US vs China: Who is leading the race to the Moon? - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

With the United States returning to crewed Moon missions with Artemis II, we're asking what role has China played in the US lunar pivot? China's space programme has been advancing at a steady pace, and after landing a rover on the dark side of the Moon, the country aims to send humans to the Moon. by the end of this decade. And the next decade? They want a permanent Moon base. So is this a new space race?

And could the US and China ever work together? I'm Mariko in Singapore and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories. unpacked by those who know them best. I'll be speaking to Dr Brad Tucker, who's an astrophysicist and cosmologist, later in this episode. about the China factor in the US pivot back to the Moon. But first, the reason we're talking about space. and the Moon is because of Artemis II,

and I have BBC journalist Kethaki Masilamani with me. She's recently moved to Singapore to start working on the newly launched, can I say, the streaming desk out of Singapore? And you've been following the mission very closely. Welcome to Asia Specific. Thank you so much for having me. Firstly, why is this mission such a big deal? Like, this is all we've been hearing about all week. Yes, I've had my eyes glued to my eight different screens,

keeping an eye on every angle of the story. It's so exciting because it's the first time in over 50 years. that a manned crew has gone into that lunar orbit. They'll be setting a few records on this trip. So, first manned crew obviously in 50 years, but also the furthest that a human will have traveled. into lunar space, which is very exciting. And despite it being a mission to the Moon, they're not actually going to the Moon.

This is just the first step in. a decade long mission that will see lots of milestones for Nasa. What they hope is to learn a little bit more about the Moon, so that future excursions will see us return to the Moon's surface. Maybe for a slightly longer stint. They're just testing out the viability. of actually landing on the Moon and staying there for some time. So they're basically flying around the Moon. How has it been going? I think they've picked four.

of the most positive people on this planet to send up to the Moon. The great thing is you don't have to take my word for it. They've been doing press conferences while they've been up there. They've been sharing with us what they eat every day, how they wake up, the music that they wake up to. So all in all, it's going well. They're experiencing space. A couple of them for the first time. It's a really exciting trip for them. But don't just take my word for it.

You can hear from the astronauts themselves in one. of the many press conferences that they've given. The images you guys have sent back are absolutely spectacular. And when you look at the Moon that you're headed for, and that gets closer and closer. What are your thoughts? Well, last night we did have our first view of the Moon far side, and it was just absolutely spectacular. I think that one of the interesting things that happens when you look. at a Moon that inherently just looks different.

The darker parts just aren't quite in the right place. And something about you senses that is not the Moon that I'm used to seeing. And sure enough, we got out our our lunar targeting information. and we matched up and we're like, yeah, that is the dark side. That is something we have never seen before. So that was Christina Koch. I mean, it's incredible that they have. to be holding these press conferences every single day for everyone to see.

But you touched on it earlier how the next step might be Mars. So can you just elaborate on what kind of things they're planning to do? Exactly. It seems like, you know, there's a lot in the works here. What the scientists are hoping is that if they set up a base on the Moon, they'll be able to see Mars clearly and study more about the planet's surface. So the closer that they can get to the planet itself without being on. the planet's surface, the better we understand what's life like on Mars.

So that's the long term goal. That's fascinating stuff, Kethaki. Thank you so much for joining me on Asia Specific. Thank you for having me. Let's now look at the big picture. because the US isn't the only player in space. It's increasingly China which is seen as the main competitor. I have Dr Brad Tucker, who is an astrophysicist and cosmologist. from the Australian National University. Welcome to Asia Specific.

How's it going? Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. So first up, was China a factor in the Artemis II mission? Maybe less than the exact mission, but the overall push to get it to going, not just Artemis II, but the broad Artemis project for sure. It is very clear, and in fact, in the past few weeks, we've seen the announcement. that the US has somewhat changed their Artemis timeline and ambitions. And this is directly because of not only the growth.

but the speed of the Chinese space program. You know, the Chinese space program is, it is moving exceptionally quick. And the US has really come to terms in particular. with the new administrator, Jared Isaacman, that it kind of, not that it can't relax, but it can't just rest on its laurels. and it really has to push what it's doing on the Moon, because China is nipping right behind them. So you talked about the speed of the Chinese space programme.

