Mass Value Report for June 2026

Could China catch and overtake the US?

NASA’s Artemis program has of late been imbued with a sense of urgency that had previously been lacking, thanks to the new Administrator Jared Isaacman. A key part of this urgency is the fear that the Chinese space program will return humans to the Moon, and once there be able to grab the best areas and dictate rules.

This is not mere rhetoric; both because of significant delays on the US side and the innovations of their own program, China is not far behind and can be expected to achieve a landing by 2030.

I thought it would be useful to do a side by side comparison of the two programs - not just in terms of their lunar programs, but as space powers in general. As impressive as China’s progress is, there still exists a significant gap between their mass to orbit and that of SpaceX: