Robert Bigelow, a Los Angeles real estate baron turned space entrepreneur, understands the stakes involved with lunar colonization. It’s not just about exploration and scientific discovery. It’s not just about development of new power sources. It’s about geopolitical supremacy. If we don’t get a foothold on the Moon and the Chinese do, the United States is toast.
At a NASA conference today on the International Space Station, he predicted that his company’s first two space habitats would be ready for launch by 2020, reports Quartz. Bigelow expressed his hope that NASA would deploy them on the Moon.
“There’s no time to lose,” said Bigelow, CEO of Made in Space. China has lunar ambitions. If it gets there first, it will be able to impose its own rules on what is still a legal grey area. He made a similar argument in a Senate hearing earlier this year. As reported by Quartz, he said:
“China is very pre-disposed to ownership, whether its creating the islands in South China Sea, properties in massive quantities that they’ve purchased in South America or Africa, whether you open a [foreign subsidiary in China] and can only own 49% of it,” he said. “China could exercise an effort to start to lay claim to certain lunar territories. I don’t think it’s a joke, I don’t think it’s something to be cavalier about. Such an ownership consequence would have an amazing impact on the image of China vis-a-vis the United States and the rest of the world, if they should own large amounts of territory on that body, if we stood back and we were not prepared.”
Bigelow elaborated the theme in a series of cartoons that explore a future scenario in which Congress yawns, the Chinese act, and Chinese development of lunar metals and He-3 give them a dominating economic advantage back on Earth.
Bacon’s bottom line: Economic domination is only part of the story. A presence on the Moon will allow the U.S, China, and other Earthly powers to service satellites, solar collectors, Near Earth Orbit manufacturing, and orbiting battle stations.
He who dominates the Moon dominates cis-lunar space. He who dominates cis-lunar space dominates the Earth.