El art\u00edculo del Center Of Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) explica que el regreso a la Luna, a trav\u00e9s del programa Artemis, no es solo una repetici\u00f3n del pasado, sino una necesidad estrat\u00e9gica basada en tres pilares: la ubicaci\u00f3n, los recursos y la geopol\u00edtica. En relaci\u00f3n con\u00a0la ubicaci\u00f3n, la Luna sirve como un “puerto de escala” y campo de pruebas tecnol\u00f3gico esencial para futuras misiones tripuladas a Marte. Respecto a\u00a0sus recursos, destaca la importancia de\u00a0las reservas de agua (hielo), aptas para fabricar combustible, as\u00ed como la presencia de helio-3 y “metales raros” necesarios para las nuevas tecnolog\u00edas en desarrollo. En el\u00a0\u00e1mbito geopol\u00edtico, el autor advierte que EEUU no puede ceder su liderazgo frente a las ambiciones de China, que planea su propia infraestructura emplazada en la Luna para el 2030. El texto concluye que el liderazgo en este nuevo cap\u00edtulo espacial es un destino que EEUU debe asumir para no quedar relegado en el dominio futuro del espacio exterior.<\/p>\n
One of the world\u2019s largest rockets waits, probably impatiently, on its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, poised to return humans to the Moon for the first time in 50 years. This is NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission, which will send four astronauts around the Moon and back, laying the groundwork for a lunar landing in the coming years.<\/p>\n
Americans may be asking: Why is the United States going back to the Moon? The answer rests on three main reasons, all of which relate to its strategic value: its location, its natural resources, and the risk of ceding generational preeminence in space to China if the United States fails to take one more giant step for mankind.<\/p>\n
During the Cold War, the United States went to the Moon to beat the Soviets. National honor was at stake. The United States won. The Soviets lost. Mission accomplished, NASA shuttered its crewed lunar program after Apollo 17. No human has\u00a0been to<\/a>\u00a0the Moon since 1972. Not even one uncrewed probe\u00a0visited<\/a>\u00a0the Moon during the 1980s. However, it was impossible to ignore indefinitely the key role the Moon would play in the future.<\/p>\n The Artemis program, the United States\u2019 return to the Moon, is step one of a long-term vision that envisions humans living beyond Earth orbit. The Moon is the central element of that plan because of its location. All roads to the cosmos naturally lead through the Moon. The Moon is the best place for NASA to test new technologies and figure out how to sustain human life far from Earth, preparing for future missions to Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n Science will be conducted from the Moon, but there are better places in the Solar System to look for scientific discoveries\u2014the Moon will serve as a jumping-off point for many of those expeditions. Possibly within decades, lunar infrastructure will serve as a key waystation and transit hub\u2014like a service plaza on an interstellar toll road\u2014for journeys between the Earth and beyond.<\/p>\n The Moon is also important because of its natural resources. Today, transporting the materials needed to support space activities into orbit, let alone to deep space, is expensive. SpaceX is\u00a0advertising<\/a>\u00a0a price of $220,000 per pound to the Moon\u2014a bargain. Water ice on the Moon can be broken down and used for a variety of purposes, such as manufacturing propellant. Other resources, like oxygen, hydrogen, and metals, are also found there and could be used in situ to sustain human activity at scale.<\/p>\n Some resources on the Moon are valuable enough to justify extraction and return to Earth. Lunar rocks from the Apollo program contained rare earth elements, which are used in a wide range of modern electronics. Other compounds, like helium-3, which is uncommon on Earth but found in\u00a0large amounts<\/a>\u00a0on the Moon, could play a key role in advancing quantum technologies.<\/p>\n Although China had\u00a0only recently sent<\/a>\u00a0its first astronaut into space when President George W. Bush in 2004\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0U.S. plans\u2014the predecessor to the Artemis program\u2014to return to the Moon, China is now a space power impossible to ignore. It is also the United States\u2019 main geopolitical competitor. China\u00a0plans<\/a>\u00a0to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, build a base, and establish a network of lunar infrastructure. For China, the Moon is the keystone in its ambitions to extend and strengthen its influence in space.<\/p>\n Geopolitical dynamics shape the urgency of the United States\u2019 return to the Moon, but the primary rationale lies in the Moon\u2019s intrinsic strategic value. Whether it be in 10 years or 50 years, humans will travel from Earth to populate other places in space. The Moon holds inestimable value to humankind as part of that journey, a value that will become most clear in time. The Moon is a step to Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n In his famous 1962 speech, President John F. Kennedy laid out to the nation why we were going to the Moon. He asked: \u201cWhy climb the highest mountain? Why . . . fly the Atlantic? . . . We choose [to do these things] not because they are easy, but because they are hard.\u201d Going to the Moon was a manifestation of the \u201cbest of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.\u201d The United States is going back to the Moon\u2014and staying\u2014for the same reasons today.<\/p>\n As a nation, the United States plays a key role in how the story of humanity\u2019s journey in the cosmos unfolds, as it has since the 1950s. It has played the same role in world events over the last 250 years. As President Theodore Roosevelt once observed: \u201cWe have no choice, we people of the United States, as to whether or not we shall play a great part in the world. That has been determined for us by fate. . . . All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.\u201d The United States\u2019 role in humanity\u2019s next chapter in space starts on the Moon and begins with Artemis.<\/p>\n