Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK.

I'm Del Irani. It's great to have your company.

A new global space race appears to be taking off, with many countries racing to the moon.

In May this year, China launched a mission to retrieve rocks from the far side of the moon, a world first attempt.

In the US, NASA continues to promote its Artemis program to send humans back to the moon as early as 2026,

while India and Japan became the fourth and fifth countries, respectively, to successfully land spacecrafts on the moon.

So, why has the moon become such a focal point in space exploration?

And how is the emergence of Asian countries like China, Japan and India,

changing the landscape of space exploration?

Well, joining us now to discuss this further is Scott Pace.

He's a longtime space policy expert, who served as Executive Secretary of the National Space Council,

which advises and assists the US President on national space policy and strategy.

He served there from 2017 to 2020, and he joins us now.

Welcome to the program, Dr. Scott Pace.

Great to have you with us.

Great to be here. Thank you.

So, why has the moon become such a focal point in this new global space race?

Well, the moon has always been kind of a next logical step.

After we went to the moon in 1969, we went a few times thereafter, and then we largely stopped.

But what's happened today is the interest in the moon is rising

because we have a much more globalized space community, many more countries are now involved,

a much more democratized space community, private industry is now involved in it.

And so all of them, I think, are looking toward what the next challenge is.

We're already doing quite a bit in space today.

So, the GPS in your iPhone, the weather images you get on the evening news,

the remote sensing images that deal with everything from crops, to shipping transportation,

we are very, very reliant on space today.

We've spent over 20 years, almost 24 years now,

aboard the International Space Station, permanently occupying a facility in low Earth orbit.

And the moon is proving to be a way of bringing countries and industry together.

When you're talking about this sort of new era of global space race;

how do you see the competition, particularly between the US and China?

Well, it is a competition.

But I would take issue with the idea that it's race.

In the case of the Cold War, when we raced the Soviet Union to the moon,

there was kind of a fixed destination, and there was an endpoint and then it was over.

We won. That was it.

What you're looking at with China today, is really a very long term, very sustained competition.

It's not a race.

But it's one to be - what country is going to be shaping the rules and the norms, how we behave in space.

And there's an old adage from history that rules are created by people who show up,

not by people who stay behind.

And when we go into space, it is not merely our astronauts or robots that go into space, it's really our values.

And the values that I think a lot of what we call like-minded countries, including Japan,

share are things like democracy, rule of law, human rights, market economies, and so forth.

And those are not shared by everybody.

And so, if there's going to be a human future in space, you ask the question as - Really?

Well, then what kind of values and what kind of culture will those humans have?

And that will be determined by the people who show up,

not by people who may stay - just stay and watch.

In your opinion, what are the biggest concerns or fears that you may have about China's space program?

I mean, what are some of the benefits? But what are the drawbacks as well for the world?

That's a great question.

So, in many respects, what we see China doing is building weapons systems gear to target

US military capabilities that they recognize that we are very reliant on.

And we use space systems for our military and have done so for decades.

So that's, of course, something that they want to hold at risk and are potentially are threats to.

Their civil and their scientific activities, I think are actually quite, quite interesting.

And I think there's even areas for potential cooperation with them.

You know, space cooperation, things like exchanging lunar samples with each other or exchanging biomedical data,

or exchanging information about space traffic, is something that you could imagine us doing.

But the primary threat from China is not Chinese scientists, or even really even Chinese companies.

The primary threat is the way China behaves in other forms.

So, you look at how China behaves in the South China Sea, you look at their behavior in Tibet,

you look at their behavior in Hong Kong, you look at their behavior in cyberspace.

So, every area where we have kind of a shared domain, where other countries operate.

China has not been a good player.

And so, I think people are worried that that kind of behavior

that they exhibit in other areas is going to be showing up in space.

You mentioned that the players can have a say in it?

What do you mean by China could potentially be a part of setting the rules of what happens in outer space?

Well, for example, both of us are looking at the South Pole of the Moon.

The South Pole of the Moon is not an area that anybody has been to.

It's an area where there might be water ice, trapped in craters that have been there for billions of years.

And that would be very interesting for sustaining operations, sustaining a lunar base, even making fuel.

So, the question is, if we're both operating in the South Pole,

just as if we were operating, say in Antarctica, how close can we put our bases to each other without interfering?

So, if you think about a rocket landing on the South Pole of the Moon,

and the rocket engine is coming closer and closer to the surface,

it throws up lots of dust and rocks and flings them across the landscape, quite dangerous.

We need to have discussions with each other as to what technically makes sense,

how big the landing zones need to be, for safety reasons, how close we can be to each other.

How do we operate? Again, as we've operated in Antarctica, without harmful interference to each other.

You were the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council and in this role, as I mentioned earlier,

you were responsible for advising the US President on space policy.

It was during your time in this role that I believe the Artemis program was being discussed.

What are the type of discussions going on?

What were you guys talking about?

