Chinese Catching Up in Second Moon Race

The 1960s were a time of technological advancement and nationalistic pride for space travel. The Soviets were the first to get a satellite into orbit; the U.S. was the first to put people on the moon. Now, however, forty years after those heady days, there's a low-key race to get back to the moon, and the likely winners of that race won't be either of the Cold War titans.

"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in an address to a Washington audience two weeks ago. "I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it." As NASA approaches its 50^th anniversary, the U.S. space agency retains its technical superiority, but according to some observers, lacks a more vital component to staying on top in the space race: political will.

"We certainly could be back on the moon faster than the Chinese, but we don't have the political will and therefore the resources to do it," said Joan Johnson-Freese, head of the Naval War College's national security decision-making department. NASA has already established a deadline of 2020 for returning astronauts to the moon, but China is pursuing an aggressive selenelogical agenda. A probe is set to head to the moon before year's end, and some reports indicate a robotic lander is planned for launch in 2017, although the question of whether China could safely land people on the moon before NASA does not have a clear answer.

However, NASA officials do not appear concerned about losing a return race to China's fast-growing space program. The stated goals of the U.S. space agency are longer-term in scope, such as permanent lunar bases and collaborative efforts, such as the announced partnership with Russia. As far as U.S. officials are concerned, the space race is a marathon event, with no individual winners among the world's nations.

"The U.S. has to get over this feeling that it has to be a competition," said White House science adviser John Marburger.

Reference links:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071003/ap_on_sc/space_race;_ylt=AkeIKAJLoWfo9twtLhGxLkMPLBIF

http://www.nasa.gov