The Apollo moon landing cemented the
United States as the unquestioned leader
in space travel. When Buzz Aldrin and
Neil Armstrong placed the flag on the
moon, the U.S. reached the figurative
finish line at the end of a years-long
space race. But fast-forward 60 years,
through numerous NASA led missions to
space and the U.S. space program has
ended up with budget cuts and no vehicle
to launch astronauts into space. Without
the space shuttle, NASA now relies on
Russians to send Americans to space from a launch pad in Kazakhstan. But if
billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff
Bezos are to be believed, space is about
to become a big business. As a result,
China is pouring money into its
fast-growing private space industry to
get a piece of the action, showing its
commitment to the future of space
exploration. in three years, China has
gone from representing a 0% of
the world's investment in the space and
industry to 3% of the world's investment
in the space industry. That may not seem
like a lot but that's enough to put
China regularly in among the top
countries investing in space companies.The space race of today isn't just about
proving who has the fastest rocket. It's
about business interests, Mars
exploration and ultimately control of
Natural Resources, commercial space
travel and more. Back in 2009,
SpaceX made history when it became the
first private company to send a
commercial satellite into space.
Companies no longer had to employ the
help of a government in order to get a
satellite into space.
The private sector could now start to
help out with that. Fast forward 10
years and companies like SpaceX and Jeff
Bezos Blue Origin have made impressive
strides in their space program and so have
Chinese companies. In 2018, China's one
space completed the first suborbital
launch of a rocket and this year they
plan to send over ten commercial
satellites into space. That took SpaceX
seven years to do. Still China's space
ventures aren't quite to the point of
overtaking American giants like SpaceX.
Even the newer rocket that land space is
developing, can only lift may barely even
a fifth of the payload that SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket can lift.
But where China excels is its rapid
growth in space industry investment for
these companies. The real strength of
commercial satellite launch programs is
that it frees up government's to focus
on much larger aspirations.
China's CNSA made itself a real
contender for the modern space race when
it launched its lunar probe on the far
side with the moon in 2018. A first for
any country. This has led many to
speculate that China's got its sights on
much bigger projects. But some experts
say that the country's space program
isn't done with the moon quite yet.
They're gonna put boots on the ground on
the moon soon. That's part of their plan,
right. They've rolled that out. They've
announced that publicly. And some see
that as a potential step towards a much
further goal. A lot of the international
world kind of shrugged off like "oh you
reach the farce of the moon with a robot
we did that 50 years ago on the front
side of the moon with human beings." It
would be a little more difficult to
shrug off than actually having a
sustained presence on the surface of the
Moon with something like a lunar outpost
of sorts. That would be as many within
the space industry as well as NASA refer
to it a kind of gateway step to reaching
Mars. Mars is the ultimate dream for
governments and companies alike. It's the
next frontier of space travel. But China
has a long way to go. I just think the U.S.
has too big of a of a lead here and that
has a lot to do with SpaceX. I mean if
SpaceX wasn't in the picture,
then I think that there would be a much
bigger risk of that happening. But with
SpaceX innovating the way that they have
and continuing to innovate at the pace
that they are I don't think that
anyone's going to get to Mars before
SpaceX.
NASA's private partnerships could help
the U.S. beat China to Mars. The ultimate
goal for companies and countries alike
expands far beyond exploration for
explorations sake. Whoever holds the keys to space ultimately has access to vast
resources and unknown technological
advances. And as researchers and
engineers begin exploring the viability
of asteroid mining, space is going to
become even more important to a
country's economy and a business's
bottom line. There's also the increase in
militarization of space. With President
Trump's announcement of the Space Force in 2018. All of these factors will make
space more competitive in the future and
drive a space race that's just getting started.
