The US is “in a space race with China to go back to the moon”, says Nasa chief Bill Nelson. In a BBC interview, Mr Nelson says he wants to make sure “we get there first”. His comments revive memories of the 1960s and 1970s, when Nasa was in a space race with the Soviet Union. But half a century later, Nasa is employing private companies to do much more of the work. Mr Nelson says they are crucial because it allows for the huge costs to be shared, and for Nasa to draw on “the creativity of entrepreneurs in the private sector”. He points to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which in 2021 was awarded a $3bn (£2.4bn) contract to build a lunar lander, and has also developed the most powerful rocket ever built. Other private firms are also feeling the benefit of the space race. Earlier this year the agency signed a $3.4bn deal with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin – also to build a lander, but for later moon landings. Those are just two companies that are benefitting from billions of dollars of government funding. It’s money that is being spent, in part at least, to try and keep ahead of China amid much broader tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. In late August, India became the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and the first to reach the lunar south pole region. Despite that success, China’s space program is the one most closely watched by Nasa. China is the only country to have its own space station, it has already brought moon samples back to earth, and it has plans to reach the polar regions of the lunar surface. This worries Mr Nelson: “What I’m concerned about is that we find water on the south pole of the moon, China gets there, and China says this is our area. You can’t come here, it’s ours.”

Full story : US-China rivalry spurs investment in space tech.