Back to moon: US and China see fast-approaching finish line

Fee: his first term, President Donald Trump held a modest ceremony directing NASA to return humans to the moon for the first time in 5O years. It was a goalpost set without a road map. Veterans of the space community reflected on the 2017 document, conspicuously silent on budgets and timelines, equivocating between excitement and concern. Was Trump setting up a giveaway to special interests in the aerospace community? Or was he setting forth areal strategic vision for the coming decade, to secure American leadership in the heavens? It was areturn to aplan first proposed by President George W. Bush in 2004, then abandoned by President Barack Obama in 2010, asserting the moon as a vital part of American ambitions in space. Whether to return to the lunar surface at all — or skip it to focus on Mars — was a longstanding debate governing the division of resources at NASA, where every project is precious, holding extraordinary promise for the knowledge of mankind, yet requiring consistent, high-dollar funding commitments from a capricious Congress.

- Michael Wilner, Tribune News Service

Barack Obama

Eight years on, the debate is over. Trump's policy shift has blazed a new American trail in space —and spawned an.urgent race with China that is fast approaching the finish line, Both nations are in a sprint toward manned missions to the lunar surface by the end of this decade, with sights on 2099 as a common deadline — marking the end of Trump's presidency and, in China, the 8Oth anniversary of the People’s Republic.

It is a far different race from the original, against the Soviet Union, when US astronauts inspired the world with a televised landing in 1969. This time, Washington would not just plant a flag and return its astronauts home. Instead, the Americans plan to stay, establishing a lunar base that would test humanity's ability to live beyond Earth.