WHEN the next US astronauts to head for the moon finally get there, they should be ready to dodge abandoned lunar buggies left by competing spacefarers. For a new space race is under way, and every major space agency except Europe’s is taking part.

The Orion programme commissioned this week by Nasa from Lockheed is expected to put Americans back on the moon by 2019. But Russia hopes to send an unmanned vehicle there (for the first time in 30 years) in 2016. China has hinted at plans for a manned lunar mission the following year.

Not since the Cold War have the prospects for a broad-based resumption of human space exploration been this bright. But now, as then, the motives of those involved have less to do with science than national interest and prestige.

Michael Griffin, the Nasa administrator, has scheduled visits to both China and India this year. But he has little in technological terms to gain from either, and the US has shown its determination to deny China access to its own space technology by routinely refusing visas even to Chinese scientists hoping to visit international conferences in the US.

Zhang Qingwei, head of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, said recently that he hoped his exchanges with Nasa would “become more reciprocal”.

One of his Russian counterparts has described a “totally different situation” in his dealings with Nasa since President Bush announced his plan two years ago for astronauts to head back to the moon. Collaboration, he added, was “falling apart” as rival agencies seriously considered potential future economic exploitation of the moon’s resources — once the preserve of science fiction.

And Europe’s role? To supply the International Space Station with the Italian-built Columbus laboratory, and fly other supply missions. No Euronauts are scheduled to get close to the moon soon.

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