The United States is about to wake up to the threat from China’s space program

美国即将意识到中国太空计划带来的威胁

There are generally two schools of thought in the Western space community when it comes to the prospect of China landing humans on the Moon in the next few years and very possibly beating NASA and the United States in its efforts to return astronauts there. Many people will ask what the big deal is. After all, NASA won the space race to the Moon nearly six decades ago, when Apollo 11 landed there. That it took so long for anyone else to follow speaks to the magnitude of the US achievement, they might say.

在西方航天界，对于中国在未来几年内实现载人登月，并极有可能在重返月球的竞赛中击败美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的前景，普遍存在两种观点。许多人会问，这有什么大不了的？毕竟，近六十年前“阿波罗11号”成功登月，美国就已经赢得了那场太空竞赛。他们可能会说，这么久以来都没有其他人能做到这一点，恰恰证明了美国成就的伟大。

But others have a starkly different opinion. A dominant storyline of the 21st century has been the economic and geopolitical rise of China, and what was once a unipolar world now has two large nations vying for supremacy across a number of fronts. One is space. If China can land humans on the Moon before the United States returns, it will represent a huge geopolitical win. From a propaganda standpoint, it will allow China to declare that it has not just caught up to the United States but surpassed it as this century’s superpower. An important test of whether you believe the former or latter could come as soon as this month.

但另一些人则持有截然不同的看法。21世纪的一个主旋律是中国在经济和地缘政治上的崛起，曾经的单极世界如今已演变为两个大国在多个领域争夺霸权。太空就是其中之一。如果中国能在美国重返月球之前实现载人登月，这将是一场巨大的地缘政治胜利。从宣传角度来看，这将使中国能够宣称自己不仅赶上了美国，而且作为本世纪的超级大国已经超越了美国。对于你究竟认同哪种观点，本月就可能迎来一次重要的考验。

Chang’e 7 is coming

嫦娥七号即将到来

As soon as this Sunday, a Long March 5 rocket will launch from a coastal seaport in China, carrying the Chang’e 7 lunar exploration mission. This is the latest and most sophisticated mission in China’s successful lunar exploration program, which dates back nearly two decades. The mission will pack a punch: It contains a lunar orbiter with high-resolution cameras and other sophisticated tools, a lunar lander, a lunar rover, and a mini-hopper of a probe. Although the lander’s mass has not been disclosed publicly, it is several times larger than the NASA-backed probes that have recently landed on the Moon, such as Firefly’s Blue Ghost.

最快在本周日，一枚长征五号火箭将从中国的沿海航天发射场升空，搭载嫦娥七号月球探测任务。这是中国自近二十年前启动探月工程以来，最新且最复杂的任务。该任务实力强劲：它包含一个配备高分辨率相机和其他精密仪器的月球轨道器、一个着陆器、一辆月球车以及一个微型飞行探测器。虽然着陆器的质量尚未公开，但它比近期在月球着陆的NASA支持的探测器（如Firefly公司的“蓝鬼”探测器）要大出数倍。

But what is most notable about Chang’e 7 is where the probe is going. It will land near one of the most compelling regions of the Moon, Shackleton Crater, very nearly at the South Pole. Much of the lunar surface is pretty barren, but the South Pole, and Shackleton Crater in particular, offers some of the most coveted real estate there. This is because the high rims of the crater create permanently shadowed regions known as “cold traps,” where it’s thought that water (in the form of ice, of course) and other useful materials may have accumulated over billions of years. In all of NASA’s and China’s plans for long-term settlement on the Moon, relatively few square miles at the South Pole of the Moon matter the most.

