Have you ever heard that old saying that goes something like, “invest in real estate as land is the one thing they aren’t making any more of?” Well, that’s true, in one sense, but not so much in another. After all, with technology now advancing rapidly, perhaps humanity can start expanding into interplanetary real estate.
That might sound ridiculous, but according to a warning being put out by the head of NASA, China is currently trying to do just that with the Moon. Yes, that’s right. China is trying to claim ownership of the Moon.
According to a report from the Daily Wire, NASA administrator Bill Nelson recently conducted an interview with the newspaper Bild, where he stated that China’s National Space Administration could potentially be planning to “takeover” the Moon as part of its military space program.
As if war here on earth wasn’t bad enough, now we have to start thinking about waging war on other planets? This isn’t Star Wars, right?
“There is a new race to space – this time with China,” Nelson went on to tell the German news outlet. “But Beijing’s plans go further: China is planning its own moon base – together with Russia!”
“We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: ‘It’s ours now and you stay out,’” the U.S. space agency chief continued. “China’s space program is a military space program.”
During the interview, Nelson also stated that China was attempting to steal technology from other countries around the world and even accused Beijing of trying to either destroy or capture the satellites of other nations.
How do you think this news made China feel?
Let’s just say they weren’t happy.
“This is not the first time for the chief of NASA to lie through his teeth and smear China,” Zhao Lijian, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, according to Bloomberg News. “In recent years the US openly defined space as a war-fighting domain.”
“The U.S. side has constantly constructed a smear campaign against China’s normal and reasonable outer space endeavors, and China firmly opposes such irresponsible remarks,” he went on to say.
It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that NASA is right on the money about China. They have been working overtime on a variety of different projects and things to help boost them on the global stage and secure superpower status, possibly even one day supplanting the United States as the leading power in the world.
That would be disastrous.
“China is stepping up its space program and focusing on exploration of the Moon. The communist nation landed an explorer on the dark side of the Moon in 2019 and is working on launching rockets powerful enough to send astronauts to the Moon by the end of the decade,” the report stated.
“The war of words came as NASA dispatched a satellite to the Moon. Dubbed CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment), the spacecraft was launched a week ago from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula by Rocket Lab. The satellite was set to orbit Earth for a while, then break away and use next to no internal energy as it makes its way to the Moon over the next four months,” the Daily Wire stated in its report.
The back-and-forth battle of words and wits has come about just as NASA sent out a satellite to the Moon. The satellite, CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) was launched into space roughly a week ago from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand via Rocket Lab.
It was set to orbit the earth for a while and then break away, using next to no internal energy as it makes its way to the Moon over the course of the next four months.
“It’s probably going to take a while to sink in,” Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said to The Associated Press during an interview. “It’s been a project that has taken us two, two-and-a-half years and is just incredibly, incredibly difficult to execute. So, to see it all come together tonight and see that spacecraft on its way to the Moon, it’s just absolutely epic.”
