COMMENTARY | Nearly 40 years since man last stepped foot on the moon, the Chinese Space Agency has recently announced its preliminary plan for a human lunar landing. While the tentative mission isn’t scheduled to take place until 2025, these plans should no doubt serve as a wakeup call to the United States and its beleaguered NASA space agency.
National Pride
While the mere task of sending a man to the moon is an unbelievable scientific achievement, there is little doubt why the Chinese want to lay claim as the first country to successfully complete a human lunar mission in the 21st century: national pride. Ask any American over the age of 50 where they were when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon and you will receive an answer without hesitation. China wants their own moment of scientific greatness. Not only would it be a confirmation that it has fully arrived as a world superpower; but that greatness can be achieved with the communistic platform.
New “Yuri Gagarin” Moment
This isn’t the first time that the U.S. has been challenged in its lead in space exploration. In 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space. This monumental achievement by the Soviets was the push the U.S. needed to drive its own space program to even further heights. Eight short years later, the U.S. did the unthinkable and successfully landed a man on the moon.
China’s plan for a human lunar landing is this generation’s Yuri Gagarin moment. The question is, will America step up to the plate? Will Americans demand that more money be spent to fund NASA and other important scientific organizations and endeavors or will it focus its tax dollars on health care and military campaigns? Will parents and schools help their children excel in calculus and algebra or will they be allowed to fall through the cracks? Will little boys and girls dream of being American heroes like Neil Armstrong or American socialites like Kim Kardashian? Only time will tell if this generation of Americans will meet the Chinese challenge of the future the way that Americans of the past exceeded the Russian challenge over 50 years ago.