There’s a new space race underway for valuable prizes buried on the Moon. And there is real concern the Communist Chinese are ahead. Lisa Fletcher reports.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Over the summer, in a remote corner of northern China, a small space capsule touched down. What made this event important was that it was the first time any nation had brought back soil samples from the moon’s far side.

All part of an ambitious series of Chinese lunar missions and evidence of a new space race that’s focused on the moon, with the US, China, and India all in the race.

The prize: reaching the moon’s south pole, where scientists expect to find vital minerals and water contained in permanently shadowed craters.

Lisa: Why so much focus on the moon?

Rep. Bill Posey: We know there’s water on the moon from water that can make fuel. It’s also a lower gravitational force liftoff pad for other space travel.

Bill Posey is a Republican Congressman from Florida. He represents what’s known as the Space Coast, where the Kennedy Space Center is located.

Posey: Whoever dominates space, including the moon and airspace, is going to control the destiny of the planet. We need to have a presence on the moon to establish that we have some rights to the moon.

It’s that idea of establishing rights that’s creating the rush to reach the lunar south pole. Whoever gets there first, the argument goes, can dominate and keep others out.

Many experts point to the example of disputed islands in the South China Sea, where China has placed troops and built military bases as a way of controlling the area and denying it to their rivals. If that happened at the lunar south pole, it could give China an unbeatable advantage.

NASA’s chief Bill Nelson is seriously concerned about China’s plans, and he’s been sounding the alarm for several years.

Bill Nelson: If there’s water, there’s rocket fuel, hydrogen, and oxygen. When the Chinese get there, there’s always the possibility that they say, “You stay out, This is our exclusive zone.”

Professor Everett Dolman teaches space strategy at Johns Hopkins University and the US Air Force Air War College. He’s also a veteran of the National Security Agency.

Everett Dolman: The Chinese have done something that, in retrospect, seems quite obvious but was not talked about very much in prospect. They have decided to put a research base on the south pole of the moon. This will be a scientific research base, not a military base, but it does allow them to establish a zone around that base that no one else can occupy because it would interfere with their scientific experiments.

The United States also plans to build a base near the moon’s south pole, but NASA’s Artemis program has been beset by delays, while China’s mission schedule seems to be on track for now.

Dolman: For the Chinese, their entire space program, commercial, civil, and military are all under the People’s Liberation Army; there is no distinction, and the Chinese have also said, and the Russians have also said that if you can control space, you can control the destiny of the future, you control basically all of humankind. and so the stakes could not be higher.

China’s next two missions to the moon are already planned and scheduled meaning the race to the moon’s resources is well underway.

For Full Measure, I’m Lisa Fletcher in Washington.

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