NASA's imminent launch of the Artemis I mission to the Moon—the US space agency's first in a series of missions to return humans to deep space—will garner widespread attention in the United States and abroad.

No humans have launched beyond low Earth orbit for nearly five decades, and although this mission will have no astronauts on board, the Artemis II mission in a few years will. Moreover, unlike the all-American Apollo program in the 1960s, the Artemis program will include a rich vein of international cooperation.

A Canadian astronaut will fly on board the Artemis II mission around the Moon, and Japanese and European astronauts are likely to join later missions to the lunar surface. Already, 20 nations have signed the Artemis Accords to be a part of NASA's lunar program, and that coalition is likely to grow.

Two countries that will not be a part of the Artemis program are Russia and China. NASA officials reached out to Russia a few years ago about joining the return to the Moon, and while some managers in the Roscosmos corporation were receptive, participation was rebuffed by senior Russian leaders, including then-Roscsomos chief Dmitry Rogozin. The ongoing Russian war against Ukraine almost certainly precludes any cooperation.

With regard to China, NASA is barred by the US Congress from cooperating with Chinese space activities. Moreover, China had already decided years ago to go a separate way on spaceflight. It is working on its own closely held lunar plans. Like the United States sought to do in the 1960s with Apollo, China views its increasingly robust space program as a means to increase its prestige on the world stage and advance geopolitical interests. China and Russia also recently signed an agreement to cooperate on lunar efforts.

It is interesting, therefore, to observe the Chinese reaction to NASA's Artemis mission. The official line appears to be disdain—at least that was the vibe from an article that ran this weekend in a Chinese publication, the Global Times. As part of China's state-run media that serves as propaganda, this publication often comments on international issues from a nationalistic viewpoint and, therefore, offers a useful window for the Chinese state's reaction to world events.

The article seeks to contrast the Artemis mission against China's own lunar plans, which include developing the capability to land its own astronauts on the Moon by around 2030. For example, the article states matter of factly, "Space observers also pointed out that as NASA is trying hard to relive its Apollo glories, China is working on innovative plans to carry out its own crewed moon landing missions."

The Chinese publication also criticizes NASA for setting unrealistic deadlines for the Artemis program. When it was originally announced, NASA set an ambitious goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2024. That goal has now slipped to 2025, and in reality, the year 2026 probably offers the earliest reasonable chance for the Artemis III mission to land on the Moon.

"Drawing a comparison between the lunar manned landing plans of China and the US, Chinese space experts pointed out that the US's practice of setting specific year deadlines is very rare in the industry, given the complex nature of deep space exploration, while China focuses more on technology readiness in a rather broad time frame, going forward steadily and surely," the Global Times article states.

This is a curious statement because almost every country and company around the world sets launch targets for new rockets, spacecraft, and specific missions—see the European Space Agency's target of a 2020 debut for the Ariane 6 rocket, for example, or India's announcement in 2018 of its first human Gaganyaan mission in 2022. Such target dates are often aspirational, but they serve to motivate employees and contractors to work toward a common goal. They also provide valuable transparency to the public, which is funding the space agency programs.

It remains to be seen whether China's space program is in line with "scientific principles," as the country's civil and military space are co-mingled within the same government organizations. In the United States, there is a pretty clear demarcation between the civil space agency, NASA, and the recently created US Space Force.

That said, everyone around the world should be working toward more cooperation in space and peaceful, sustainable use of the heavens above. That means the United States should be allowed to cooperate with China on important issues, such as tracking and mitigating space debris. And it means that China should be more forthright about its programs, to better coordinate activities in potentially congested areas, such as the south pole of the moons