It’s been something of an afterthought since the US Apollo program ended in December of 1972, but the Moon is moving into the public spotlight again. What’s becoming clear is that a new Moon race is well underway, one with plenty of participants but one most pointedly pitting China against the US. The competition has a different character than it had in the now distant past — it’s become more a long-running endurance race and less the clearly defined sprint it was in the 1960s, when fear of Sputnik tended to unite sentiment in the US. Today, as opposed parties slot in and out, the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of US space targets are in constant flux, according to a China expert and tech strategy analyst. “Do we go to Mars or the Moon?” author Dean Cheng asked, as he discussed his “China and the New Moon Race” in a book launch and lecture at the Space Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. “When you think back over the last five administrations,” he said, “how often have we gone back and fort...