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By Leonard David
Award-Winning Space Journalist
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When it comes to geopolitics, the warning of the late baseball great Yogi Berra is appropriate: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yet nature abhors a vacuum, and there is no greater vacuum than space.
The United States looks to the future frontier of space, but it is not alone in this regard. China's moon exploration plans, including placing humans on the lunar landscape before 2030, continue to progress.
The strategic advantages of the moon and cis-lunar space (the space between the Earth and moon) identified by NASA, the private sector, and U.S. military strategists are just as visible to Beijing—control of Earth's highest "high ground," and prime positioning for getting to Mars.
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Bottom line—If America is not present and accounted for on the moon, China will be.
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NASA's former chief economist Alex MacDonald recently called for "a permanent crewed outpost on the lunar surface, owned and operated by NASA" to make America "the international organizer at the moon."
Establishing a prevailing U.S. presence on the moon, given China's intentions, not only denies that country a global diplomatic and propaganda triumph—a so-called soft power win—but also counters possible Chinese military space prowess that emboldens them more on Earth—a clear and present hard power.
Moonshot Legacy: Soft Power
One clear outcome from America's Project Apollo in the 1960s was showing decisively how one small step can lead to outsized leaps in science, technology, political leadership, and global admiration. A giant and soaring leap of "soft power."
It might be easy to forget just how significant a boost to American prestige and power this feat was. "Shooting for the moon" and "moonshot" as terms are societal clichés, Apollo-esque idioms that simply mean aspiring toward a lofty goal.
Hurling humans to the moon was momentous, and though the lunar dust kicked up by moonwalkers has long since settled, an enduring achievement on Earth has been the drive for great, ambitious undertakings.
Consider the National Cancer Institute's "Cancer Moonshot" that seeks to advance the capacity to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage, Stanford University's "moonshot effort" to 3D print a human heart, Google X's "moonshot factory" that has incubated concepts from driverless cars, to robotic manufacturing, to life extension.
China stands to gain similar recognition and global leadership if it plants a permanent base on the moon, with consequences at least as far-reaching as Apollo's, from science to economics, from weapons to renown.
The Moon As Vehicle for Regaining America's "Space Legs"
Safely and economically occupying the moon first—before China—will enable America to regain its "space legs," and build the muscle to send human crews to Mars, unlocking yet greater soft power benefits for Americans for the next century. In this, America should stay the course.
Planting boots on Mars is as thrilling as it is challenging; the prospect of walking across that world's landscape as momentous as it is perilous.
A sober assessment shows that dispatching humans to Mars for a long-term stay is extraordinarily complex. How best to make our Mars astronauts self-sufficient will be anchored by what we glean from humans "rebooting" the moon—living off the lunar land, using local resources, to include water, soil, and other assets.
Today's Need for a Unified Undertaking
As President Donald Trump noted in his March 4 joint address to Congress, "Our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness, and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier."
The president added that America is going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, "and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond."
This is the right kind of rhetoric. America's Apollo program was a team effort, tapping into the talents of 400,000 people, a unified undertaking, a blend of government, industry, and academic wherewithal.
The spirit of exploration is uniquely American, a competitive edge understood the world over and one that ought not be surrendered to an authoritarian regime in Beijing.
Today, America has its own rendezvous with destiny, an audacious step that needs to be taken—to do more than put only boot prints on the moon, but to have and hold it, to "people" that celestial spot. This effort is a natural sequel in audacity to Apollo more than 55 years ago. It is the natural antecedent to doing the same on Mars.
America's Birthright
Attaining the first footfalls on the red planet will not only depend on rocket fuel. It will depend on the starting point—the reacquired know-how, the "getting the reps in" as argued above. It will also depend on the human spirit.
As my good friend, Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, the only living member of that first human landing on the Moon in July 1969, reminds me again and again about a societal call to action: "And if not now, when? And if not us, who? This is our time ... this is your time!"
Undeniably, our moonshot awaits. Will we take it?
Leonard David is an award-winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for more than 55 years. He is author of Moon Rush: The New Space Race and Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet*, both published by* National Geographic*.*
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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