The Space Race of the 2020s

Is there a Space Race happening right now? Some people doubt it. Having followed global space exploration developments closely for over three decades — and having worked within the Mars Society since 1998 — I see overwhelming evidence that not one but multiple space races are underway simultaneously. Here is the case, organized by destination.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally written in April 2019. Inline updates have been added where significant developments have occurred since publication.]

The Moon

Humans landed on the Moon first in 1969 and last in 1972, but the Apollo program explored a remarkably narrow slice of the lunar surface: only six landing sites, all clustered on the near-side at mid-latitudes. While historic, none of these sites targeted the most scientifically compelling locations we know of today.

The discovery of water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole — confirmed by NASA’s LCROSS mission in 2009 — changed the calculus entirely. Water ice is not just scientifically interesting; it is a resource. Through electrolysis, water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, providing both breathable air and rocket propellant. This means a lunar south pole base could theoretically refuel spacecraft for deeper solar system missions, making the Moon a waypoint rather than a dead end.

The far side of the Moon is equally compelling. Shielded from Earth’s radio emissions by the Moon’s bulk, it is the quietest place in the inner solar system for radio astronomy — an ideal location for detecting faint signals from the early universe. China’s Chang’e 4 mission landed a robotic lander and rover on the far side in January 2019, the first mission to do so. During that mission, they also germinated the first plants on the lunar surface.

In 2019, Vice President Mike Pence announced an accelerated NASA goal to return humans to the Moon by 2024 and land on the lunar south pole. [Update: This directive evolved into the Artemis program. Artemis I completed an uncrewed lunar orbit in 2022. Artemis II, carrying astronauts on a lunar flyby, is in preparation. The timeline for a crewed landing has shifted, but the program’s south pole targeting and Gateway orbital station remain core architecture.]

Key milestones for the lunar race:

1. Land the first human on the Moon since 1972.
2. Land the first woman on the Moon.
3. Land a mission (human or robotic) on the lunar south pole for the first time.
4. Put a permanent space station in orbit around the Moon. (NASA’s Lunar Gateway plan is one example.)
5. Land a large cargo on the Moon for the first time. (Also something NASA is quickly working towards.)
6. Land a mission on the far-side, in response to China’s Chang’e 4.

And finally, something that has been dreamed of and discussed since the 1950s:

7. Create a permanent human base on the Moon.

All of these are real goals being actively worked toward today.

Mars

In my view, there is no greater challenge for modern technical civilization than sending the first human mission to Mars. It is a goal that would inspire the world to achieve even more audacious things in its wake.

Mars is uniquely suited among all other bodies in the solar system to host human life and eventually a technological civilization. It has surface gravity (38% of Earth’s) — enough to potentially support long-term human health, though this remains unproven. It has an atmosphere (95% carbon dioxide, with traces of nitrogen and argon) that, while unbreathable, provides raw materials for producing oxygen and methane fuel through chemical processing. Mars has abundant water ice at its poles and subsurface, a day-night cycle of 24 hours and 37 minutes, and — perhaps surprisingly — a total land area approximately equal to Earth’s, since our planet is mostly ocean.

However, Mars presents formidable challenges. The planet’s distance from Earth means communication delays of 4 to 24 minutes one-way, making real-time mission control impossible. Launch windows to Mars occur only every 26 months when Earth and Mars reach favorable orbital alignment, meaning resupply missions cannot simply be dispatched on demand. Any crew that lands on Mars is effectively on their own for extended periods — which makes pre-positioned supplies and In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) essential.

ISRU refers to the use of local resources to produce what a mission needs. On Mars, the most promising ISRU application is the Sabatier reaction: combining carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere with hydrogen to produce methane (CH₄) and water (H₂O). The methane serves as rocket propellant for the return trip, and the water provides drinking water and can be electrolyzed into breathable oxygen. This approach — producing return fuel on Mars rather than carrying it from Earth — was first articulated in Dr. Robert Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan and is now the baseline architecture for SpaceX’s Starship.

Mars is a clear destination for human space exploration. Wernher von Braun had a credible plan for sending humans to Mars immediately after Apollo, but it was not funded by the Nixon administration, which chose to build the Space Shuttle instead. Dr. Zubrin presented Mars Direct in 1989 during a period when NASA had a presidential mandate to reach Mars from George H.W. Bush, but it was never seriously funded.

Yet there is clear evidence that a human Mars race is underway.

China built a $500 million Mars analog research station in the Gobi Desert, apparently in response to the Mars Society and NASA’s analog research programs. SpaceX is building the Starship and Super Heavy launch system, powered by the Raptor engine — a full-flow staged combustion cycle engine running on methane and liquid oxygen, designed specifically for Mars missions. [Update: Starship has since completed multiple test flights, including successful booster catch maneuvers. The system remains the only launch vehicle architecture currently in development with the payload capacity required for crewed Mars missions.]

