To infinity and beyond!
The Orion capsule, built to take astronauts back to the moon--unmanned for this flight--has slingshot past the moon and delivered a spacecraft built for humans farther than ever before. (And has given us the opportunity to use "slingshot" as a verb!) By 2024, the Artemis program plans to place humans back on the lunar surface.
In other news, the Red Chinese have launched a crew to finish building the Tiangong space station.
China's space station is an estimated six months out from being operational, and is expected to host more than 1,000 scientific experiments over a lifetime of at least 10 years. An Australian scientist who helps develop space tech referred to China's space station as an outstanding achievement and told Nature that it provides the CCP with its own scientific playground.
The Chinese already have a moon rover on the lunar dark side, the first earthly visitor to the outer half, and operate five spaceports, the latest comparable to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. And the Chinese have their own plans for Mars--and beyond.
Indeed, the ChiComs have been open about their intent to win the latest space race. And their space program is run by the People's Liberation Army, which probably doesn't operate with the same limitations that come with NASA, which must be a transparent governmental agency in a democracy.
According to a report released earlier this year by the U.S. Space Force, the Air Force and other collaborators, China is working to become the world's dominant space power "economically, diplomatically, and militarily" by 2045.
"While the United States space industrial base remains on an upward trajectory, participants expressed concerns that the upward trajectory of the People's Republic of China ... is even steeper, with a significant rate of overtake, requiring urgent action," the report says, per Defense One.
"The U.S. lacks a clear and cohesive long term vision, a grand strategy for space that sustains economic, technological, environmental, social and military leadership for the next half century and beyond."
It's a sad fact that human endeavor so often is reduced to a showdown. Part of our DNA, we suppose.
But that's material for the coming sequels. In the introductory tale of the 21st century space race, we open to a youthful rover, the hero of the block, venturing farther from home than ever before.
Meanwhile, the secretive bully from down the street is busy building what promises to be an impressive treehouse.