USA vs. China: Space Race 2.0
Beijing is breathing down Washington’s neck
A new space race is on, and the United States is falling behind.
In 1981, when NASA was just old enough to drink, China was one of the poorest countries on earth, with some 800 million citizens living in extreme poverty. In the four decades since, China has eradicated extreme poverty — the largest such alleviation in history — while making steady progress on a space program that’s now vying to be number one.
A new 116-page report released last month by a Washington, D.C. trade association, titled “Redshift,” shines light on the acceleration. “I thought I had a pretty good read on China’s space program when I was finishing grad school,” said Johnathan Roll, one of the report’s authors. “That almost everything needed to be updated, or had changed three years later, was pretty scary.”
China now operates six spaceports, multiple regional research hubs, and will have the only space station in orbit once the ISS retires in 2030. In January, it surpassed the UK in satellites, now ranking second behind the USA, and plans to establish a fully operational moon base by 2035.
What’s most impressive is that the country is completing all these impressive tasks simultaneously. In other words, China is living its Apollo, ISS, and commercial space eras all at once.
The trend is unmistakable: as a nation, the United States lacks the cohesive industrial policy and direction needed to compete with a determined adversary like China. The USA has held the top spot in space for decades, since landing 12 Americans on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. But complacency has set in, and the world’s superpower is on the verge of paying the price in lost leadership, national security vulnerabilities, and economic opportunities.
Plagued by delays and budget threats, NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return Americans to the Moon and pave the way for Mars exploration, has gained renewed urgency amid China’s 2023 announcement of a 2030 crewed lunar landing. Artemis I, initially slated for 2016, launched six years late in 2022. Artemis II slipped from 2024 to April 2026, and Artemis III to mid-2027. In contrast, China reports steady progress.
With Artemis historically missing every major goal by years and China adhering to schedules, momentum is favoring Beijing.
On the other side of the Pacific, China is accelerating at full throttle toward its goal of landing taikonauts on the Moon by 2030. In June 2025, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) successfully tested a launch escape system for its next-generation crewed spacecraft, a critical safety feature for manned missions.
By August, they completed a large-scale landing and takeoff verification test on a high-fidelity mockup of the 26-ton Lanyue lunar lander, demonstrating precise control during descent and ascent phases. Just last week, CMSA conducted a static fire test of the first-stage propulsion system for the Long March 10 rocket, achieving record thrust levels and confirming readiness for integrated testing. The People’s Republic is also planning a fully operational moon base, equipped with an autonomous nuclear reactor, as soon as 2035. Beijing has even recruited international partners, such as Russia and Pakistan, for its International Lunar Research Station, signaling a long-term vision for lunar dominance.
Right now, NASA is headless, with a hilariously underqualified acting administrator in power since July, who even hinted this week at disbanding the agency to “roll NASA” into his day job, the Department of Transportation.”
NASA’s Artemis program is mired in delays and bureaucratic hurdles. These postponements are signs of much deeper issues, including fragmented funding, regulatory bottlenecks, and a lack of streamlined acquisition processes in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base, which allows China to close the gap rapidly.
This is a national security imperative for all players. Control of the lunar south pole will dictate future space economies and military advantages. China’s program, backed by unified state support, is set to surpass U.S. capabilities soon. Without urgent policy reforms, such as expanding incentives for space manufacturing — as in the CHIPS and Science Act — reforming DoD space acquisition to cut red tape, and boosting NASA-DARPA collaborations with private innovators, the U.S. will cede the final frontier.
To stay ahead, Washington must elevate space as a top priority. Revitalizing American industrial space policy now is the only way to secure its lead and ensure the next footprints on the Moon are by free nations, not authoritarian regimes. The clock is ticking, and complacency is no longer an option.
Written by David Venegas
Oct. 23, 2025