Birdnow's Aviary

August 12, 2026

Moonstruck

Timothy Birdnow

There is an old expression; if you want something done right do it yourself.

Here we go; Nasa is about to turn the Artemis project into another Charlie Foxtrot.

State Department invites India to partner in NASA’s Artemis program

The original name of our space station was Freedom - until we took on international partners and it became the International Space Station (ISS) and it never really amounted to anything because we didn't have full control of it. It was a huge money pit in the sky and now Artemis will be the same.

For those who do not know Artemis is the name given to our plans to build a permanent base on the Moon, a base that could be expanded into a permanent colony.

What do the Indians have to bring to the table? Nothing except some funding; they do not have any experience with any of this. And it will take away control of this station from the United States. In the end we will wind up being "one of many" in just another Charlie Foxtrot.

The point is for US to learn how to live on the Moon, how to exploit lunar resources, obtain power, get water, etc. It is not and should not be a mini-U.N. where all sorts of nations are there and have veto power. We need to develop the Moon for the United States of America. This "for all Mankind" horsepoop sounds lovely but in the end the Chinese and Russians are not going to play that game. They will use the Moon for their national interests. We should too.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Space settlement isn't going to happen based on altruism and international cooperation. Like all things that happen it will be accomplished through money and profit and national interests competing to see who does a better job of settlement. It's how the Western Hemisphere was colonized, after all. Colonization happens anywhere either as a matter of refugees or to make money. Nobody has colonized Antarctica, for instance, except for some scientific stations there because there was no money to be made and nobody running from some oppressive regime or whatnot is going to go to such a place.

There is money to be had on old Luna. Helium III, for example. Unlimited sunlight for power. Hard vacuum for manufacturing. Ore processing for mining, not just lunar materials but for mining asteroids. I could go on and on but the point is made. The Chinese want to go there for this stuff, as do the Russians. They have no intention of joining us in Artemis.

So why do we want to bring the Indians in? There is no good reason.

Robert Zimmerman gives us a clue about why this is happening:

India is already a signatory to the Artemis Accords. This new offer I am sure was issued with NASA’s full cooperation. Coming however from the State Department it indicates a global political aspect beyond building a Moon base with international partners. The offer is probably aimed at driving a wedge between India’s increasing space partnership with Russia. In 2025 India agreed to build its Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) in the same inclination as Russia’s proposed station, and work together on cross astronaut visits. This partnership offer is an attempt to pull India away from Russia and toward the U.S.

But again, so what? How is losing Indian space cooperation to the Russians any great loss to our national security? It's not. And India has long shown itself to not be our friend as a political entity. Why should we scrape and bow to them just to keep them from joining the Russians? I doubt Russia and India together could build such a base, frankly, not these days. Russia is spending all it's time building weapons to attack the Ukrainians. And what are the Indians going to build? I would add the Russians probably won't be too happy sharing close quarters with Indians, whose curry-based diets will stink the join up something awful...

This proves the U.S. State Department is still internationalist and apparently has never gotten the MAGA memo. Rubio should have killed this.

At least the Russians offered technical expertise to the ISS, and the others who went along with us in it offered money. What will India offer? Maybe they can start the first lunar call center?

If you want something done right...

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