The Second Space Race Is About To Catch Fire
The mission to return to the Moon and reach for Mars is picking up momentum around the world.
In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy’s bold declaration that the United States would land a man on the Moon crystallized the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The strategic incentive for the U.S. to compete in the space race, however, had been clear for years before Kennedy officially announced his Moon shot initiative. The Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first artificial satellite into Earth’s orbit in October 1957 struck Americans with paranoia that a technological leap had taken place behind the Iron Curtain unbeknownst to the Western world.
The strategic incentives for countries to compete in the emerging second space race have been clear for years and the vision of colonizing Mars spearheaded by industry leaders like SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is winning hearts, minds, and multi-billion dollar government contracts.
There are several key differences between the first and second space races. The most significant difference is that the end goal of the first space race was to accomplish the feat of landing a man on the Moon, while the end goal today is the permanent colonization of new worlds.
A new space race will create tremendous opportunity and tremendous risk. Humanity’s potential for prosperity can grow exponentially with access to the vast resources available throughout the solar system and the innovation that will come of it, yet the militarization of space will persistently threaten that potential.
Renewed enthusiasm for space exploration will also reshape cultures. In the 1960s, President Kennedy’s Moon shot initiative provided a higher purpose to a culture riven and polarized by high-profile assassinations, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Right Movement. Americans could use such a higher purpose today to provide perspective to our endless political and cultural strife.
America and China are both attempting to position themselves as leaders of the new space age. The second space race is shaping up to be far more multi-polar, however, than the largely bi-polar race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1960s.
India, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and others are looking to kick their space programs into high gear in anticipation of the upcoming race to colonize the Moon and reach for Mars. An African Space Agency based in Egypt, meanwhile, was formed in January 2023.
America’s Artemis Coalition
In February, the Texas-based company Intuitive Machines simultaneously became the first private company to land on the Moon and achieved the first U.S. Moon landing in more than fifty years. A robotic probe called Odysseus landed near the lunar south pole, which is believed to be home to ice water.
February’s Moon landing also marked the first of NASA’s Artemis program, which was announced in 2017 with the end goal of returning astronauts to the Moon and eventually reaching for Mars.
Artemis I was launched in December 2022 simply to orbit the Moon as a test of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft. Artemis III, the mission that will land U.S. astronauts on the Moon again for the first time in more than half a century, has experienced delays that pushed back the estimated date for a human Moon landing to at least 2027.
A key component of the program is the Lunar Gateway, a planned space station to orbit the Moon slated for launch in November 2025. The Gateway would be the first extraterrestrial space station in human history.
Canada is set to contribute an autonomous robotic arm that will attach to the exterior of the new space station called Canadarm3. The European Space Agency contributes key components to elements of the Gateway, as well, including the European Service Module for the Orion spacecraft, the Gateway’s habitat module, and a refueling and telecommunications module.
The new space race will also feature private enterprise such as SpaceX and AstroForge—a company founded in 2022 which aims to become the world’s first viable asteroid mining company. Private enterprise is not just included but is arguably indispensable to humanity’s progress in space exploration in the 21st century.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been integral to the revitalization of America’s space program. For example, the U.S. was dependent on Russian Soyuz rockets to transport American astronauts to the ISS from the retiring of the Space Shuttle in 2011 until SpaceX’s Dragon 2 began transporting astronauts in 2020. Musk’s emphasis on achieving rocket reusability has pulled the prospect of colonizing new worlds tantalizingly close. As the vast quantities of resources available in our solar system slowly becomes more accessible, private investment in space exploration will grow exponentially.
In contrast to the first space race, several dozen countries will take part in the new race to permanently expand humanity’s presence beyond our home world. At least thirty-six countries have signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords in an attempt to establish a “common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use” of space.
The Artemis Accords were first signed in October 2020 by eight countries: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Twenty-eight additional countries have signed since then, including Argentina, Brazil, India, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
India made headlines in August when it became just the fourth country in the world (after America, the former Soviet Union, and China) to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and the first to land on the lunar south polar region with its’ Chandrayaan-3 mission. Indian accomplishments in space do not yet match America, China, or Russia, but their progress has been remarkable.
Sixteen years ago, India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission was the first to discover the presence of water molecules on the lunar surface. The rover transported by Chandrayaan-3 last year, Pragyaan, has now confirmed the presence of a number of chemicals, including sulfur and oxygen, on the lunar surface.
Eleven years ago, India launched its first spacecraft to Mars. The Mangalyaan spacecraft entered Mars orbit in September 2014, making it only the fourth country to accomplish that feat at the time (after America, the former Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency). India is planning a second orbiter mission to Mars in the coming years.
