I'm John Batchel with my colleague and co-host and friend David Livingston

Doctor Space of the space show.

And we're very pleased to welcome our colleague Douglas Messier of many years,

reporting on the Artemis 23, 4, and 5. Two ins in front of us, 3, 4, and 5. But at the same time,

everybody's looking over their shoulder. Something is gaining on you. It's the Chinese space program.

Doug, the vision that Jared Isaacman, the new administrator, the astronaut, the jet pilot, the

spacewalker has, is more than two men landing on the moon, one man walking around, two men

walking around, getting on a dune buggy riding around,

playing golf, much more than that. That describes the high points and fun points of the

early Apollo mission. He wants a mission that establishes a base to be replenished every six

months and that base to grow into, I guess,

what you'd have to say is a colony,

but an outpost.

Is that also the Chinese ambition, the same thing,

a landing, a base, a colony?

Yes, that's exactly that.

They've teamed with Russia actually to plan a mood base at the South Pole, and they're aiming to land before 2030, and then during the 2030s and to build a permanent base there. And China's space program is surging.

Russia's has been sort of flat and not very innovative over the last decade or so, even before that.

So Russia is likely to be the junior partner in that.

The US base, right now we're partnered with Japan,

Canada, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates, they were contributing technology and components to a lunar gateway.

It would have been a space station circling the moon.

...