CHAD WOLF: Space isn’t just the final frontier, it’s the ‘ultimate high ground’

The contention to the satellite is connected — again. But the strategical contention playing retired contiguous is overmuch bigger than our contention with the Soviet Union successful 1969. If China reaches the satellite up of the United States and establishes a permanent, manned beingness — it volition not dainty the lunar aboveground arsenic a peaceful technological outpost, but arsenic an hold of its run to surpass America, intimidate our allies, and compromise our systems that support the American homeland secure. This is nary longer thing of subject fiction.

President Donald Trump understands this menace signing the Executive Order connected Ensuring American Space Superiority, which made it abundantly wide that helium wants the United States to pb this caller abstraction contention — returning Americans backmost to the satellite by 2028 and gathering a imperishable manned beingness connected the lunar surface.

Let maine beryllium clear, the fearfulness that China could someway "claim" the satellite by arriving archetypal misunderstands some geography and planetary reality. Two of the main locations for colony are the Shackleton Crater, which stretches astir the region from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, and the South Pole–Aitken Basin which is astir the region from Washington, D.C., to Denver, Colo. The satellite is vast.

The strategical interest and question for Congress is not who arrives "next," but who establishes a durable, scalable and defensible beingness connected the lunar surface. China understands this question and is good connected their mode to make a reusable motorboat strategy to power this terrain and its abundant captious resources wrong a decade. The U.S. needs to admit this menace and code it with the urgency it demands.

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The earth's shadiness covers the afloat satellite during a partial lunar eclipse arsenic it sets beyond the U.S. emblem connected apical of a building, Friday, Nov. 19, 2021, successful downtown Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

The Obama-Biden administration’s Space Launch System (SLS), which is presently being utilized for the Artemis missions, utilizes 1980s architecture developed from the shuttle missions and has been highly criticized by NASA’s erstwhile Inspector General during the Biden medication who calculated the outgo of a azygous SLS motorboat was $4.2 billion, with astir $64 cardinal already spent contempt lone 1 operational formation since 2022. This is an tremendous terms tag with constricted payload capableness and a motorboat cadence measured successful years alternatively than months.

Seeing NASA’s struggles with the SLS, Chinese state-backed firms are present mimicking architectures that enactment afloat reusable, self-landing heavy-lift rockets modeled connected SpaceX’s Starship. As seen connected Feb. 11, China’s Long March 10 booster (developed successful conscionable 8 years) successfully guided itself to a powered, vertical water splashdown. This is an unmistakable awesome that China is rapidly catching up to america and recognizes that a federation that tin motorboat much often and determination much wide volition dominate.

The captious nationalist information question is this: What happens if the U.S. does not pivot rapidly toward prioritizing cost, capableness and cadence, aft Artemis III.

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First, we volition apt spot the enactment of a imperishable Chinese, manned beingness expanding Beijing’s quality postulation and abstraction consciousness crossed the earth–moon strategy helping China show U.S. and allied activity. Beijing has invested successful capabilities designed to "degrade, damage, oregon destroy" U.S. satellites — the backbone of American command-and-control and targeting. This has nonstop homeland information implications.

Trump is close to propulsion a layered, space-enabled rocket defense, known arsenic the "Golden Dome," but if the Chinese power the eventual precocious ground, it tin physique a moon-based counter-command designed to blind, spoof, disrupt oregon clasp astatine hazard the abstraction furniture that makes that shield possible. Put simply: you cannot support the homeland from supra if Beijing tin contention the abstraction supra you. The United States should found that capableness archetypal — telephone it the "Donald J. Trump Moon Base" and fastener successful the operational vantage up of the Chinese.

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Second, if China is near untouched connected the lunar aboveground it would surely summation the hazard of espionage, sabotage and gray-zone interference against our ain forthcoming lunar infrastructure.

Seeing NASA’s struggles with the SLS, Chinese state-backed firms are present mimicking architectures that enactment afloat reusable, self-landing heavy-lift rockets modeled connected SpaceX’s Starship.

Finally, Beijing volition question to crook its beingness into power implicit resources connected the lunar surface. It is captious for america to get up of the Chinese connected the extraction of these captious minerals, which China already has a stronghold of connected earth. We request these captious minerals for nationalist defense, economical prosperity, and frankly our sovereignty.

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The satellite is the eventual precocious ground; we cannot spend to beryllium archetypal connected world but 2nd successful space. If China gets to the moon, fine, but if it often returns, they volition crook their beingness into power — implicit the "Golden Dome," implicit our captious infrastructure connected world and successful debased world orbit, and implicit the resources the satellite provides — America volition beryllium permanently exposed to its top adversary.

To bushed China, Congress should request accountability for delays and outgo overruns, halt blindly giving subsidies to outdated systems, and pivot to reusability. Our continued homeland information depends connected it. Let’s enactment America archetypal and prioritize cost, capableness and cadence.

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