China and NASA have been investing a lot in space travel lately, with many seeing the great unknown as our next great journey. It seems that NASA and China are having grievances over which parts of the moon they want, as they seemingly want the same piece of land.
Fighting over the moon seems like an odd thing to do but given how governments like to own land, we should have seen this coming. Will NASA end up taking the moon? Or will it go to China, which has been increasing its space travel budget?
NASA and China having space wars over the moon?
According to The Daily Mail, both China and NASA have mentioned parts of the moon they plan on taking. NASA mentioned 13 possible areas while China named 10, with a big possibility of these parts overlapping due to the moon’s limited space.
China and America have had a war of words lately, with the US claiming that China has already claimed ownership over the moon. Obviously, China didn’t take those words well and it seems that these two countries are going to have more words with each other.
“We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: 'It's ours now and you stay out',” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
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Should China and NASA just team up?
Though both China and NASA want to take pieces of the moon, experts claim that the two should try to collaborate. If both countries combined their resources, they could make a lot of progress together, but that doesn’t seem likely due to their opposing views.
Christopher Newman, professor of space law and policy at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, said: “This is a genuine opportunity for collaboration and cooperation between the two giant powers, and would be an opportunity to show all the rhetoric about space exploration being more than geopolitical in nature.”
However, Newman is aware of the tense situation between the two countries. Continuing on, he said: “However, in reality it is not hard to see why they both want the same spots. It is prime lunar real estate for in-situ resource utilization. This could be the first potential point of conflict over resources beyond Earth.”