Obviously, the last space race that I remember was. between the US and Soviet Union, but now it's against China. So where exactly is China at now? The Chinese space programme is actually relatively young. It's only about 32 years old compared to the US, which as you said, was from the 60s and the 50s when it was doing this with Russia. And so they have had a massive, ambitious programme. of getting to the moon. In fact, they're the only group that's landed on the far side of the Moon.

So Artemis II, you know, there's a lot of talking. about it's going around the Moon and they'll see the far side. China's the only group that has actually landed on that side of the Moon. And so the next Chinese mission will be Chang'e 7, which will land. at the lunar south pole, one of the big targets of the US, extract samples and bring them back, landing in Mongolia. So they have a rapidly ambitious programme where they want Chinese taikonauts. as Chinese astronauts on the ground in 2030 to 2032.

What is China doing so differently to actually advance so quickly? When they started their programme, They cooperated with Russia. And what this allowed China to do was learn lessons the Russians already had. So a lot of space groups have to kind of build it. and find their own way and test and experiment and learn by process. China said, all right, well, let's learn what the Russians have done. And then with funding and support, let's accelerated now. I mean, there's a lot of great people working in the Chinese space programme.

And so, by not starting 30 years behind, but by starting kind of where they were, but then having the capability quickly and the resources, resources being people and money, they were able to do this. And they also had a huge ambitions and they stuck to it. Yeah. As you said, it's extremely expensive. And the Artemis II mission, correct me if I'm wrong, but is estimated to have cost more than $90 billion to date. Do we know how much China is spending?

Figures from China are a bit hard to get out. There is close cooperation between the civilian side CNSA, the Chinese manned space agency and the defense side of China. And that's kind of a budget that approaches more closer to 80 billion. based on a few year's figures. So it is still less overall than what the US is spending. However, China has found this very unique way. of cost operating and effectiveness. One of the big costs of space is time. Paying for people's time.

Engineers and other scientists, they cost a lot of money. And when you're employing thousands of them, it takes time. So China's model is a little bit more akin to the private companies in the US. Let's move fast and test regularly. because that's going to shorten the time. And therefore that's going to shorten the cost. And that's something Nasa has historically struggled with. So let me clarify, because you were just talking. about the involvement of American private companies.

And we keep hearing about Space X of Elon Musk, also Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. But you're saying that China's state owned companies also work kind of. like private companies? A bit. They in terms of their ethos, I think they do. There's some differences. They don't quite have the independence that the private companies do. And that's actually a big thing holding China back. is that there is a private space sector growing in China,

but both the private sector and the national agencies. don't quite get the freedom that you need in space to explore and test. And that's one of the reasons why we've seen an acceleration in the US. because of the heavy lifting in the private sector. But the operation though, of testing and moving quickly really is like that ethos. in the private companies in the US, whereas the US government as a whole, in particular Nasa, politically has become risk averse. They don't want to do anything unless they know it's successful.

And the problem is that requires a lot of testing. Now that's good when it comes to safety. And that's always going to be the priority. But it means that a lot of other cases, it prolongs things, delays costs and limits growth. Why is it such a big deal for the US or China to go or go back to the Moon? Because, you know, I thought the US has already done it. And I thought the next step was kind of Mars. So what's there that's so crucial that they're competing against?

Yeah, yeah, this is a great question because. the entire equation of the Moon is different now. As you said in the 60s, it was who can just get there. Now it's about who can stay there and operate it. Now, coupled with a huge amount of discoveries. that we have found material we can use on the Moon in particular. There's a lot of ice. Now, ice may seem boring. Ice, if you separate it out, you can create H2, hydrogen and O2, oxygen. That creates now energy and fuel to create rocket fuel.

It also creates oxygen for people to breathe and use. So you now have stuff you can use on the Moon to accelerate it. We also know the soil contains other things. China is quite interested in potentially Helium-3, which can be used for nuclear fusion fuel to generate energy. So now if you have the stuff you can use on the Moon. and it's actually easier to deploy in space. The Moon becomes a better place to do things in space, and that then directly leads onto Mars.

Can you tell us the exact timelines. that both the US and China are looking at when it comes to the Moon? I know China often exceeds their expectation, but if you can just lay out what they're aiming for at this moment. One of the things that they want to do is really build essentially a Moon base. And in order to do this, you need to be able to fabricate equipment, which you can do. You need to be able to extract resources which people are already working on. And in fact, this sort of thing has already happened.

