>>13169976Supposedly, end of next year China wants to put a rover on the south pole of the moon in hunt for water and if they find it, claim that location as Chinese territory for ISRU.
Nelson, in his senate hearing for EFA, made a point about that to drum up support to get more funding and to have a second launcher funded for option B. I doubt that China will get to nuclear first, but there's a high probability that China will claim the first water available territory on the moon because they do not give a fuck about what the rest of the world thinks of them.
If that happens, in addition to heightened geopolitical tension, it also would lead to immense political duress in the states; because if. IF. China's rover finds water in a crater and in large enough amounts to establish a base on the moon with ISRU capability. They will pour hundreds of billions into their space program in a rat race to build up a major presence on the moon.
And with US hamstrung to SLS which is a castrated rocket to launch any reasonable payload to the Moon (absent of Starship), and Blue Origin's New Glenn missing in action, US would be helpless to stop China from conquering a resource more precious than nearly anything else on the Earth, on the moon. It would be a geopolitical disaster for the US if that happened.
