"Experts say" China taking the lead in the lunar race

I find this not even slightly surprising, but it's the feature space-related article at Ars Technica today: "After recent tests, China appears likely to beat the United States back to the Moon."  The article begins by talking about some headlines that the usually secretive Chinese space agency has talked about publicly.  

On August 6, the China Manned Space Agency successfully tested a high-fidelity mockup of its 26-ton "Lanyue" lunar lander. The test, conducted outside of Beijing, used giant tethers to simulate lunar gravity as the vehicle fired main engines and fine control thrusters to land on a cratered surface and take off from there.

"The test," said the agency in an official statement, "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."

As part of the statement, the space agency reconfirmed that it plans to land its astronauts on the Moon "before" 2030.

Let's start with the idea that the issues the Artemis program to return to the moon is having are largely due to the monstrous waste of the Space Launch System.  The Artemis I mission that was the first full-scale test of the system - uncrewed, of course - was in November of '22.  The next mission, Artemis II, will be the first US mission since the end of the Apollo program to circle the moon.  After Artemis I they said it would launch in '24 - one to two years later, depending on exact dates.  As the end of '24 was approaching they said it would be late 2025.  Now that we're approaching the end of 2025, Artemis II is scheduled for 2026.  Will it make it in '26 or get bumped to '27?  It's hard to imagine they could be much faster than the switch to Artemis III after II, and the same four years as from '22 to '26 means the moon landing will be "in" 2030.  Not 'before' as the Chinese say.  All of these are SLS issues.

The next big problem is that it's not just SLS.  The Human Landing System, or HLS, is a version of SpaceX's Starship and the last year has been a big issue for SpaceX.  The other contractor and lunar lander is Blue Origin's Mark 2 lander.  Neither of these seems remotely close to being ready to fly.  Starship's Flight Test 10 is next Sunday evening, currently NET August 24 at 7:30 PM EDT (6:30 Local).  If their fixes to the system perform as simulation and testing have shown, and Starship gets back to where they expected to be back in January, that's the best possible outcome and that could even make path back to where they wanted to be shorter. 

China's Lanyue (which means embracing the moon) lander undergoes tests in early August. Credit: CCTV

Put together, the problem with Artemis is that the program is overly complex, and the reason for that is the "corporate culture" of NASA was not to just recreate Apollo but to create a program that was more likely to help enable long term settlement of the moon.  Just going back to the moon the same way we did over 50 years ago had too much of a "Been There, Done That" feel to it.  Which led to the overly complex look with the Lunar Gateway, Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits, trying to land and settle at the lunar south pole, and more.  

By comparison, China took a much lower risk approach - use a basic system like we used in the Apollo days, one step at a time, carefully.  Minimize risks.  

The down side to that is when China beats us to the moon, those details of "we built a system better for the long term than theirs" argument won't register with the rest of the world.  It will be the end of being regarded as Exceptional.  I'll close with a comment from Dean Cheng, one of the most respected analysts on China, space policy, and the geopolitical implications of the new space competition, published on Ars:

It means the end of American exceptionalism. One of the hallmarks of the post-1969 era was that only the United States had been able to land someone on the Moon (or any other celestial body). This was bound to end, but the constant American refrain of "We've put a man on the Moon, we can do anything" will certainly no longer resonate.

It means China can do "big" things, and the United States cannot. The US cannot even replicate projects it undertook 50 (or more) years ago. The optics of "the passing of the American age" would be evident—and that in turn would absolutely affect other nations' perceptions of who is winning/losing the broader technological and ideological competition between the US and the PRC.