China recently sent an unmanned spacecraft to the moon for the fourth time, but NASA chief Bill Nelson says the United States will send astronauts there within a few years.
Recently, another Chinese spacecraft touched down on the surface of the Moon, this time to take samples from the far side of the Moon. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the country, which is challenging the United States’ long-standing dominance in space, and said he was impressed with the fourth successful moon landing. “We are in a space race with the Chinese and they are very good,” he said. “Especially in the last 10 years, they have had a lot of success. They usually say what they think and do what they say”.
But despite China’s many achievements in space — including a space station in low Earth orbit and a rover arriving on Mars in 2021 — the United States remains ahead of its main rival in returning astronauts to the moon, Nelson said. NASA plans to one day establish a permanent presence on the most sought-after real estate in the Solar System: the Moon’s south pole. As one of the most important steps in achieving this goal, NASA wants to fly around the moon with four astronauts at the end of next year, and then land people on the surface at the end of 2026, for the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
The Chang’e-6 module landed today in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia
However, this schedule has already been pushed back several times due to technical challenges, including solving problems with the heat shield of the capsule that will fly the astronauts to and from the moon. The heat shield of NASA’s Orion spacecraft during a test flight around the moon in 2022 — during which no one was on board — “worn beyond expectations” in more than 100 places as it plunged into the atmosphere, according to a report released this spring by NASA’s inspector general. In some places, pieces were torn off, leaving huge scars on the fabric. “If the same problem were to occur on future Artemis missions, it could lead to the loss of the vehicle or crew,” the report concluded.
NASA’s plan to return humans to the surface is complicated, as Orion must put them into orbit around the moon, and then a separate spacecraft – SpaceX’s Starship – must transport them to the surface of the moon. Starship would then fly the astronauts back to rendezvous with Orion in lunar orbit for return to Earth. Since an important role of the Starship is to land on the surface, NASA is closely monitoring its development. SpaceX recently completed its fourth test flight of the largest and most powerful vehicle ever built, which the company says was largely successful, allowing for rapid development. According to Nelson, “all this is a good indicator” that NASA will be able to reach the moon ahead of China. However, Elon Musk’s company still needs to prove that the vehicle can be refueled by a fleet of refueling spacecraft in orbit around the Earth, safely transport people, and land softly on the moon – all of these are extremely ambitious and complicated tasks that could take years to complete.
The ultimate goal of both the United States and China is to establish a station at the moon’s south pole, where permanently shadowed craters contain water in the form of ice. Water is not only vital for sustaining life, but its components, oxygen and hydrogen, can also be used as rocket propellants, enabling further exploration of the Solar System. According to Nelson, despite the competition between the US and China, the two countries must find a way to co-exist on and around the moon. The space programs of the two countries are also linked by the dangers inherent in space, he said.
They will be the crew of the Artemis
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson spoke for the first time about the threat that Russia is developing a nuclear weapon that could be used to destroy satellites in orbit and cripple key US national security infrastructure. Russia denies that it intends to deploy nuclear weapons in space. Nelson said that should worry any nation with assets in space, especially China, which not only operates a growing number of spacecraft that could be disabled by a nuclear explosion, but also a manned space station.
“Every nation should be concerned that Russia might seek to launch a nuclear weapon. Such a capability would threaten the satellites operated by every country and company in the world, as well as the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial and national security services on which we all depend.” “. He added that “this is also an opportunity for the Chinese government, since Chinese astronauts and their space station would be endangered by the deployment of a Russian nuclear bomb in space. It is in their interest that Russia does not deploy nuclear weapons, so they could take advantage of their position vis-à-vis Russia and the Chinese president, relationship between Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to encourage the Russians to think again.”
Putting a nuclear weapon into orbit would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. And as China and Russia continue to compete with the United States in space, NASA and the US State Department are seeking to spearhead a growing international coalition in what may be the most significant international space policy effort since the 1967 treaty. In order to put pressure on China’s space program – which has been widely criticized as operating in secret and as an arm of the military – the signatories to the treaty agree to adhere to agreed standards of behavior in space and on and around the Moon. Countries should share scientific discoveries with each other and detail where and what they are doing on the lunar surface.
But NASA’s lunar campaign continues. The space agency hopes its commercial partner, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, will land its second unmanned spacecraft on the moon this year, followed by more privately developed landers in the coming years. Earlier this year, their spacecraft became the first commercial vehicle to land on the moon and the first US spacecraft to make a soft landing since the Apollo era.
But despite the fact that the head of NASA talks about the space race with China, the astronauts participating in the Artemis mission planned to orbit the moon in 2025 do not see it quite that way. Flight commander NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman said, “We don’t feel like it’s a race. We feel like this is the right direction for exploration, and we’re headed in that direction.” He added: “But as an American, I feel the pressure is increasing”.
Source: sg.hu