And then you need a power. And this is one of the surprising things, is. that there's a lot of talk about how do you power operation on the Moon? Now the Moon works weird. You get two weeks of continuous daytime, two weeks of continuous night time. So during the daytime, which is two weeks, Earth weeks, solar power. That's not a problem. How do you do it in the nighttime when it plummets in temperature? So a lot of groups are already developing small nuclear reactors. In fact, China is vastly ahead.

The development of this technology with Russia compared to the US. And we've recently seen in the past month, the US announced a change of plan to try and do this as well. All of this wants to happen in the early 2030s. This isn't you know, hey, let's wait another five years. One of, you know, this Artemis II mission is so they could do Artemis III next year. Artemis IV, 2028, which lands people in the Moon. and then yearly to half yearly missions, ramping up that activity in a very similar cadence with China as well. Something that does affect us in our day to day life.

is satellites because they play a crucial role in communications, but also in warfare. And defence is a huge part of this global space race, isn't it? Very much. And we have seen this in recent conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, where space technology has been used not necessarily as an actual weapon, but used in very interesting ways because of our dependence on that technology.

We do already have multiple countries, both the US and China do this. They have satellites and infrastructure that can be used. in somewhat offensive capabilities. Now it's directly forbidden. But cyber warfare, for instance, and jamming is already happening on satellites. And based on how defence and military and government organisations. have been dependent on satellite technology, that has a big thing. Space has become so integrated into what we do on Earth.

This has naturally been applied in the defence world. You just mentioned Ukraine and Russia, and we've been talking about the US and China. But what about India? And, you know, there are other countries as well, like Japan, the European countries are also trying to get involved as well. So where are they at in this global race? Yeah. Look, you know the US and China are the clear, they're the clear one two. India is probably becoming the third most powerful country. And they're very quiet about it because they do everything internally.

They do everything and learn everything themselves. But they were the third country to land on the Moon. They're building their own capsule to carry humans. into space that will be tested later this year. They have built a number of equipment and they do it very cost effective. They beat the costs out of the US and China by far, and they get it to work. But you do have other countries. And a lot of these other countries are finding the niche with their private sector. What are the big powerhouses in space right now is New Zealand,

and that is a phrase no one would have ever expected five years ago. And I say this with all love of our Kiwi neighbours here, they use the private sector with Rocket Labs. New Zealand launches more things for groups than Russia. Again, it's bizarro world almost. But they have found a way of doing it really effectively. But it seems like the US is currently leading this global race. How sustainable is that though?

And what would it take for China to possibly even overtake it? Or would they actually find a way to collaborate and work together? The biggest thing holding up the US is politics. The politics of the US has really limited the framing. of when the US can do this. In fact, it was under the Trump presidency. that he accelerated every time frame of getting to the Moon. Originally it was supposed to be 2028. He said, no, I'm going to make it 2024. That was a political choice,

because he thought he'd be reelected the second time. And in 2024, he could get to say humans are back on the Moon in his presidency. Well, that didn't happen because no one funded it and supported it. And we're actually back to where we started getting humans back on the Moon in 2028. So that is the biggest limiting factor in the US. It's the politics side. Now with China, it's the independence of the private sector. The US has this private sector that can go do.

whatever they want and test and grow. And the US is directly benefiting from that growth. China with the not as independent as these private companies are. They can't necessarily go off and do something. that the state government does not approve of. Therefore, they're limiting some growth in unique areas. If that changes, then by far the Chinese space programme. as a whole, civilian national and defence can overtake the US.

The collaboration will be quite interesting because, you know, even the Russians and Americans collaborate in space still. on the International Space Station, they still find a way. And there have been a few times the US. and China has actually collaborated even on activity on Mars. And the benefit of the space race is you get people like me. Not that I'm a necessarily a benefit, but as a scientist, we don't care about the politics. We're interested in what it means in science.

and engineering and how do we benefit humanity. And we find a way of working together. Science without politics. What a nice way to end this podcast. Dr Brad Tucker from the Australian National University, thank you so much for sharing your insights. No worries. Look, if we're shooting for the Moon, we can dream for bigger things. That's right. You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service with me, Mariko Oi in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we covered in this episode.

or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on email asiaspecifc@bbc.uk. And you know the drill, click like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next time.