tracking services from countries such as Australia. China has its own group as partners in its planned International Lunar Research Station. The partners include Russia, Egypt, Pakistan and many other nations,

Nature’s editorial board seems to be miffed that, along with being a cooperative venture, Artemis is part of a space race with China. Cooperative and competition are not mutually exclusive, it seems. They are suggesting that the two coalitions should simply call off the new race to the moon and combine their efforts to return to Earth’s nearest neighbor and establish a base there. 

One problem exists. China is such a bad actor on the world stage that, in the minds of many, it has replaced the Soviet Union and before........

© The Hill