Geopolitics and International Space Exploration Plans For the Near Future

This paper explores the assertion that the history of space exploration will repeat itself and that the current divide betweenthe western nations led by NASA and Russia/China initiatives will eventually change allowing for a more “international”approach. This might enable an affordable joint exploration of the Moon and Mars. The paper notes how the 1960s saw apowerful space confrontation between the two opposing superpower ideologies of the USA/western nations and the Soviet Union, with the USA “winning” by achieving the first lunar landing when NASA’s Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon in July 1969.The subsequent thawing of the “Cold War” between the Soviet block and the Western powers following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 eventually allowed for easier international exploration of space. The construction of the International Space Station (ISS) from 1998 represented the pinnacle of the world’s space cooperation. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 completely changed matters and a new