Outer space, explained.
“Earthset” captured through the Orion spacecraft window on 6 April 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon (NASA)
The geopolitics of who controls the Moon and controls the coming century.
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After Artemis II, the real lunar race is just getting startedAfter Artemis II, the real lunar race is just getting started
The successful Artemis II mission had many of us glued to our screens, with humanity edging closer to a return to the Moon. But it also marks a tense milestone in a growing geopolitical race. China’s lunar program has been forging steadily ahead, while India and others are also in the race. Meanwhile, the NASA Artemis program was originally touted as highly collaborative and international by definition. It is now an explicit “America first” program at a moment in time when that narrative sends alarm bells around the globe.
The multi-trillion-dollar question is: why go to the Moon? The reason is fundamentally geopolitical, just as the 20th century race to the Moon was. Then, it was the Soviets and the Americans competing to plant a literal flag, and demonstrate who had the superior technology, scientists, economy, and therefore the superior ideology.
The same thing is happening now, only it involves more players. It is a race between several actors, including the US, China, Russia, European nations, India, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and commercial entities such as SpaceX, Space Machines, Blue Origin, Boeing and more. Not all of them are racing to be first, some are racing just to be included. But it is all about power in the 21st century political economy.
Getting China and the US to cooperate is science fiction for the time being.
This time is about dominating lunar real estate at locations known to have ice, and therefore water, and possibly helium-3, which can be used as a fuel. The aim is not to return the material to Earth but to be used “in situ” to support long-term presence on the Moon. And yet a circular narrative shapes this modern race to the Moon: resources are needed to ensure long-term presence, but that presence is needed to find resources. The enormous scientific benefits of studying the lunar surface and conducting deep-space exploration from the Moon, are rarely heard.
The lunar south pole is the first destination. Not because there is any clear, direct economic value lying beneath the lunar surface. But because accessing the resources there, and more importantly, denying access to others, has strategic and political value. Whichever actor dominates these locations is likely to dominate geopolitics for the rest of this century, just as the winner of the previous space race came out as the political winner.
Preparing for launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (Sam Lott/NASA)
Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the international community agreed that appropriation in space is prohibited, whether by claims of sovereignty or any other means. This was explicitly to prevent a political competition between countries to claim extraterrestrial territory. When space opened up as a domain to humanity, it was determined that space shall be the province of all humankind, and that space activities shall be for the benefit of all nations.
The Outer Space Treaty does allow for scientific exploration in space and on the Moon. But the extraction of space resources for commercial purposes enters a contentious legal zone.
In 2015, the US adopted the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which states that the US considers space resource extraction and utilisation to be in accordance with the Outer Space Treaty: in other words, it is not appropriation. This bill goes a step further, and promises to protect the rights of any US citizen (which also means US company) to “possess, own, transport, use, and sell” space resources.
Whichever actor dominates these locations is likely to dominate geopolitics for the rest of this century, just as the winner of the previous space race came out as the political winner.
Despite hot legal debates at the time as to whether this was an unlawful reinterpretation of the Outer Space Treaty, Luxembourg and the UAE soon followed suit, enacting domestic legislation stating that space mining is lawful, and that companies of any origins could establish headquarters in their territory and benefit from this legislation.
In 2020, the US introduced the Artemis Accords, which include a principle stating that space mining is beneficial for all humanity, and is lawful under the Outer Space Treaty. Originally signed as a series of bilateral agreements between NASA and seven invited countries, including Australia, the Accords were a prerequisite to being a partner in the Artemis program. Though those seven countries were enthusiastic partners, there was a political gain for the US in eliciting agreement with this interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty.
The Accords are not a treaty and they are not binding. But they have morphed in nature into an open document that 60 countries have now voluntarily signed, whether or not they intend to be part of the Artemis program. This represents a third of the world’s nations, and therefore an explicit shift in interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty’s prohibition on appropriation. Customary international law is overtaking the original intention of the treaty.
Recovery of NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crew members (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Despite such support for the Artemis Accords, not everyone is on the same team in this lunar race. India has built a highly successful space program in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of Western nations, and has its own aspirations for the Moon. While Japan has been an Artemis partner, as a significant space middle power, it has also been supporting Japanese commercial efforts independently of the US program. The UAE has ambitions to be the leading Arab space nation and has its own small lunar mission.
China has not signed the Artemis Accords, for several clear reasons, including legislation in the US that prevents it from collaborating with China on space technologies. Instead, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) is the major competitor with Artemis. Originally a partnership with Russia and open to membership from others, the ILRS has continued without its founding partner: Russia has all but dropped off the lunar map, fully occupied in Ukraine. But this has not changed the ILRS timeline.
China is on track to put a crewed mission on the Moon by 2030. Indeed, there is a strong possibility that China will establish a successful lunar base at those prime locations first. China has an undisturbed internal governance system, and a clear vision for the role space plays in that. It has also been building momentum in space. The first Chinese astronaut flew in orbit in 2003, and in the last six years, China has landed a rover on the dark side of the Moon, returned samples from the Moon, launched a rover to the Martian surface, and is building its own space station. As one analyst puts it, “China considers space a strategic domain in its grand New Silk Road plan, to the point that it aims to become a space power in all respects by 2050”.
By comparison, the internal turmoil in the US has created a total lack of clarity. With extreme budget cuts proposed by Trump last year and again last month, the gutting of scientific and policy staff across NASA under Elon Musk’s DOGE, and changes in programmatic timelines and outcomes, it is unclear whether NASA can achieve its goals. The new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced more budget and program cuts earlier this month, including the effective cancellation of Gateway, a lunar space station that was supposed to provide critical infrastructure such as communications, a shuttle point for supplies, a harbour for astronauts, and important docking and robotics capabilities.
Not coincidentally, Gateway was a major point of collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canada. Geopolitical trust was already fractured. The US previously threatened Canadian sovereignty and criticised European management. In response, Canada increased its investment with the ESA tenfold, and Canada and Europe have been discussing “strategic autonomy” from the US while increasing space and defence collaboration between them.
The Moon seen from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission (European Space Agency)
The most desirable outcome would be an international lunar space station and lunar base that is collaborative rather than competitive. But it’s unclear who would be willing to collaborate in the foreseeable future.
Getting China and the US to cooperate is science fiction for the time being. But as more countries consider carefully how entangled they want to remain with the US, closer ties between China and other countries can be expected, given trade and energy dependencies here on Earth and a desire to maintain peaceful (even if sometimes tense) relations. Maybe that will translate to a willingness to work towards closer space relations.
Space is just another domain where geopolitics are playing out. Like the AI race or competition for oil, in space the US is seeking to remain the single dominant power and discovering that it no longer is. And it’s another domain where China is playing the long game, and where everyone else is thinking very carefully about how to build more sophisticated partnerships for a multipolar future.
So while Artemis II should be celebrated in and of itself, it’s what comes next that deserves our attention.
About the author
Cassandra Steer
Cassandra Steer is Deputy Director (Mission Specialists) at the Australian National University Institute for Space, and Chair of the Australian Centre for Space Governance.
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