European Space Agency Approves Plan to Colonize the Moon

It is always interesting that interest in the Moon waxes and wanes with the ability of other players to get there. Its pretty clear you could militarize the Moon if you were motivated to do so, from throwing rocks on ballistic trajectories toward trouble spots on earth, to firing lasers at satellites in orbit to either overwhelm their sensors or their thermal management systems. Without an atmosphere to get in the way, shooting steerable MW laser from the Moon into Earth orbit would allow for a lot of energy delivered into orbit.

Of course people have know about that threat ever since the first Moon landings but as the US was the only nation-state with the economic might to put things on the Moon like that, well it wasn't much of a threat. New actors, a more prosperous Chinese economy, new technologies, and the suddenly it seems like it might be prudent to have a constant presence there that could address concerns locally rather than trying to do so from the bottom of Earth's gravity well.

I agree with Goldman Sachs in that this could be the leading edge of a lot of investment headed that way. I am certain that is a Chinese Taikonaut walks on the Moon and returns its going to be a full on press to get set up there before it can become a threat. Keeps me very bullish on SpaceX and Blue Origin, less so on ULA unless they can get their managerial act together.