An international military expert is warning that China is racing to rule space in just 26 years, with plans to dominate commerce, mining and construction on the moon and Mars in a direct threat to the United States.
Among the many startling warnings are China’s plan to capture an asteroid in just 10 years and bring it back to Earth and to ship huge 3D printers to the moon to be used to “lay groundwork for the construction of a lunar base” all powered by solar energy.
Namrata Goswami has presented her findings, filled with evidence and statements from China, to the Pentagon and Congress.
China Has a Head Start in the New Space Race @Diplomat_APAC https://t.co/lsMiYtpXmJ
— Namrata Goswami (@namygoswami) May 29, 2019
“China intends to be the #1 space power by 2045. At the highest levels of PRC policy, China has set itself a goal to exceed all others by 2045 in time for its 100-year celebration of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China,” she recently told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
She found that there are already 11 business start-ups in China totally focused on space and will be a direct competitor to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and others eager to open business on the moon.
“To call this a space exploration program is misleading; this is a program for industrial and economic dominance,” she said in testimony directed to Secrets.
By 2040, she said that China plans to have:
- Converted to re-usable launch vehicles.
- Operate “nuclear power shuttles for the purposes of asteroid mining, settlement and exploration.”
- Build an industrial facility on the Moon and to be industrializing the moon with the purpose of building solar power satellites.
Space mining, not war, is a key focus, she said, citing the communist nation’s goal of capturing an asteroid and steering it to Earth to mine.
An asteroid, said Goswami, “like 3554 Amun, approximately two kilometers in diameter, contains nickel and iron worth $8 trillion, cobalt ($6 trillion), other precious metals and gold worth $6 trillion, which together totals $20 trillion.”
In her testimony, she said, “The U.S. needs to take the Chinese space goals and timelines seriously.”
Recommendations she made appear to parallel President Trump’s creation of the Space Force. She said, “Create a dedicated military space service for unity of effort in the space domain, where space is the topmost institutional priority. Ensure the proposed U.S. Space Service has a broad set of missions that allow them to respond to the Chinese strategic offensive, including defense of commerce missions similar to what the U.S. Navy does in the maritime domain.”
