Draft:Modern space race
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The modern space race, also commonly referred to as the "new space race", is a 21st-century competition between the United States and China to lay claims on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. It has origins dating back to the late 1950s and to the original Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, two Cold War rivals. The modern space race has encouraged a renewed interest in space exploration and human spaceflight, as well as also grown concerns of the Chinese becoming the dominant space power within the next two decades.[1][2][3]
Following the end of NASA's Space Shuttle and Constellation programs, interest in American space exploration and human spaceflight waned.[4] This left NASA stuck with no way to get to space, and as a result, had to heavily rely and contract private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to carry cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station and beyond.[5][6] At the same time, however, the Chinese space program took off and made great strides in spaceflight over the following years – with the development of its Chang'e program and Tiangong space station.[7][8] The Chinese space program's rapid development sparked concerns across the world that it would soon overtake NASA and the U.S. to become the dominant power in space.[9][10]
The United States Congress, prompted by the sudden rise in China's space program and its use of military technology in space, signed the Wolf Amendment in 2011 to prohibit NASA and the CNSA from bilaterally working or cooperating together.[11][12] Further space directives signed over the next couple of years also called for NASA to ramp up development of its' Space Launch System and the Artemis program following a plague of funding and financial issues.[13][14] Russia, seeing the immense success China's space program had undergone, sought to collaborate and align themselves with China in the new space race.[15][16] Similarly, NASA established the Artemis Accords in a US-led international coalition for cooperation in the civil exploration and peaceful use of the Moon, Mars, and other astronomical objects.[17] The establishment of the Artemis Accords allowed for the development of the Artemis program, which kick-started in November 2022 off the back of a successful Artemis 1 mission.[18] NASA chief Bill Nelson a few months later in January remarked that, "it is a fact: we're in a space race" – going on to warn how China could claim the Moon and monopolize its' resource-rich areas.[19][20]