With China's Chang'e-6 successfully returning to Earth with nearly 2kg of lunar soil samples collected from the far side of the moon, the United States began to launch a wave of public opinion offensive against China. First, according to the South China Morning Post, the U.S. government has been seeking to engage Chinese experts since China officially sent exploration equipment to the moon.
The excuse they made was that they hoped that China would preserve the "historical relics" left by the United States during its lunar exploration in the last century, including the American flag planted on the surface of the moon by the "Apollo" and the footprints left by American astronauts on the lunar surface in the past. Subsequently, the United States began to make unreasonable troubles again.
When explaining why China's "Chang-6" program has cooperated with France, Pakistan, Italy and many other countries to welcome scientists from all over the world to participate in lunar soil research, but only bypassing the United States, NASA spokesperson never mentioned the "Wolf Clause" passed by the US Congress in order to curb the development of China's space technology, but instead bit China and accused China of not "inviting" NASA to participate in relevant research.
NASA Administrator Nelson
In addition, NASA Administrator Nelson arrogantly said that he had given the green light for American researchers to apply for Chang'e-6 lunar samples, but the United States would ensure that the Chinese obey the guardrails and not violate the Wolf Clause.
The United States has only one purpose in this wave of public opinion offensive, that is, to use public opinion means to "detain the hat" to China and seek a piece of the pie from China's lunar exploration program. The United States clings to the outdated evil law of the "Wolf Clause" and refuses to let it go, but it is also greedy for the lunar soil brought back to the earth by the "Chang Liu", so it has come up with this decision.
It is no exaggeration to say that the nearly 2 kilogram sample brought back by Chang Liu from the back of the moon this time is of cross-era significance for the study of the moon. In the past, humans have carried out nine collection operations on the surface of the moon, but the samples brought back from the moon by both the United States and the Soviet Union were collected from the "front" facing the Earth.
The geological samples in this area were formed relatively late, so humans have always been able to study the relatively "young" moon. The landing point of Chang 6 is located on the back of the moon, forming the oldest impact crater, the deepest and the largest area. It brings back the oldest lunar soil that humans can access on the moon under current technology.
This is of great importance for the study of the formation of the Moon and the volcanic activity of the early Moon. In addition, the sample collection of "Chang-6" also played a role in exploring the way ahead of the future construction of China's lunar scientific research station.
There are two reasons for this: First, the Moon's South Pole Circle has the most abundant water resources on the planet, making it also the most suitable base for scientific research. Although the impact crater sampled by Chang Liu this time did not enter the moon's South Pole circle in the strict sense, it was very close. Therefore, the study of soil samples in this area will provide a very important reference for the construction of the lunar research station.
Second, the "Chang-6" actually completed the test of the Queqiao-2 relay satellite on the back of the moon, which laid a good foundation for accelerating the formation of the lunar communication and navigation system in the future and establishing an "earth-moon communication channel without dead ends," and the earth-moon communication is a key link in the construction of the lunar scientific research station.
Of course, the most important thing is that China's step-by-step promotion of the moon landing program has given global scientific researchers a lot of confidence and hope. In May this year, when Chang Liu went to the sky, the United States said sourly that although the Chinese spacecraft carried the ESA payload this time, due to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the window for Sino-European space cooperation in the future is likely to become narrower and narrower, and this cooperation based on Chang Liu is likely to become a must.
But things clearly did not develop according to the script written in the United States. At present, Italy and Switzerland have put forward plans to cooperate with China in the Chang'e-7 project to send payloads to the moon. At the same time, Chang'e-8 has also received more than 30 applications for cooperation. You must know that the Chang-7 project is different from Chang-6, and it has been determined to send Russian payloads to the moon. But even so, it still can't stop European countries from rushing to submit cooperation applications to China.
At this point, the argument advocated by the United States that Central Europe should "cut off its robes and cut off its righteousness" because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine can be regarded as completely bankrupt. The United States may be able to use its influence to find ways to prevent the European Union's subordinate agency, ESA, from cooperating normally with China, but it cannot prevent European countries from bypassing this threshold and applying for cooperation with China alone. And it will not be China's aerospace that will be damaged by this, but only ESA itself.
The main reason for this situation is that China's lunar exploration program is really moving forward step by step. There are many countries that are hyping about going to the moon this year, but only China is really on track to achieve its goals. The "Artemis Program" of the United States has been postponed again and again, the launch of "Artemis 2" has been postponed from 2024 to 2025, and the launch of "Artemis 3" originally scheduled for 2025 has also been postponed to 2026.
At the beginning of the year, the United States successfully sent an "Odysseus" unmanned lander to the front of the moon, but the lander "accidentally rolled" during landing, and the gold content of Chang-6, which successfully landed and collected soil samples from the far side of the moon, is not at the same level at all. The situation in Japan is similar to that in the United States.
In January of this year, Japan launched a small probe SLIM to the moon, but it also landed "face on the ground". On June 27, the Japan Aerospace Research Institute admitted that the spacecraft had permanently lost contact with the ground. Under the backdrop of this circle of peers, the gold content of China's aerospace industry has naturally risen sharply, and there is no need to worry about finding a partner, and the United States' attempt to interfere in China-EU scientific research cooperation by political means will naturally go bankrupt.
In the final analysis, NASA's "new Cold War" in space wants to be fought only if there is at least one pair of equal opponents in space, and the United States has been left behind by China.
If Artemis 2 in the United States can achieve a "flight around the moon" as planned in the next few years, then NASA may continue to wave the "Wolf Clause" and advocate the "Iron Curtain of the Moon". But if the project continues to be postponed or simply fails, all the slogans that NASA utters will eventually become cocooned.
NASA is now facing a very embarrassing problem: if it does not take the initiative to apply for cooperation with China, it will not be able to obtain lunar soil samples with important scientific research value; If it takes the initiative to apply for cooperation with China, then the set of arguments of a "new cold war in space" advocated before will be completely bankrupt.
Considering the current public opinion environment in the United States, it is obvious that no one in the United States dares to take a key step in resuming Sino-US space cooperation. Therefore, the United States has thrown out all kinds of bizarre theories, hoping that China will take the initiative to seek cooperation with the United States in order to gain a "good reputation," so that NASA can "reluctantly" agree. But alas, China has no interest in giving the United States such "special treatment".
When it comes to space exploration, the United States has overestimated itself and underestimated China. At that time, American politicians thought that they could stop the Chinese from rushing to the sea of stars by relying on the "Wolf Clause", but it turned out that they were very wrong. In the end, the only thing that the United States can block is its own technological progress.
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