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Will China beat the rest of the world to building a base on the Moon? [1]

['Séamus Bellamy']

Date: 2025-08-19

China's been spending a lot of money on a lot of thing that irritate a lot of nations. Armed artificial islands to control chunks of international water, infrastructure programs in Africa and South America in the hopes of buying the loyalties of nations that once favoured America or Russia. New Aircraft carriers a recently assembled space station and the latest: Moon stuff. They're working hard to land their folks on the moon by 2030.

In an official statement, the China Manned Space Agency flicked the switch on a 26-ton mock up of its experimental moon lander, the Lanyue. During the test, the lander's main engines and control thrusters were fired and OMG, it didn't explode (Elon, take notes). NASA is moving more slowly. The agency has a number of obstacles to navigate. President Trump wants a nuclear reactor sent up there, despite how successful solar panels have proven at providing energy off-planet. And then there's the cash flow problem: a new budget is looking to kill off over 40 of NASA's programs, figuring out how to safely propel a radioactive box into space on top of a bomb could be the least of the worries that America's space program is facing.

According to the CMSA, China's recent lander tests "represents a key step in the development of China's manned lunar exploration program, and also marks the first time that China has carried out a test of extraterrestrial landing and takeoff capabilities of a manned spacecraft." China's also put a check in the win column for successfully testing an astronaut escape system AND a test firing of its rocket system's central core and seven kerosine-powered engines.

That said, according to Ars Technics, China's moon lander looks like it may have been cribbed from the design of the ones used on the Apollo missions, 60 years ago. So while they might be ahead of the game, their tech, in a number of areas may not be as advanced as that used in the western world. But does that matter? America may have already made it to the moon, but the nation turned its back on her, so long ago. We might know what worked, but progress towards setting foot on our planet's sole natural satellite is moving slow. We're not sticking with what works. We're innovating. At a crawl. Old tech or not, should China get to the moon this go 'round, before anyone else, it doesn't matter how fancy their tech is compared to ours. It won't matter that our hardware is hella safer or faster. What's going to matter in this particular space race is who is able to establish a permanent presence up there, first. Who will be the first to have the means to exploit the moon's resources and, sadly, who's the first ass to plop weapons on the lunar surface to ward off others from coming or, to lob fire at enemies back on earth.

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