Last fall, YouTube’s live stream of the Chandrayaan-3 launch received more than eight million concurrent viewers, breaking the platform’s previous viewership record and highlighting both rising global interest in the second space race and India’s growing influence on the world stage. India is now set to collaborate with Japan on a mission in 2025 to search for water on the Moon’s south pole. Japan, which was an original signatory to the U.S. Artemis Accords, is becoming a powerful player in the new space race in its own right.
Japan became the fifth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon with the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft in January of this year. The primary objective of the launch by JAXA, Japan’s space agency, was to demonstrate a capacity for precise landings which can reach within hundreds of feet of a target destination. The project manager for the Moon lander, Shinichiro Sakai, hailed the landing as a success after it touched down just 328 feet from the target destination:
“We proved that you can land wherever you want, rather than where you are able to. This will inspire more and more people, desirably Japanese missions, to try to land on unexplored places on the moon.”
In 2010, Japan became the first country to ever return physical samples from a celestial body other than the Moon after the Hayabusa spacecraft successfully collected dust from the asteroid Itokawa. Japan also launched its first probe to Venus in 2010, although the probe did not reach Venus orbit until 2015 after a failed first attempt at orbital insertion.
Ten months ago, a private Japanese company called Ispace launched a spacecraft carrying lunar explorers for JAXA and the United Arab Emirates among other cargo for private companies. The mission ended in failure, however, with the spacecraft crashing into the Moon.
Ispace’s mission would have provided the U.A.E. with its’ first lunar explorer, but the country has nonetheless been forging ahead in space for years. In 2017, the U.A.E. announced the Mars 2117 Project, an ambitious initiative to construct the first human settlement on Mars by the year 2117.
The U.A.E. launched the Arab world’s first mission to Mars in July 2020 when it sent the Hope probe to study the Martian climate for clues as to what it looked like when it could have supported life around three billion years ago. The U.A.E. also sent its first astronaut, Hazza Al Mansouri, to the International Space Station in September 2019, a major milestone in the country’s efforts in space exploration. Several satellites have been launched by the U.A.E. in collaboration with South Korea.
South Korea, which signed the Artemis Accords in May 2021, launched its first satellite into orbit in 2013 only weeks after a similar launch by North Korea. South Korea has ambitious plans for a lunar base and additional satellite launches in the near future with the support of the U.S. and NASA.
In 2022, South Korea became the seventh country in the world to launch satellites using an entirely domestically-developed rocket:
“Now, a path to space has been opened from the Republic of Korea.” — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol
A fellow with the Center for A New American Security said after the launch that South Korea has “big ambitions” in the emerging “global space industry.” An escalating space race, however, carries the ever-present risk of engulfing North and South Korea in an arms race or a hot war.
Israel, meanwhile, which signed the Artemis Accords in January 2022, has an attempt at a soft landing on the lunar surface slated for 2025 after a nonprofit called SpaceIL attempted a soft landing in April 2019 using a SpaceX rocket that ended in failure. SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander orbited and captured stunning images of the Moon but crashed during its’ landing attempt.
Director General of the Israel Space Agency Uri Oron explained that Israel’s ambitions in space are grounded in a recognition of the incredible potential that lies in humanity’s near future:
“When I look back, I see some similarity between the time that we're facing and the beginning of the '90s with the internet. What we see here right now is, basically, the foundation, or the infrastructure, of a new economic ecosystem. Right now, it's just the foundation.
We don't know exactly what's going to be in space 10 years from now. But what we know for sure is that the foundation, the infrastructure, and the fact that private people and private organizations are part of it — it's there. It's obvious.”
China’s International Lunar Coalition
China’s economic ascendance in recent decades has given the country a ticket to compete against the economic powerhouse and reigning champion of the first space race: the United States.
Twenty years ago, a man named Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut launched into orbit on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. Ten years ago, China landed its’ first robotic probe, Chang’e 3, on the lunar surface. Five years ago, China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft became the first in history to achieve a soft landing on the far side of the Moon. Two years ago, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft marked China’s first soft landing on Mars.
One year ago, China completed construction of its first long-term space station called Tiangong which the country hopes to keep continuously inhabited for at least a decade. The project’s completion comes thirteen years after a U.S. decision to prohibit NASA from cooperating with China due to concerns with the Chinese space program’s links to the People’s Liberation Army, the military branch of China’s Community Party.
China and Russia have also launched a joint initiative to lead a competing alliance to America’s Artemis Accords and construct an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) on the Moon’s surface. Six countries besides China and Russia have joined the coalition: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Pakistan, South Africa, and Venezuela.
