Space race tightening for the spoils of the moon

THE successful 10-day Artemis II mission earlier this month, in which the Orion spacecraft went around the dark side of the moon, marks another event in the tightening space race between the US and China.

 It was America’s first successful moon mission since the Apollo series in the 1970s.

Beijing is pushing ahead with its own plans to set up an unmanned research base station on the moon by next year, eight years earlier than previously scheduled.