Well, I think one of the things, the idea of going back to the moon and going on to Mars is something that

NASA, of course, had always been thinking about, you know, for a long time.

But simply because the space agency wants to do something isn't always a reason why it'll happen.

There has to be other larger national reasons.

In the case of Kennedy saying, let's go to the moon, he did it as part of a political competition.

It wasn't really a scientific or technical issue.

It was really a political competition.

I think one of the things that was recognized in the last administration,

this reality that space had become more globalized, it had become more democratized.

And at the same time that we have become really, really dependent on space.

But space is a region that we don't control.

We can't put a flag on it.

We can't put a fence around it.

Well, one of the things you do, is you convince other sovereign countries that they want to be with you.

One of the things we used to say in the in the Trump administration is America first doesn't mean America alone.

It means having partners, it means having both commercial and international partners to shape that environment together.

So, I think the way we looked at it is one, it was, yes, national leadership and prestige on part of the United States.

But it was also a way of securing our own interests, by having other countries voluntarily want to work with us.

Why did the United States choose Japan as a partner in this program?

And in particular, give, you know, the opportunity for a Japanese astronaut to be one of the few people

that gets to land on the moon?

Well, I would point out that we've always had international partners for a long time.

We've had international partners on Space Station,

we've had Japanese astronauts on Space Station, we've had Japanese astronauts as the Commander of the Space Station.

We will have a Canadian astronaut who will fly around the moon with an American crew coming up.

But what you see in the case of the Japanese commitment,

the Japanese made a stronger, earlier, sizable commitment to working with us.

And we appreciate that.

And basically, countries that help us get to lunar orbit, we're going to help them get to lunar orbit.

Countries that help us get to the moon, we're going to help them get to the moon.

So, it really reflects Japan's own decisions about how it wants to be part of shaping the rules of this new environment.

What we're looking for from Japan, one is we want them to help us, you know, get to the moon, and to be part of Artemis,

but we're also looking for Japan to encourage its private industry to help it grow

and be a stronger player in the global community.

And we're also looking for closer cooperation on security matters, separate from Artemis.

So recently, we had the summit meeting between President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida.

And out of that summit arrangement, which I think was very successful,

came commitments on closer security cooperation.

On things like missile warning satellites, as well as the lunar systems.

So, space encompasses civil, scientific, commercial, and security aspects.

And Japan is a strong partner with us in all of those, all of those areas.

And I think one of the things that came out of the National Space Council experience

is a recognition that space is more than just NASA.

It's really part of national power, all different aspects of national power,

diplomatic, military, economic, and scientific.

Let's talk about another Asian country that's really leading the way in space exploration and that's of course, India.

They made a historic landing on the moon South Pole just last August.

What type of cooperation do you see the US having with India when it comes to space exploration?

Well, India has a very broad, very capable, you know, space industry.

And of course, we'd like to see that partnered with us in terms of the Artemis program.

But the other thing you have to recognize is that, you know, India takes its non-aligned status, you know, very seriously.

It's not an ally of the United States.

It's a friend and a partner, but it's not a treaty ally.

And it wants to be non-aligned and independent.

So, it's going to be making its own choices about how far it wants to go and what it wants to do.

I think we will see a lot more cooperation with India, particularly in the manned spacecraft space program side of it.

It's probably the single most important country that we're not as strongly partnered with today,

as we probably will be in the future.

Probably Korea's another one that will be a stronger partner in the future.

But actually, I think Japan-India cooperation, will see remarkable growth.

Japan and India have a very close, long-term relationship,

they have many strategic interests in common, many commercial interests in common.

And so, I think we'll likely see, yes, we'll see growth of US-India cooperation.

But I think you'll see even more growth of India-Japanese cooperation.

What type of role, leadership role, do you see the US playing when it comes to space exploration in the future?

I think what you see the US becoming is part of a network that in the old days, you might think of it as a hub and spoke model -

where here is the US in the center and here are all these countries, you know, relating to it.

What you're seeing with more independent growth of space capabilities

is the US has maybe a central node or a central part of a network.

And we see other cooperative relationships like India-Japan, like, Korea-Japan, like Europe, also working with Asia.

We want to see a network of cooperation of people who share common values of treating each other with respect,

following rule of law, coordinating with each other, and providing for peaceful exploration.

We want to shape an international environment that's safe for exploration,

for science, for commerce, that I think is in everybody's really best interest.

So, I think the US' role is not to be the single entity in space,

but to be really the central facilitator of people with common values, being in space.

And that represents a very different world today than maybe the Cold War was in the 1960s.

Dr. Scott Pace, thank you so much for your time and insights.

We appreciate you joining us on DEEPER LOOK.

Thank you.

The new space race is just getting started.

As technologies continue to advance, this new frontier may not be as far away as we all think...

And the outcome of this new space race could have consequences for all of us here on Earth.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time on DEEPER LOOK.