Key milestones for a Mars race:

1. Land the first human on Mars.
2. Fly by Mars with a human crew for the first time.
3. Orbit Mars with a human crew for the first time.
4. Land a mission (human or robotic) on the moons of Mars: Phobos and Deimos.
5. Land a large cargo mission on Mars — to begin ISRU production of oxygen and methane propellant from indigenous resources.
6. Return the first samples from Mars. [Update: NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting and caching sample tubes on the Martian surface since 2021. The Mars Sample Return mission architecture continues to evolve.]
7. Grow the first plants on Mars. [Update: Our MDRS Crew 261 mission successfully grew tomato seedlings in Mars regolith simulant using spirulina biostimulants — a step toward validating Martian agriculture. The research was subsequently published in Nature.]

And finally, to complete our settlement of a new world:

8. Create a permanent human base on Mars.

The Mars Society has been developing and testing the operational concepts for a permanent base through our analog research program for over two decades.

The Outer Planets, Moons, and Trans-Neptunian Objects

The outer solar system presents its own set of compelling targets.

In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe completed the first flyby of Pluto, revealing a geologically active world with nitrogen glaciers, mountains of water ice, and a thin atmosphere. The spacecraft subsequently flew past Arrokoth (formerly Ultima Thule), the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft and the first confirmed contact binary observed up close.

Europa, one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, may be the most scientifically important destination in the solar system after Mars. Beneath a shell of ice estimated at 10–30 kilometers thick lies a global saltwater ocean containing roughly twice the volume of all Earth’s oceans combined. This ocean is kept liquid by tidal heating — the gravitational flexing of Europa’s interior caused by its orbital resonance with Jupiter and the other Galilean moons. If hydrothermal vents exist on Europa’s ocean floor, as they do on Earth’s, they could provide the chemical energy and mineral-rich environments where life might originate independently of sunlight. [Update: NASA’s Europa Clipper mission launched in October 2024 and is en route to conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa’s ice shell and ocean.]

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is in many ways a mirror of early Earth. It is the only body in the solar system besides Earth with stable liquid on its surface — though the liquid is methane and ethane rather than water. Its thick nitrogen atmosphere (1.5 times Earth’s surface pressure) supports a methane cycle analogous to Earth’s water cycle, with methane rain, rivers, and seas. Understanding Titan’s atmospheric chemistry offers direct insights into prebiotic chemistry and the processes that may have led to life on Earth. The Huygens probe landed on Titan in 2005 as part of the Cassini mission but functioned for only 90 minutes on the surface. [Update: NASA’s Dragonfly mission — a nuclear-powered rotorcraft lander — is in development to explore Titan’s surface and atmosphere, with a planned launch in the late 2020s.]

Enceladus, another of Saturn’s moons, has geysers erupting from its south pole that spray water ice and organic molecules into space — direct samples from a subsurface ocean, delivered without the need to drill.

Key milestones for the outer solar system:

1. Put an orbiter around Europa for the first time.
2. Land the first robotic probe on Europa.
3. Drill into the Europan ice crust and explore the global ocean with robotic probes.
4. Put orbiters around the other large moons of Jupiter (Ganymede, Io, and Callisto).
5. Land a probe on those other large moons of Jupiter.
6. Put an orbiter around Titan.
7. Deploy a long-duration lander on the surface of Titan.
8. Put an orbiter around Enceladus.
9. Land on Enceladus.
10. Land on Pluto or Charon.
11. Explore the other large Trans-Neptunian Objects: Eris (which is more massive than Pluto), Makemake, Quaoar, Orcus, Sedna, Varuna, and Haumea.

Our solar system has far more to explore than we have yet attempted — in many ways, we are just getting started.

Conclusion

Not only is there one Space Race happening right now — there are many, running in parallel across multiple destinations and involving nation-states, private companies, and international partnerships. The Artemis Accords, signed by over 40 nations as of 2025, establish a framework for cooperative lunar exploration, while commercial competition between SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others drives launch costs down and cadence up.

A Space Race does not necessarily need to be adversarial. If another nation reaches Mars before the United States, I will feel a moment of national disappointment but also genuine admiration for the achievement. I have been working toward that goal through the Mars Society for over two decades. I will support any country, company, or organization that pursues these milestones.

The greatest benefit of exploring our solar system may not be the resources we find or the science we conduct, but the perspective we gain — a clearer understanding of how rare and precious our home planet is, and the motivation to take better care of it.