The United States is at risk of falling behind its communist rivals otherwise, they say.
The United States is at risk of losing to communist China in the new space race because the United States and its commercial and international partners lack a unified grand strategy and optimized architecture to succeed, experts warned the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Sept. 3.
“It is clear to me that the Chinese Communist Party is already employing its own integrated grand strategy for the Earth-Moon system, with only superficial distinction between civil, commercial, and national security activities, and all focused on a common purpose,” said Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw (Ret.), former Deputy Commander, U.S. Space Command.
Shaw was called to testify and answer “why Congress and NASA must thwart China in the space race.”
“If we don’t unify and synchronize efforts, we may find ourselves, rather than in a leadership position, in a position of increasing disadvantage as we get further into this century,” he said.
The general’s opinions were shared by former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) James Bridenstine, who criticized the current setup of the Artemis moon exploration program, which, he noted, still did not have its lunar lander.
He said in his testimony that the chosen lander was supposed to be a variant of the SpaceX Starship. It will need to be refueled in orbit, requiring multiple other successful Starship launches. It would then meet up with NASA’s astronauts in lunar orbit if the launch of the Space Launch System rocket is successful.
Those astronauts will be in the Orion capsule that was built by Lockheed Martin and connected to a service module built by Airbus Defense and Space for the European Space Agency. If the astronauts are able to land on the lunar surface, their ride home will be parked in an elongated lunar orbit that they won’t be able to dock with for seven days.
Bridenstine said this mission architecture was too complex and never actually selected by a NASA administrator.
“This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected,” he said. “It was a decision that was made in the absence of the NASA administrator in the last administration. It’s a problem. It needs to be solved.”
However, the investment and development of that mission’s materials is well underway. While SpaceX continues to test its Starship, Blue Origin continues work on its Artemis II project, which is scheduled to take astronauts around the moon in Spring 2026. NASA has already begun developing components for the next seven Artemis missions, and the first two modules of the Artemis Gateway lunar space station are on schedule to be launchable by late 2027.
According to Shaw, it is primarily a logistical problem for the United States, especially regarding communication with commercial companies. But it is a problem that he was optimistic about the United States being able to overcome.
All four panelists at the hearing emphasized the urgency for the United States to improve its space exploration strategy. Along with the pride of being able to land on the moon again, they said the nation is in a race to secure dominance over the whole stretch of space known as the Earth-Moon system and the economic, diplomatic, and national security benefits that would come with that.
“If we don’t get out there and get there first, we‘ll lose the real estate, we’ll lose the rules of the road, and we’ll lose our international partners, and economic benefits,” Bridenstine said.
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