Behind NASA’s next moon mission and the race to beat China there

A high-stakes race to the moon is on, and NASA doesn’t want to lose.

- Micah Maidenberg

NASA'S Artemis II mission may launch as soon as early February but no later than April.

(REUTER)

U.S. government officials and astronauts at the Johnson Space Center this week touted their commitment to accelerating lunar exploration as an important step to achieve the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's deep-space ambitions.

The agency confirmed plans to send astronauts on a lunar flyby next year. The mission, which will zip four crewmembers, some potentially as far as 250,000 miles from Earth, aims to set the stage for an even more difficult objective: landing people on the moon before China does.

“We certainly are pressing and want to achieve our goals to be the first to land on the moon since Apollo,” said Lori Glaze ,a top NASA exploration official. While safety is foremost, “there is a sense of urgency,” she said.

NASA hasn’t taken crews to the lunar surface since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Its program to make a return trip is known as Artemis, named after the mythical Greek goddess of the moon, who was Apollo's twin sister.

But the Artemis program has struggled with delays, with the moon-bound spacecraft and other hardware needed for it facing technical and production hurdles.

China has been advancing its own lunar effort, setting plans to send people there toward the end of the decade. Elected officials in Washington fear China returning people to the moon first could give the country a strategic advantage in a place where many countries and companies hope to stoke economic and scientific activities.