Artemis II ventured farther into space than any manned craft had gone before. Human eyes saw the far side of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The U.S. seemed to have captured an early lead in the new lunar race with China.
Except it didn’t. For all its pageantry, Artemis II masked an uneasy truth: Washington is trailing Beijing.
By many measures, Artemis II was a triumph. The mission demonstrated the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems and its powerful Space Launch System rocket. It enabled the first manned deep-space optical communications test. The images it beamed back to Earth were breathtaking.
Yet these achievements hid serious problems. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had intended to launch Artemis II in 2023. Then technical issues repeatedly postponed the mission: hydrogen leaks, failures in helium flow, unexpected erosion of the heat shield. Beset by delays and pivot fatigue, NASA has downgraded its next Artemis flight from a manned lunar landing to an Earth-orbit docking test in 2027. It now seems that U.S. astronauts won’t walk on the moon until 2028 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, China grinds away. In February its space agency conducted a successful in-flight abort test from Hainan. Early in the ascent, mission controllers deliberately triggered an escape system that pulled an unmanned Mengzhou capsule away from the rocket. The capsule parachuted safely to sea while the rocket continued its flight. After re-entry the booster reignited its engines and performed a controlled, propulsive splashdown. NASA’s moon rocket can’t do that.
Beijing also leads in landing technology. Last year it demonstrated the Lanyue manned lander, which performed both a propulsive lunar landing and a lunar launch in simulated moon gravity. The test validated the craft’s design, shutdown procedures and interface compatibility between subsystems. Suddenly, China’s stated mission to put people on the moon before 2030 seems less like bluster.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished,” Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote. China isn’t ready for a translunar journey, but its space program is making patient and consistent progress. Though Beijing has experienced its share of failures, its lunar program is achieving serious leaps in the technologies that matter.
China has built the robotic infrastructure—sensors, hoppers and relay satellites—needed for a permanent lunar base. Later this year, China’s Chang’e-7 mission is expected to explore the lunar south pole, where NASA intends to touch down. Included in China’s mission package is a novel rocket-propelled scout that can reach terrain inaccessible to rovers. Its task: hunt for ice water.
Missions such as Chang’e-7 should spur action in Washington. If the U.S. is to maintain leadership in the race to the moon, it must take China’s progress more seriously. It must also resist the temptation to rest on its laurels.
Whichever nation lands on the moon first in this century can do far more than plant a flag. It will choose where to build infrastructure. It will decide where to mine regolith and extract the ice water that, separated into hydrogen and oxygen, becomes rocket fuel for everything that comes next.
To stay ahead, Washington must stop optimizing for spectacle and start building for permanence. Artemis has proved that the U.S. can still reach the moon. The question now is whether it can remain there. That will require a shift in priorities—from timelines to cargo capacity, from singular missions to sustained infrastructure. Power systems, communications relays and resource extraction should take priority over manned missions.
Washington also needs strategic coherence. China’s advantage is as much organizational as technical. The U.S. should establish a unified lunar strategy with clear timelines, accountable leadership and authority that extends across agencies. Otherwise delays will compound, and opportunities will slip away.
Finally, the U.S. government needs to sell the lunar project to the American people more effectively. Artemis missions won’t matter if voters think the moon is yesterday’s achievement. This isn’t a replay of 1969. It’s a contest over governance, access to critical resources, and the ability to establish infrastructure that will determine economic and military activity in space for generations. Washington must make the case in terms the public appreciates: power, prosperity and security.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman sounded the alarm during his confirmation hearing last year: “This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind, if we make a mistake, we may never catch up.”
Despite the success of Artemis, there’s a risk that his fears are already being realized.
Mr. Buono is an assistant professor of humanities at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School and the author of “The Province of All Mankind: How Outer Space Became American Foreign Policy.”