DDuring the Cold War space race, the Apollo missions to the Moon were driven by the need to prove American superiority. After this political and technological point of view was proven by the 1969 moon landing, the rivalry between Moscow and Washington faded away. A new rush across the sky begins. 2026reigniting geopolitical competition under the guise of “peaceful explorationThe Moon's South Pole Becomes the Most Valuable real estate in the solar system, offering “peaks of eternal light“for solar panels and ice deposits in craters protected from the Sun.
The US and China-led bloc are eyeing the lunar surface and its potential to control the post-Earth economy. Space was humanity's last treasure, supposedly protected by the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits government exploitation of the skies. However, it is vague regarding private claims – a loophole that is now fueling the tycoons' scramble for the stars. The goal is clear: to act first, shape the norm, and encourage others to object. Two lunar missions launch next year – NASA Artemis II and China Chang'e 7 – fight for strategic superiority.
To speed up space commercialization, Donald Trump reduction government support for NASA, which will have its smallest budget since 1961. Washington wants the private sector to lead space exploration, a desire enshrined in the Artemis Accords. The agreements, signed by more than 40 countries, represent a vision of extending Earth-based ownership structures into space – and it has been supported by tech moguls such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. It's no surprise that Musk is eager to take his space exploration firm public. SpaceX in 2026 by $1.5 trillion.
By contrast, the International Lunar Research Station—a joint effort between China and Russia and partners in the global south—embodies a state-led approach that seeks to avoid an American-led system. China and Russia say they will comply with UN rules because their lunar bases will be under international control.jointThe consortium is not controlled by any one state.
Superpower rivalry
The result is a rivalry between two camps that publicly call for “peaceful exploration” while engaging in strategic competition for lunar resources. There are already allegations that water could produce rocket fuel and support life. Others suggest that moonstone may be useful for construction. These are essentially rhetorical statements, similar to the oft-repeated statement that space helium-3 is a potential thermonuclear fuel. These are arguments, however weak, for governments to justify lunar spending with promises of future potential.
Nuclear fission on the Moon, by contrast, is a specific engineering race involving the US and the US. China-Russia is already funding reactor projects needed to support human lunar colonies. NASA intends to do this within five years; China and Russia say their country will pass by 2035. The technology is not new: small fission reactors in space were participants in Cold War duels. But the Moon looks like a testing ground. Reliable nuclear power during the 14-day lunar night will be required to establish permanent human bases. Once solved, the same energy technology can be used in Mars. Mr. Trump has already said American astronauts will land the stars and stripes on Mars.
1992 UN Principles relevant to the use of nuclear power sources in outer space, provide a framework for safety and risk reduction, but are not a regulator. The country that figures out how to build reliable energy systems offshore will be able to determine the balance of industrial and digital power for the next century.
The desire to leave Earth is often characterized as people's need for discovery and exploration. But there may be something more important: humanity is depleting natural resources. 1.7 times faster than the biocapacity of our planet can regenerate them. Essentially, there are three options: become more efficient by squeezing more GDP per unit of energy; green the production, distribution and consumption economy to bring capitalism into line with ecological limits; or move energy-intensive processes off-world.
Most Silicon Valley favors the latter techno-optimistic option over the first two earthly approaches. Google wants data centers in orbit Powered by solar energy. The energy and computer arms race has coalesced into a startling recognition that land-based data centers are approaching environmental and political limits. Answer: Google should take them to the skies. As demand for artificial intelligence and electrification accelerates faster than terrestrial grids can decarbonize, the incentive for continuous solar power beyond Earth will become increasingly stronger. What begins as a pragmatic innovation could end up as a new stage of extraction: the search for energy and computing power once the Earth's limits are reached.
Red Mars
Life can imitate art. Classic by Kim Stanley Robinson science fiction trilogy about Mars will open in 2026 with humanity's first colonial voyage to the planet. In its first book, Red Mars reveals that the nations and corporations of Earth have been competing for decades to control the new frontier. Robinson's Transnuts foreshadow today's private contractors and government conglomerates. Echoes of the novel's debates—nuclear versus solar, terraforming versus conservation—can be found in the real-life space race today. And just as the colonization of Mars was justified by the ecological decline of the Earth, today's exploration of the Moon is justified by the fact that “resource use– use of the Moon's resources to reduce dependence on the home planet. The logic subtly inverts the problem: planetary overspending becomes a license to expand it.
Red Mars ultimately warns that humanity will export its old policies to new worlds with disastrous results. Before we occupy another planet, the novel's message is that we must first learn to live on our own. We can escape Earth, but, the novel asks, can we escape ourselves? However, today space law is being developed to allow appropriation under the guise of peaceful commercial activities. USA Space Act 2015 allows you to mine asteroids as if they were open seams of ore. The return of the moon rock to NASA helped the US Congress justify space property rights, opening the door for humanity's last assets to fall into the hands of corporations.
In the last part of the Robinson trilogy. Blue Marsby 2225, settlers will live in harmony with the world they created. People are terraforming Mars and start offfinally, to live in it responsibly. We can only hope that we will understand this much sooner.
