How America can beat China ON as well as TO the Moon

On June 27th, the Space Frontier Foundation held a Lunch & Learn discussion on “How America can beat China ON as well as TO the Moon" at the Capitol Visitors Center, where attendees learned about details of the White House's goal of not just visiting the Moon but also developing it economically and enabling permanent settlement.  The strategic objective: the U.S. should not just stay ahead of China in space but strive to achieve a dominant leadership position.

As NASA continues towards Artemis II next year and the return of American astronauts to the lunar surface on Artemis III, Congress is wrestling with budget challenges and the question, “What comes next?”  How do you do that in today’s budget environment?  By following the recommendations of a 2015 Evolvable Lunar Architecture study on how commercial partnerships can enable earlier, cheaper, and more sustainable expansion of America’s economy and civilization to the Moon.  

Attendees heard from several notable experts on the topic:

• Dr. Namrata Goswami, Professor of Space Security, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, an expert on China’s space efforts and how they challenge U.S. economic prosperity and national security.

• Mr. Charles Miller, former NASA Senior Advisor for Commercial Space and serial space entrepreneur (including NanoRacks and Lynk Global).  Charles recently served as the Trump/Vance NASA Transition Landing Team lead, and he will publicly disclose some of the recommendations they made to the incoming administration.

• Dr. Taylor Winkleman, Georgetown Professor and Former Science Staffer, U.S. Senator Ed Markey

The questions and comments from the event resulted in the Foundation building a complete policy project around educating Congress on the Evolvable Lunar Architecture.