In 2011, United States lawmakers excluded China from the International Space Station because they collectively believed that China would attempt to steal technology from the station for themselves. China, now missing out on the technological and space advancements from the station, built their own space station – The Tiangong. The Tiangong is debated to be even more technologically advanced, leading The China National Space Administration to be a big contender in the new space race.
This new space race is a dash to reach lunar water, an abundant resource on the south pole of the moon. Multiple nations want to get to these lunar water deposits since the extracted lunar water can be used as life support and rocket fuel for future missions to other planets, a key asset as it is very expensive to transport water. As it pertains to the race, the two nations with the greatest efforts are America and China.
China in the past few years has doubled their spendings on space exploration while making huge leaps in the process. This affair prompted Bill Nelson, NASA’s Administrator, to express his worries in a Spanish Newspaper, El País, about China being the first to reach lunar water, stating, “I’m thinking of China and what it did in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. This territory was in international waters, and China came and claimed it for their own; they started building airstrips,” (El País) Here, Nelson alludes to his fear of China making similar claims to lunar water. China has had many transparency problems in the past, making people speculate what their true motive can be. However, in 1983, China signed The Outer Space Treaty, stating, “no nation can ‘own’ space, the Moon or any other body” (Outer Space Treaty). This regulation proves that China would be breaking this treaty if they attempted to make a claim on the deposits of lunar water.
Although a new space race can be worrying for the future of space travel and international connections in space, Bill Nelson and many others in the space community believe that the United States will still beat China to the deposits. If China does make it to the deposits first however, there is so much more lunar water around the moon that America and other countries will be able to use.
