04 Apr 2026 10 min read Despatch

High ground

The weekend despatch: The race to the lunar south pole. Five weeks of war, one month of occupation. + What is Širom?

—The District bureau

NASA

Developments

Why back to the moon?
The war in Iran. … The occupation in Lebanon. … & Turmoil in Washington.

Books

Why would there be so much risk in private-equity markets? Hettie O’Brien’s The Asset Class.

Music

What is Širom?
& New tracks from Raphael Rogiński x Iztok Koren, Apparat, Bill Orcutt, Four, & Five.

+ Weather report

Summer’s arriving early across northern India—and the atmosphere seems to be noticing …

Developments

A race to the south pole

When Gene Cernan stepped off the surface of the Moon on December 14, 1972, he said he expected astronauts to return “not too long into the future.” In the more than half-century since, three presidential administrations tried to send Americans back, with either the U.S. Congress or the next administration canceling each program. George H.W. Bush proposed the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989; the Senate killed the funding. George W. Bush launched the Constellation program in 2004; Barack Obama’s administration canceled it in 2010, calling it “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation.” Obama redirected NASA toward Mars. And now, Donald Trump has redirected it back to the Moon.

Each post-Apollo program ended the same way: an ambitious presidential announcement, insufficient congressional funding, termination by Congress or a successor with different priorities. The democratic process—transitions, appropriations fights, shifting political attention—ended up serially and, it seemed, structurally incompatible with a project requiring decades of continuity.

Artemis is different. On Tuesday evening, four astronauts left Earth orbit for the first time since Cernan did—in a program that’s already cost US$93 billion without landing anyone on the lunar surface. Jared Isaacman, NASA’s administrator—and a billionaire entrepreneur who commanded two private SpaceX missions before taking the job—has restructured the program twice since December. The Artemis rocket costs about $4 billion a flight, a number the White House’s own budget proposal has called “grossly expensive.”

So why is Artemis different?

Why go back now?

First of five. The four astronauts heading there won’t land—Artemis II is the first in a five-flight sequence, testing life support and deep-space navigation before anyone attempts the surface. Isaacman has restructured the sequence twice since December, and no Artemis mission has yet launched on its original schedule. First landing: Artemis IV, 2028—if the schedule holds.
A tenth of Apollo. At its peak, the U.S. spent roughly US$42 billion a year on NASA in today’s money. Artemis averages about $6 billion. Each SLS—Space Launch System—flight is 140 percent over its original budget. NASA consumed 4.4 percent of the federal budget in 1966; it now receives 0.35 percent. Apollo had more money and wrapped up after six landings.
The other side of the race. China’s lunar program has hit every milestone on schedule. Chang’e 5 returned samples from the near side in 2020. Chang’e 6 returned the first samples from the far side in 2024. Chang’e 7, launching in August, will search for water ice at the south pole. Beijing targets a crewed landing by 2030—and has announced a joint lunar base with Russia and a dozen partner nations, with construction beginning the same year.
The same craters. The United States and China want the same lunar south pole: water ice, confirmed in 2009, which splits into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathing. The entire permanent-base concept—American and Chinese—depends on it. No one has extracted lunar water at any scale. The U.S. Space Force defined cislunar space as an operational domain in April 2025. Ye Peijian, then head of China’s lunar program, compared the Moon to the disputed Diaoyu Islands: “If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, we will be blamed by our descendants.”
No common language. The Artemis Accords—which 61 countries have signed—establish shared norms for the lunar surface: transparency, safety zones, consultation. Partner nations spent years building components for the Lunar Gateway, a joint orbiting station. China and Russia lead a rival effort, the International Lunar Research Station, with partners including Venezuela, Belarus, and Pakistan. Thailand signed both.

In the United States, political forces—congressional opposition, presidential transitions, shifting priorities—have killed three Moon programs. China hasn’t missed a launch date. Beijing spends roughly a third of what Washington spends on space. Its advantage isn’t money—it’s continuity. China’s coalition is effectively China alone: Russia’s last lunar mission crashed into the surface in 2023; partners contribute instruments and political alignment; and Beijing provides everything else. Chang’e 7 and Chang’e 8 happen whether the partners show up or not.

Artemis survived partly because Congress mandated the SLS to protect Shuttle-era jobs—but mostly because China is giving the Moon a strategic logic it hasn’t had for the U.S. since the height of its Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. Still, Washington canceled the Lunar Gateway—the orbiting station its allies had spent years building—without warning. Airbus, which had been building the power-management system, says it learned of the cancellation only when NASA announced it publicly.

In the meantime, there aren’t many south-pole craters with the water ice both programs need—and both programs are heading for them.

Meanwhile

Day 37. On Friday, Iran shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle—the first American combat aircraft lost to enemy fire since the war began. One crew member was rescued immediately; the other hid in a mountain crevice for two days while U.S. and Iranian forces raced to find him. Navy SEAL Team 6 extracted him on Saturday night deep inside Iranian territory. Two transport planes got stuck at a remote base; commanders blew them up rather than leave them behind.
A month in Lebanon. Israel said on Thursday it had struck 3,500 targets in Lebanon since March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in response to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. The same day, Israel bombed the main border crossing between Syria and Lebanon—the primary route for humanitarian resupply and for Syrians fleeing the other direction. More than a million people have been displaced, roughly a fifth of the population. Defense Minister Israel Katz says the operation would resemble Gaza.
Musical chairs. Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday—the second Cabinet secretary he’s removed in a month, after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. His former criminal defense lawyer, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, takes over as acting attorney general. The same day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to step down. The president apparently thought Noem’s firing “went smoothly," making him less reluctant about removing others. … See “Loyalty and its limits.”