US Chinese Moon Race winner, Starship viability, and other predictions

Our latest set of predictions are all about the Moon.

The staff here at Curious Cosmonaut Plaza recently unearthed an old time capsule. We enjoyed reading the predictions around the conference table. And it got me thinking: how about some predictions about the Moon? So here we go:

The U.S. will beat China back to the Moon.

Not going out on a limb there. Let’s move on to some more exciting predictions.

The first Artemis landing won’t use Starship.

Despite being the frontrunner for the Human Landing System, it will be revealed in time that the Starship-based strategy is, indeed, immensely complex and high risk. Starship is just too big, too complicated, and takes too many launches and on-orbit maneuvers to get right. As Chinese progress towards a crewed landing accelerates, the U.S. Congress will panic and throw obscene amounts of money at the problem to quickly develop an alternative landing system.

China will be the first nation to manufacture rocket fuel from lunar ice.

The PRC will shrug off their “loss” and will continue to methodically march towards their goal of industrializing the moon. As such, their space program will be the first to extract lunar ice from the regolith, and convert it into usable rocket fuel.

There will be a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon within 15 years.

Cuz it’s just too cool not to do.

The first food grown - and eaten - on the Moon will be lettuce.

Note that the Chinese have already grown food on the Moon as part of the Chang’e-4 mission in 2019. In fact, the Chinese are sort of obsessed with growing food in space: according to Bloomberg they’ve been sending seeds to space since 1987. Nevertheless, the first food grown - and eaten - on the Moon will be plain old, easy-to-grow, red leaf lettuce.

What are your predictions for lunar development? Share them with me on Twitter @CuriousCosm0.

Have a great week!