Though few Americans may be aware of it, the United States is now locked in a new space race with China that carries major implications for the U.S. economy and national security.
While the United States’ space program has floundered for years under bureaucratic bloat and mismanagement, Beijing has been working at breakneck speed to become a dominant power in space. The communist nation kicked off 2025 with more good news on that front, announcing the successful launch of its Shijian-25 satellite, which will be used for “satellite fuel replenishment and life extension service technology verification” – a major step forward for the Chinese space program.
China also has two crewed missions planned for 2025, along with an uncrewed mission to return samples from a near-Earth asteroid.
But China’s ultimate ambition is the Moon. Beijing revealed this week that it plans to send a “flying robot” to the far side of the moon next year to search for frozen water. Last year, the Chang’e-6 lunar module collected the first ever samples from the far side of the Moon, an accomplishment that Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed as “another landmark achievement in building a strong country in space, and science and technology.”
Beijing’s lunar dreams don’t stop with unmanned flights and research missions, however. As the Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, reported last year, China intends to “launch a moon base mission as early as 2026” and land a man on the Moon by 2030. While this “moon base,” which will theoretically be located on the South Pole of the Moon, is ostensibly for research purposes, it could also be the key to unlocking great economic wealth for China – and threatening the United States.
Estimates vary widely, but the Moon could contain trillions of dollars in resources, potentially setting the stage for a lunar gold rush between nations. Notably, water ice detected at the lunar poles can be converted into hydrogen and oxygen, serving as propellants for spacecraft. This capability could reduce the cost of deep-space missions by providing refueling stations on the Moon, thereby decreasing the need to launch heavy fuel loads from Earth.
Additionally, the Moon contains rare minerals and metals, including helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion. While the feasibility of helium-3 fusion remains under research, its abundance on the Moon presents a long-term economic incentive for development on the lunar surface.
From a national security perspective, establishing a presence on the Moon also offers military advantages. The Moon’s position allows for strategic placement of communication and surveillance infrastructure, enhancing a nation’s capabilities in space-based intelligence and reconnaissance. If China were indeed able to establish a Moon base, it could threaten virtually any U.S. satellite.
The United States has its own plan to get back to the Moon – the Artemis program – but it has been mired in endless delays and cost overruns. Artemis 2, the first crewed mission, was scheduled for 2024, but that timeline has now been pushed to 2027. After spending nearly $100 billion, Artemis has yet to get even a single astronaut off the ground.
In light of China’s advancements, multiple American officials are now warning that the delays to the Artemis program have become a national security threat. In a recent interview, outgoing NASA administrator Bill Nelson cautioned that if China builds a permanent lunar outpost before America, they could claim large swaths, if not all, of the Moon as Chinese territory.
“I don’t want them to get to the south pole and claim, ‘This is ours. You stay out,’” Nelson said.
When Trump won re-election last November, the future of the Artemis mission was immediately cast into doubt. Space entrepreneur and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, now one of Trump’s top advisors, is one of the program’s most vocal critics. In a 2024 Christmas post, he argued, “The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed.”
Yet Musk isn’t merely critical of Artemis – he opposes returning to the Moon at all, calling it a “distraction” from his ultimate goal, which is sending a manned mission to Mars. Notably, during his second inaugural address, Trump pledged to “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
But Trump has thus far offered little indication that he intends to cancel the Artemis project, which enjoys strong bipartisan backing in Congress. Returning America to the Moon was one of Trump’s top space priorities during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, and it seems unlikely that he will punt on that goal now.
Regardless, what has become increasingly clear is that America’s ambitions in space aren’t just about national greatness or advancing human knowledge. Like the Soviet Union a generation ago, China is angling to become the superior force on the final frontier and gain an enormous advantage in the ongoing great power competition with the United States.
Whether through NASA, enterprising private-sector visionaries like Elon Musk, or some combination of the two, America’s elected leaders have a responsibility to ensure the United States remains the preeminent power in space.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
