Comment NASA’s decision to postpone the planned launch of the Artemis lunar probe on Monday is unfortunate. The program must be brought back on track as soon as possible — in the interest of US national security. Most discussions of the Artemis program have focused on the scientific benefits or the sheer adventure of space exploration. It is possible that the national psyche is strengthened when we see Americans in space. Landing someone on the moon for the first time in decades would be a tangible sign to many that the spirit of American can-do is alive and well. The planned manned trip to Mars, which Artemis is intended to help prepare for, would be even more exciting. These benefits pale, however, in comparison to the military challenges the United States could face if it does not reorganize the lunar journey in time. China has announced an ambitious lunar program that includes a system to detect and deflect asteroids from hitting Earth – a weapon that could potentially have terrestrial delivery. Russia and China have also announced plans to establish a joint permanent lunar base by 2027. If successful, it means our most dangerous adversaries could be able to harm US interests in space sooner than what we thought Follow Henry Olsen’s viewsFollow Add It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why this is a threat to US national security. Control of the high ground in a conflict has been essential to warfare since ancient times. What was once just holding a mountain or fighting from a castle wall has expanded as technology improves. Command of the sky, and everything beyond it, is now essential to any modern military. The US military’s fearsome precision munitions depend on instantaneous satellite communications to hit their targets. Anything that threatens US air or ground capabilities threatens national security. China says its plans for the moon are entirely peaceful and scientific. But no sane nation would trust Chinese promises. A permanent Chinese or Sino-Russian presence on the moon could be militarized, perhaps without being easily detected, unless the United States has a similar lunar capability. This is why a successful Artemis program is so important. Artemis is not military in nature, but the procedures developed for the program can be used in military use. NASA can also share information its probes receive with the US Space Force, which can then work on its own to develop military applications. There is plenty of historical romance about the 1960s race to the moon, but that should not obscure the fact that national security concerns fueled the US space effort. The Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in space technology in the early 1960s. It had launched the first space capsule, the first satellite into Earth orbit, and put the first man into Earth orbit. The United States had to get there quickly, and President John F. Kennedy knew that national security could not be ensured if a power bent on world domination beat the United States in space. The challenge the United States faces from China is at least as serious as that posed by the Soviets some 60 years ago. China’s economy is many times larger than that of the Soviet Union and has developed more sophisticated technology than the USSR. We should not exaggerate Chinese power, but neither should we look the other way as China closes the economic, military, and technological gaps between itself and the United States. Meeting the Chinese challenge on Earth means overcoming it in space. And that means making sure both NASA and the Space Force have the resources they need to keep space open and the United States free.
