Last December [ in fact, Jan. 2, 2019 ], China became the first nation to land on the far side of the moon, and revealed their ambition to seize the lunar strategic high ground and become the worlds pre-eminent spacefaring nation, and for more than seven years, without a viable human space launch program of our own, Russia has been charging the United States more than $80 million a seat every time an American astronaut travels to the International Space Station.