The renewed interest in the moon can arguably be traced back to the 2009 discovery of water ice on the lunar surface. Much of the narrative in the intervening decade and a half has been set to a background score of a military drumroll slowly gathering pace. The competing visions vis-à -vis lunar exploration and exploitation have pitted two international coalitions against each other — the United States and its partners on one hand, and China, Russia and their partners on the other — and that dichotomy has dictated much of the conversation around the second lunar race.
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