Matthew Loh's report by Business Insider on April 18, 2024
Photo: Current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Capitol Hill on April 21, 2021.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Wednesday accused China of secretly carrying out a military program in space.
Nelson told lawmakers that NASA believes the Chinese government is covering up the projects as civilian.
Nelson often warned that if China landed on the moon first, the consequences would be dire. The U.S. aims to achieve this by 2026.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson warned on Wednesday that China is passing off military activities in space as civilian programs and reiterated that the United States is in a "race" with the Chinese government to get on the moon in the 21st century.
Speaking to members of the House Appropriations Committee at the 2024 budget hearing, Nelson said: "China has made extraordinary progress, especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very mysterious".
Nelson continued: "We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space projects are military projects. I think, actually, we're in a race."
Nelson said this against the backdrop of proposing to lawmakers the agency's $25.4 billion budget, which is just under 0.4% of the U.S. government's total $6.5 trillion budget for 2024.
For years, he and other NASA officials have stressed that they fear that China may try to bully other countries in space if it establishes dominance in space, especially the moon.
"My concern is if China gets there first and all of a sudden it says, 'Okay, this is our territory, don't meddle,'" Nelson said.
NASA Administrator secretly guides the Spat Islands, an archipelago in the South China Sea that is claimed by several countries. China has sought to assert sovereignty over the islands, claiming all of the territory within the "nine-dash line" that spans most of the sea.
The U.S. goal is to land astronauts on the moon for the Artemis mission by September 2026. Most of the U.S. allies with space ambitions have signed an international agreement, the Artemis Accords, which outlines the principles of space exploration, such as the public sharing of collected information.
China and Russia did not sign the agreement, but signed the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the installation of weapons and military bases in space.
The Chinese government has said it hopes to complete the first manned mission to the moon by 2030, becoming the second country in the world to land on the moon. It also plans to build a base on lunar soil within the next five years.
However, speaking to lawmakers on Wednesday, Nelson said China could accelerate its plans to close the four-year gap between its moon landing program and NASA's moon landing program.
"The latest moon date they're saying is 2030, but that date has been moving forward," Nelson said. So I think it's our responsibility to get there first and use our research work for peaceful purposes."
"Their science is good, their engineering is good, and they've now built a space station on it, and that's the best proof of that," Nelson added.
At the same time, China has repeatedly denied its intention to establish any military presence in outer space. China's ambassador to the United Nations said in 2021 that "a space war cannot be won and must never be fought".