INDIA, AMERICA AND CHINA: RACE TO THE MOON

 

The Americans, the Chinese and the Indians have their eyes on the Moon.

NASA, the American space agency, recently sent one of its new SLS rocket, with no astronauts aboard, for a preliminary tour around the Moon and back. That dry run will be followed by a manned mission, but not before 2025.

The Chinese are planning a first manned expedition on the Moon by the end of the 20s, more exactly in 2030. A short video was recently released to show the main aspects of the mission. It showed a lot of equipment sitting on the ground, waiting for the rocket to land, hinting at many un-manned missions organized before hand, to stock up all the needed materiel in advance of the arrival of the first manned mission. It may also suggest an intent to build-up that site, slowly, by a process of aggregation, with a view of creating a permanent base at that very location.

As for the Indians, they are new in the game, but quite cost-effective. They're sending an un-manned mission, Chandrayaan-3 to attempt a soft-landing on our natural satellite. Cost-wise, the whole mission (launch module + propulsion/control module + lander + rover) will cost an astonishingly low 75 million $. Compared to the astronomical price of a single SLS rocket, it is just pocket money.

 

Space stations

India is also planning to build a space station, like the Americans and like the Chinese. This situation raises an interesting question. Space stations are long term, very costly investments. Should all the space agencies of the world, and there are dozens of them, aim to build its own station?

The creation and operation of the International Space Station showed how advantageous it can be to share budgets, personnel and matériel, and to build something prodigiously complex in common, with the different modules provided by the different partners, and installed on a step by step process. It is apparently only because the NASA excluded the Chinese of the space station, for political reasons, a few years ago, that China decided it had to go on with its own space program, all by itself, save for a growing cooperation with Russia, officially still a partner with the ISS.

In the present geopolitical situation, a common effort in space by China and America seems out of the question. Maybe the space agencies of the rest of the world should think about ways to save money and raise efficiency, by joining one rival or the other.

For each space agency that exist beyond the American one and the Chinese one, whether it is the European, the Indian, the Canadian, the Japanese or any other, the idea of doing everything by itself may seem attractive at first, but it would be irresponsible in the long run. Matters of national prestige are understandable and fine, but efficient use of taxpayers' money is always better. 

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https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/india/chandrayaan-3-moon-mission-launch-intl-hnk-scn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud-49CtOPCc

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (Twitter)