CROUCHED in an area of permanent shadow, the soldier looks out over a聽landscape of craters and dust in a聽thousand shades of grey. A few kilometres away, the enemy鈥檚 transportation buggy is parked in what they must have thought was a discrete location. But as they should have learned in training, tracking enemies is easier on the moon because tyre marks aren鈥檛 eroded by the elements. Now all聽it will take is a squeeze of the trigger.
For now, scenes like this are, of course, distant science fiction. But it is fair to say military organisations are keeping an increasingly watchful eye on the moon. The US, Russia and China 鈥� competing powers on Earth 鈥� have ambitions to send missions back to the moon in the next decade or so. They will聽all be heading for roughly the same place:聽the moon鈥檚 south polar region, with its聽precious resources, such as water ice. Even聽before that, these nations have been sending up a steady stream of satellites.
What would the military鈥檚 role be on the moon?
With this renewed push for the moon, and聽the lucrative returns that might result, military interest is inevitably following. 鈥淭he United States is certainly aware the moon could have tremendous long-term economic potential,鈥� says , a defence expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, a US think tank. 鈥淭he military doesn鈥檛 want an outpost to be threatened due to the lack of a sheriff.鈥� Yet even in these tentative early stages, there are concerns that military activity could snowball. If we are to return to the moon, how much of a role, if any, are we comfortable with the armed forces playing?
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US military interest in lunar space dates back to the dawn of the space age. In 1959, the US Army proposed a crewed military outpost on the moon called Project Horizon. Notions of such bases, as well as nuclear testing on the moon, had supporters during the cold war too.
Those proposals never gained traction, but recently there has been more concrete interest and action. The US and Chinese militaries have spoken about conducting surveillance beyond Earth orbit for years, says space policy expert Bleddyn Bowen at the University of Leicester, UK. This would include things like using satellites to track debris from rockets in order to prevent collisions between spacecraft in lunar orbit. 鈥淚f the moon is going to be a busier place, you鈥檙e going to need more infrastructure to support it,鈥� he says.
Evidence for this came in March, when a聽discarded rocket booster, believed to be of聽Chinese origin, hit the moon, having been untracked for years following its launch in 2014. 鈥淓ventually there聽will be astronauts on聽the moon,鈥� says , a space tracking expert at the University of Arizona. 鈥淭he chance is very small of them getting hit by something. But we鈥檝e clearly seen that it is聽a聽possibility.鈥� Part of the military鈥檚 role in relation to the moon could be preventing such聽accidental impacts.
The US Space Force
The US Space Force, the sixth branch of the country鈥檚 military that was founded in 2019, is聽now taking action on this. In March, it announced it was developing the satellite in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory. The plan is for this craft to test聽technologies to track objects up to and聽beyond聽the orbit of the moon for the聽first聽time. Prototype proposals have been聽submitted, with a contract due to be awarded聽to a manufacturing company soon.
Experts agree that tracking of this sort will be useful. But it is 鈥渘ot clear why this has to be聽the military and not a civilian programme鈥�, says astronomer at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Having the US military involved in our聽future on the moon could lead to a scenario where the forces of other countries, such as China, feel the need to escalate their activity. There was an incident earlier this year聽in which in a geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometres above Earth came into close contact and manoeuvred to get a better look at each other.
鈥淵ou鈥檝e got the US and China each casting suspicions about what the other might do,鈥� says Brian Weeden at the Secure World Foundation, a US think tank that promotes the聽peaceful use of space. 鈥淭hat is going to send exactly the wrong signal.鈥�
Only the US appears to have made public its聽lunar military ambitions so far, though. 鈥淣o one else has expressed a military interest in the moon,鈥� says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, US. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a danger that the rhetoric that the US military is playing with will generate military interest in the moon where there really is no need for it.鈥�
How China鈥檚 military is involved in space
While Russia has been relatively lacklustre聽in terms of moon exploration lately,聽China is聽generating concern among some Western聽observers. China鈥檚 ongoing lunar programme聽鈥� which has included sending a rover to the far side of the moon聽鈥� has already raised some red flags, says Garretson, with the West struggling to figure聽out what to make of the intentions of聽a聽civilian-built but military-run effort.
China鈥檚 equivalent of NASA is the China National Space Administration, a civilian organisation. But the body actually in charge of human space flight is the China Manned Space Engineering Office, which is part of the military. Similarly, infrastructure such as launchpads and satellites are mostly run by the People鈥檚 Liberation Army. China has also recently sent up a communications satellite called Queqiao and Garretson says this could be used for military applications.
Further in the future, the US envisages a more established presence on the moon, including business ventures. By that time, a military presence may be unavoidable, says Garretson. 鈥淭he intent is to make sure we have eyes in that area and ensure freedom of operations, in order to deter anybody from thinking they could get away with some level of coercion, or blockade, or that sort of thing.鈥�
Others want to see more open discourse between the US and China. 鈥淚 am worried that the lack of communication and the inclination to assume the worst is potentially going to聽create a bad situation,鈥� says Weeden.
We are unlikely to see troops on the moon any time soon. But within a decade, it is feasible that US and Chinese astronauts will be simultaneously operating there in close proximity, near to the south pole. Perhaps there will be valuable mining robots from other nations and companies too. 鈥淭his is a good time to be figuring out how we鈥檙e going to make this work,鈥� says McDowell. 鈥淏efore it gets too fractious.鈥�
