This means the United States must exploit what may be temporary advantages in technology to create an early dominant lunar presence for the democracies.

For most of the last decade, the Chinese regime has been peddling the idea that its manned Moon program may not start until around 2030. This appeared to be confirmed by Chinese revelations that its main Moon mission space launch vehicle (SLV), the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) Long March-9, would not be in service until about 2030.

But now it is possible to assess that China may get there well before 2030. China began to reveal a possible acceleration of its Moon plans in November 2018, when it revealed a new 5-meter diameter manned SLV with a three parallel booster configuration, like the 63-ton to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Few details were revealed at the time, not even its name, so Chinese space enthusiasts dubbed it the "921 Rocket" after China's manned "921 Program" from 1992.

Then, in September 2020, an official subordinate to the Armaments Department of the Central Military Commission of the People's Liberation Army, which controls China's space program, officially confirmed for the fist time that China had an active manned Moon program, and was developing a new manned Moon Lander, and the new manned SLV. This is the 921 Rocket designed to loft about 70 tons to LEO, and about 25 tons to the Moon.

It is possible that future versions of this SLV will feature reusable first stages like Falcon Heavy, helping China to significantly reduce the cost of sending people and supporting payloads to the Moon.

The interest and attention paid to this new rocket caused some Chinese observers to speculate that the Long March-9 program has possibly been abandoned. But this was put to rest by a Nov. 26, 2020 report in China Daily that stated, "China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp [CASC] has estimated that about 10 Long March 9s will be needed each year from 2030 to 2035 in China to serve the nation's robust demand for heavy-lift rockets."