The Second Moon Race: It’s the USA vs. China vs. India vs. . . . Nigeria?
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WASHINGTON DC, June 12, 2007 - Satnews Daily - The Second Race to Land Humans on the Moon that’s just gotten off the starting blocks pits the USA against a motley—and unlikely—cast of newbie competitors.
China? They can do it—get to the Moon, that is. They’ve got the cash and the technology and could probably, NASA warns, land men on the Moon before the USA in the next decade. India? They’ve got more remote sensing satellites than the USA. Yes, they can send satellites to probe the Moon and land Indians later on. And Nigeria? Well . . . they could get to the Moon . . . but only with China’s help.
And what of Europe’s space powers?
Russia, the US' staunchest and only competitor in the first Moon Race, recently said it won't join any US Moon landing program. Instead, Russia plans to send robot probes to land on the Moon and the Martian moon, Phobos. The European Union, on the other hand, is more intent on sending satellites to explore the outer planets of the solar system.
China, however, is the US' main competitor in this Second Moon Race. China is keen on mining Helium-3 (He3) and other strategic Moon resources such as water ice and titanium over the next 50 years.
Its Moon program, the "Chang'e Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP)," is essentially a giant leap aimed at making China the Moon's first superpower. The USA's moribund space program, however, seemed content to cling to the Star Trek mantra of boldly going where no man has gone before.
That is, until President George Bush in October 2006 revealed a new space initiative that audaciously announced the U.S' intention to dominate space militarily and economically. The goal of the U.S.' re-energized space program is to land Americans on the Moon before 2020. China, however, expects to achieve this feat five years earlier.
But with Bush and his Republicans on the way out in 2008, it remains a question whether the Democrats share the Republican's view of space as terrain to be conquered.
China, however, has the Moon firmly in its sights and appears intent on pulling out all the stops to secure this high ground in the coming struggle for the Moon's mineral wealth.
A telling indicator of China's focus on the Moon as a strategic resource is the man placed in charge of CLEP. That man is Ouyang Ziyuan, a cosmochemist and geochemist who is a prominent expert in geological research and extraterrestrial materials.
Unsurprisingly, he's a leading advocate of exploiting the Moon's resources such as He3, and the leading proponent of Chinese manned missions to the Moon and Mars.
China aims to build permanent, manned bases on the Moon, a vital first step in exploiting lunar resources. It believes the Moon has become the focal point where future aerospace powers contend for strategic resources. China also points out that the Moon contains various special resources for humanity to develop and use.
He3 is among those special resources. Some scientists see He3 as "the perfect energy source." Practically no natural deposits of He3 exist on Earth, however, but more than one million tons of He3 are believed to be found on the Moon. That's enough energy to power the world for thousands of years, estimate some scientists.
He3 fusion energy is extremely potent, non-polluting and produces almost no radioactive by-products, as does the conventional nuclear technology used to produce electricity. It's, therefore, an ideal power source for spacecraft on long, interstellar trips.
India intends to do China one better, however. It won’t only send a remote sensing satellite called “Chandrayaan-1” (Sanskrit for Moon Craft), but will also crash an impactor from this spacecraft onto the Moon’s surface, probably in 2008.
The spacecraft will be launched by a modified version of India’s workhorse booster rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Chandrayaan-1, a remote sensing satellite, will weigh 1,304 kg and carry high-resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. Over a two-year period, it will survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and three-dimensional topography. The Polar Regions are of special interest as they might contain water ice. The mission is to include six ISRO payloads and six payloads from other international space agencies such as NASA and ESA and Bulgaria.
Then there's that uniquely lunar phenomenon called water ice China also aims to exploit ahead of everyone else. Water ice, deposited on the Moon by meteorite and asteroid impacts over billions of years, is the only source of water on the Moon. Scientists believe it located mainly at the bottom of deep craters in the permanently shadowed areas near the Moon's South Pole.
Water ice can also be used to produce liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the basic components of the rocket fuel that powers the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet. Scientists estimate that over 30 million tons of water exists on the Moon as water ice. This quantity could support a lunar community of 1,000 two-person households for well over a century.
Which brings us to Nigeria. Oil rich Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer and the leading employment destination for Filipinos in that region (almost 2,000 OFWs in 2005), undoubtedly has the massive amount of money to achieve this astounding feat.
More important, it apparently has the will to do so and a political leadership that has publicly announced the aim of landing the first Africans on the Moon by 2030.
Nigeria will attain this grand ambition with China's help. Nigeria is China's closest ally in Africa. Over 50,000 Chinese reside in Nigeria, many of whom supply a lot of the brainpower needed by Nigeria's technology dependent industries. China will also provide the launch vehicle, spacecraft, technology, expertise and training needed to land Nigerians on the Moon.
