18-04-2026: On the evening of April 10, if mainstream media is to be believed, the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States of America) lunar flyby mission Artemis II splashed down off the coast of San Diego. This mission was trumpeted as the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 that humanity went “to the moon”. It contained a number of virtue signalling firsts – Victor Glover was the first person of colour to leave Earth’s orbit, while Christina Koch was the first woman to do so, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen was the first non-American.[1] Reid Wiseman was the fourth astronaut. On April 7, the Artemis II crew witnessed a solar eclipse, with the moon blocking out the sun.[2] The spacecraft took photos and video of the dark side of the moon – the side permanently in the dark when viewed from the Earth. During their 10-day trip, the crew flew 370 149 kilometres from Earth and 7403 kilometres beyond the far side of the Moon. NASA is aiming to build a $30 billion dollar base on the Moon, allowing people to study its resources and use it as a waypoint for missions to Mars.[3]

Diversion?

Despite the triumphal fanfare, and some crowds that gathered to watch the progress of the mission, the context of reaching out into space was juxtaposed with the reality of political life on Earth. For one thing, NASA has copped substantial budget cuts in recent years. At the start of last year, NASA’s overall funding was cut from $25 billion to $18.8 billion, or about 25%. This is while US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have publicly called for NASA to focus on the Red Planet over the Moon. Musk has said that “stopping at the moon simply slows down getting to Mars”.[4] Despite the neoliberal funding cuts, the Artemis II mission appears as a diversion on two fronts – the floundering imperialist US/Israeli war on the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the spectacular achievements of China’s space and lunar exploration program. The criminal regime change war of aggression on Iran, within a few weeks, has exposed the declining US hegemon in ways which are embarrassing.

Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, it is waging a devastating asymmetric war on US bases in the region and is regularly hammering Israel – though news of the damage to Israel is heavily censored. US warships have had to retreat out of missile range, and the Iranian government stands intact. Some terrible damage has been sustained by Iran, but it remains defiant, and the Iranian people have rallied to the defence of their nation and their independence. The capitalist world economy is in severe danger of entering a prolonged economic depression after fallout from Western trade being blocked by the Iranian armed forces in the Strait of Hormuz, and potentially also in the Red Sea via their Yemeni Ansar Allah allies. Oil and fuel prices are through the roof in the countries principally waging war on Iran, such as the US, Europe and Australia. In addition, supplies of fertiliser, gas, and helium which is critically needed for the manufacture of microchips are in short supply. Less than six weeks after it began, even moderate media outlets are reporting that Trump and Netanyahu’s war on Iran is a “failure on all fronts”.[5]

Chang’e space missions

The hype about Artemis II appears designed to paint the West as still being the technological superpower it was in the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet compare and contrast what Artemis II “achieved” to China’s Chang’e (the name of a Chinese moon goddess) missions to the moon. Artemis II was a drive by mission which did not even attempt to land on the Moon. Granted, it was a mission carrying humans into space. Yet, all it could to was to take photos of the dark side of the moon. In 2024, China’s Chang’e 6 mission landed on the dark side of the moon, collected samples, and returned the samples to Earth.[6] China shared parts of the moon samples with international partners for research purposes, but it was extremely difficult for researchers in the US to gain access. This is due to a law passed in the US called the Wolf Amendment, which bans bilateral cooperation between NASA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).[7] Cold war hostilities from Washington have curbed advances in its lunar research.

In 2020, China’s Chang’e 5 mission to the moon landed on the light side of the moon, collected samples and returned them for further examination. These samples are a relatively young 2 billion years old.[8] The craters and splotches seen on the surface of the Moon are part of the moon’s history when asteroids and comets slammed into the early Moon. This resulted in water being preserved on the Moon, which could potentially be used as a resource for a base on the Moon. On January 3, 2019, the Chang’e 4 mission made history as the first soft landing on the dark side of the moon. The lander craft also released a rover vehicle (Yutu-2 or Jade Rabbit) which explored the dark side of the moon for three months, while the lander remained there for 12 months collecting data. China first launched the Chang’e 1 lunar orbiter in 2007, and a second lunar orbiter in 2010.[9] Given this, it seems that NASA’s claims of a manned mission to the Moon in 2028, just two years away, are more propaganda than substance.

 Socialistic rule versus tottering capitalism

The PRC’s leap forward in space exploration would not be possible without its workers’ state, however bureaucratically deformed. Nationalised land, public ownership of the major and strategic means of production, combined with a planned economy has produced spectacular results. Red China is moving so far ahead of a stumbling capitalism in the West that everyone is noticing, no matter how much of it goes unreported. The PRC now outpaces the West in 37 of 44 critical technologies including space, defence, artificial intelligence (AI), energy, photovoltaics, machine learning, sensors, satellites and quantum computing.[10] China is streets ahead of the US and Europe in manufacturing, infrastructure construction, shipping, steel production, telecommunications and more. There is not even a contest between China and the West in the design, building and manufacturing of electric vehicles (EVs), in cars and trucks. Given the US war on Iran which has totally exposed the fossil fuel dependent capitalist economies of the West, China’s transition to an “electrostate” has it well placed to survive and thrive into the future even if the warmongering imperialists do manage to destroy the Middle East and its oil and gas supplies. The critical advantages of an economy primarily run for use values over exchange values are becoming obvious.

Billions across the globe can see that the imperialist war on Iran is in practice a war on China. Even the tragicomic Trump “blockade” on the Strait of Hormuz is aimed at cutting off energy supplies to China, in a vain attempt by Washington to somehow roll back the PRC’s unstoppable economic, technological, scientific and industrial growth. The war on Iran and China is also a war on the rising multipolar world, its allies in the Global South, and working people in the Global North. US imperialism, as lightkeepers of historical capitalism, is attempting to drag the world down with it before it exits the stage of history. Workers of the world cannot allow this to happen. Leninist leadership must come to the fore, to help guide the masses to class struggle socialism through the stepping stones of multipolarity. The frontiers of space and new vistas of a world based on co-operation rather than fratricidal war beckon.

Workers League

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@protonmail.com

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[1] www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/artemis-2-astronauts-return-to-earth-ending-historic-moon-mission (15-04-2026)

[2] www.cbsnews.com/news/artemis-ii-moon-mission-highlights/ (15-04-2026)

[3] www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/your-guide-to-nasas-artemis-2-moon-mission/ (15-04-2026)

[4] www.flyingmag.com/nasa-budget-proposal-boosts-human-exploration-at-expense-of-science/ (15-04-2026)

[5] www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/donald-trump-iran-war-us-vance-b2956084.html (15-04-2026)

[6] www.english.news.cn/20240625/f409aacd8b3c452c8193f3354e1a6d1e/c.html (15-04-2026)

[7] www.space.com/astronomy/moon/china-is-sharing-priceless-moon-samples-with-international-partners-but-nasa-cant-be-a-part-of-it (15-04-2026)

[8] www.planetary.org/space-missions/change-5 (15-04-2026)

[9] www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/change-4-a-mission-with-a-difference-50014 (15-04-2026)

[10] www.newstarget.com/2025-01-31-china-is-leading-the-world-in-critical-technologies.html (15-04-2026)


Image: The Orion capsule from the Artemis II mission splashes down off the coast of San Diego. http://www.the-sun.com