Special to WorldTribune, April 3, 2026 Real World News
By Geostrategy-Direct, March 31, 2026
By Richard Fisher
This week the world will be transfixed by the 10-day Artemis-II lunar circumnavigation mission scheduled for launch on April 1, marking the first return of four humans to the area of the Moon in 54 years, following the 1972 Apollo-17 mission.
In their historic “Ignition” briefings on March 24, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator Jared Isaacman and other NASA officials exercised generous transparency in presenting detailed plans for sending United States and partner nation astronauts back to the Moon, and then offering great detail on Moon Base construction by the early 2030s.
But that day NASA officials also disclosed a decision of even greater space-strategic importance for the U.S. and its democratic allies and space partners: By 2028 the U.S. will fly the first nuclear-electric powered spacecraft to Mars, called the SR-1 Freedom (SR-Space Reactor).
But what is perhaps most important is the statement of strategic intent contained in both NASA projects: The United States fully intends to secure access to the Moon, Mars and to secure access though the Solar System.
This message would have the greatest impact in Beijing, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is also seeking to secure a dominant position on the Moon, Mars and then into the Solar System as part of its longstanding ambition to achieve hegemony on Earth and in space.
Since August 2023, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has been describing its 100-year program to project China’s unmanned and manned presence though the Solar System.
This is why NASA’s announcement of a 2028 nuclear-electric powered mission to Mars is a political coup; It will be the United States that will demonstrate first the potential of nuclear propulsion to significantly reduce transit times to Mars, making human transport all the more feasible and sustainable, and then enabling far more rapid missions to Jupiter and beyond.
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