Sen. Jerry Moran. CREDIT: Leigh Vogel-Pool/Getty Images
COLORADO SPRINGS: “Unfortunately, there is no doubt that we are behind in this new space race,” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., told a packed Space Symposium conference this morning.
China recently brought back samples from the Moon, making it only the third country to do so. Another probe is scheduled to go to the Moon in 2024. While few details are known about a new space agreement that Russia and the People’s Republic of Congress inked in March, they did commit to building an “international lunar scientific research station.”
Moran made clear he doesn’t think the US is hopelessly behind, but catching up will require a different acquisition model than the one that propelled America to putting the first humans on another celestial body.
“Our current acquisition model, in which the government dictates the term of a product or a mission, does not work. Government labs are decades behind those of the private sector,” he said. “So why is Washington DC still trying to direct industry to comply with government procedures? The power of the private industry, the power of private industry can only be fully realized. If government does not stand in its way.”
Moran, the lead Republican on the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, and co-chair of both the Senate Aerospace and Space Force Caucuses, is well placed to influence how much money gets spent and how.
“America’s free market economy is making swift gains as we seek to send humans further and further into space. We are now launching astronauts into space with the help of our commercial partners and, just last month, we witnessed the start of the commercialization of space,” he said. “No state sponsored economy in the world can compete with the industrial might of our private sector.”
But it was the national security importance of space that provided the core of Moran’s reasoning that America must prevail in returning humans to the Moon — and, eventually, to Mars.
“Obtaining and preserving space supremacy above our adversaries will be the enabling factor in defeating near-peer threats in coming decades. Space is already becoming the most contested warfighting domain,” he said. “I know it’s not what we wanted, but I know it’s what we face.”
The US has “laid the groundwork” to “lead in the space domain,” he added.
“We’ve worked together to reestablish the National Space Council. Witnessed the resurgence of American rockets, launched American astronauts from American soil using commercially provided launch vehicles, and established the Space Force. And we’ve called for a new era of space exploration,” Moran said in his speech. “It is imperative that we continue to build upon this foundation and ultimately move us beyond returning to the Moon and on toward new goals of landing astronauts on Mars.”
Moran’s bottom line: “I do not believe that our astronauts, upon returning to the Moon, will want to be welcomed by the Chinese and the Russians. Instead, we should be there to meet them whenever they arrive.”