The Chinese-led ILRS initiative plans to construct a transportation system between the Earth and the Moon, long-term supply, transportation, and operations systems on the lunar surface, and a lunar scientific research facility.
Chinese support has been instrumental to the space program of Pakistan, which is under pressure to advance in space on account of geopolitical tensions with India. Pakistan first established its’ space agency in 1961 and launched its’ first satellite on Chinese soil in 1990.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced collaboration efforts with China in the mid-2010s in astronaut training programs with the goal of sending European astronauts to China’s Tiangong space station upon its completion, but has since abandoned those plans and has not sent astronauts to Tiangong since its’ completion in 2022. Several European countries have individually collaborated with China on satellite and space science projects.
Brazil, which signed the Artemis Accords in June 2021, maintains strong ties with China in space given the two countries’ long-term China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program, which has provided extensive environmental and resource monitoring capabilities.
Egypt is a signatory to China’s ILRS in addition to being the host country for the African Space Agency, established in January 2023 after years of deliberation and development of an African space program. Egypt has been launching satellites with growing frequency in the twenty-first century, and in 2019, the Egyptian Space Agency was formed to replace a previous insitution with the more limited scope of satellite and space sciences.
Russia’s first Moon mission in 47 years, meanwhile, failed in August 2023. Roscosmos, Russia’s state space corporation, announced that its’ Luna-25 spacecraft “ceased to exist” after crashing into the lunar surface.
Russian Soyuz rockets currently claim the most launches in human history since their inauguration in 1966, and Soyuz rockets were the only way to reach the International Space Station between 2011 and 2020. In recent years, however, President Vladimir Putin has slashed spending on space programs out of reported frustrated with a lack of progress while the programs have simultaneously faced downstream setbacks as a result of the war in Ukraine.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome has been Russia’s primary spaceport since it was built in 1955 during the Soviet era, and it has been leased by Russia from Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In early 2023, however, Kazakh officials impounded property belonging to Roscosmos after the company failed to make debt payments to the Kazakh government, thus complicating cooperation since then.
The stage is set for a second space race at the same time as the world is becoming more multi-polar than it has been in generations.
The militarization of the new space race will be a persistent risk, and America and China will bear the most significant responsibility for ensuring that their ambitions in space do not devolve into experimental space warfare. Existing regional hostilities will also be at risk of worsening as progress in space exploration reshapes countries’ technological and military capabilities.
This moment simultaneously carries tremendous hope, however, for the most exciting adventure humanity has undertaken in our history. Every single generation of humans who lived before us looked up to the sky in awe and wondered about the secrets of the universe.
Twenty-first century humans are the first in history to achieve the capacity to start unlocking those secrets. We have a duty to pursue them in honor of every dreamer, every inventor, and every mentor who came before us.
“I always had an existential crisis, trying to figure out ‘what does it all mean?’
I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the knowledge of the world, if we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then, we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. That’s the only way to move forward.” — Elon Musk
The Union Forward newsletter is published under The Daily Independent: An Independent Report for Independent Thinkers.
Sources
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America Is Trying to Make the Moon Happen Again — The Atlantic
Ax-1, Israel and the ‘New Space; revolution: Q&A with Israel space chief Uri Oron — Space
Chandrayaan-3: India makes historic landing near Moon’s south pole — BBC
China and Russia unveil joint plan for lunar space station — The Guardian
China details International Lunar Research Station building plans — Global Times
China’s space station, Tiangong: A complete guide — Space
Hazza Ali Almansoori: The 1st Emirati Astronaut’s Space Station Mission in Photos — Space
Here’s why Europe is abandoning plans to fly aboard China’s space station — Ars Technica
Hope, the United Arab Emirates’ Mars mission — The Planetary Society
Japan and India plan 2025 moon mission to hunt for water near the lunar south pole — Space
Japan Becomes the Latest Country to Land on the Moon — The New York Times
Japan praises ‘pinpoint’ moon landing by its SLIM probe — Reuters
Kazakhstan Seizes Russia’s Launch Facility at Baikonur — Universe Today
Mangalyaan, India’s first Mars mission — The Planetary Society
Moon landing: US clinches first touchdown in 50 years — Reuters
Moon Landing by Israel’s Beresheet Spacecraft Ends in Crash — The New York Times
NASA’s Artemis III moon landing likely years behind schedule, report finds — New York Post
Putin slashes Russia’s space budget and says he expects better results — Ars Technica
Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure — Reuters
South Korea’s Space Program Is a Big Deal — The Diplomat
Spacecraft Successfully Returns Asteroid Dust — ScienceNOW
What Happened During Ispace’s Moon Landing Attempt — The New York Times