Chinese on the moon before the Americans return? NASA Director Bill Nelson has expressed concern about China’s space ambitions, including to the moon, he said in an interview with Politico on Sunday.
“It is better to make sure that they do not reach the Moon under the pretext of scientific research,” he launched, explaining that it is not impossible for the Chinese to say then: “Hold on, we are here, this is our territory.” .'”
While the United States, through the Artemis II mission, aims to send a crew of astronauts to the Moon by 2025, already a year after the goal set during the Trump administration, China has implemented an increasingly aggressive space program in the last years.
Beijing recently inaugurated a new space station and aims to send astronauts to the moon by the end of the decade, if not sooner.
“Big Progress”
“China, over the last decade, has had tremendous success and progress,” Bill Nelson told the political media. For him, in this “space race”, “it is also true that his landing date on the Moon is getting closer.”
The concern of the NASA director is all the greater since the Moon has few “places at the south pole of the Moon that are suitable, at this stage, for the collection of water and so on.” Therefore, he fears a first-come-first-served situation.
Source: BFM TV