但嫦娥七号最引人注目的地方在于其目的地。它将着陆在月球最令人神往的区域之一——沙克尔顿陨石坑附近，几乎就在南极点。月球表面大部分地区相当荒凉，但南极地区，尤其是沙克尔顿陨石坑，拥有月球上最令人垂涎的“地段”。这是因为陨石坑的高边缘形成了永久阴影区，即所谓的“冷阱”。据推测，水（当然是以冰的形式）和其他有用的物质可能已经在那里积累了数十亿年。在NASA和中国所有关于月球长期定居的计划中，月球南极那几平方英里的土地至关重要。

The impact of all this

这一切的影响

Humans have been flying missions to the Moon since 1959, when the Soviet Union’s Luna 1 spacecraft passed within several thousand kilometers of the lunar surface. But in all that time, across more than 100 successes and failures, no spacecraft has ever landed at the South Pole of the Moon. So we’re faced with the prospect of a Chinese rover rolling around this most interesting but heretofore unexplored region of the Moon. Undoubtedly, there will be stunning images and videos. And the rover and hopper, if successful, will provide the best available data on the presence and prevalence of water there.

自1959年苏联的“月球1号”探测器从距离月球表面几千公里的地方飞过以来，人类一直在进行探月任务。但在那之后的所有时间里，经历了100多次成功与失败，还没有任何航天器在月球南极着陆过。因此，我们即将看到中国月球车在月球这个最有趣但此前从未被探索过的区域行驶。毫无疑问，届时将会有令人惊叹的图像和视频传回。如果月球车和飞行探测器成功运行，它们将提供关于该地区水资源存在情况及分布的最可靠数据。

This will likely serve as a wake-up call to those not paying attention to the US-China space race—which, to be clear, is the vast majority of Americans. They might ask, why is China doing this and NASA is not? What are the implications for human missions? The US Congress, to its credit, has already largely awoken to the situation. Early this year, it gave new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman the latitude to make sweeping changes to the space agency’s lunar programs, including ending the development of the Lunar Gateway space station and an unnecessary upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket. These were major concessions from Congress that NASA, under previous leaders, was often more interested in jobs and programs than results. Isaacman’s task remains considerable: to get the Artemis Program on track and counter Chinese ambitions on the Moon.

这很可能会给那些不关注中美太空竞赛的人敲响警钟——需要明确的是，这涵盖了绝大多数美国人。他们可能会问：为什么中国在做这些，而NASA却没有？这对载人航天任务意味着什么？值得称赞的是，美国国会已经基本意识到了这一局势。今年年初，国会赋予了新任NASA局长贾里德·艾萨克曼（Jared Isaacman）权力，对该机构的月球计划进行大刀阔斧的改革，包括终止“月球门户”空间站的开发，以及取消太空发射系统（SLS）火箭不必要的上面级。这是国会做出的重大让步，因为在历任领导下，NASA往往更看重就业岗位和项目本身，而非实际成果。艾萨克曼的任务依然艰巨：让“阿尔忒弥斯”计划重回正轨，并应对中国在月球上的雄心。

What to watch for

值得关注的动向

It’s unclear how China will use the win that would come from a successful Chang’e 7 mission, namely the visuals from its vehicles traversing the Moon’s South Pole. It has several options, one of the most intriguing being to claim that the territory explored by its rovers—establishing a keep-out zone for NASA. That would be a clear provocation, but it could also further galvanize efforts in the United States to invest in Artemis and take the hard steps to accelerate its rollout. It would give Isaacman even more capital in his efforts to reform NASA. One also suspects it may prompt people who do not view China’s efforts to “beat” NASA back to the Moon as a big deal to reconsider their position.

目前尚不清楚中国将如何利用嫦娥七号任务成功后带来的胜利，即其探测器在月球南极穿行的影像资料。中国有多种选择，其中最引人关注的一种可能是：宣称其月球车探索的区域为“禁区”，从而将NASA排除在外。这将是一种明确的挑衅，但也可能进一步激励美国加大对“阿尔忒弥斯”计划的投入，并采取强硬措施加速其推进。这将为艾萨克曼改革NASA提供更多的筹码。人们也怀疑，这可能会促使那些认为中国“击败”NASA重返月球没什么大不了的人重新审视自己的立场。