Starlink’s performance in Ukraine has ignited a new space race

“IT’S A FACTNASA: we’re in a space race.” So said Bill Nelson, the boss of , on January 1st. If China managed to land on the Moon before America returned there, he warned, it could seize lunar resources for itself, and even tell America: “Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.”Mr Nelson is right to foresee a space race, but wrong to focus on the Moon. It has symbolic value, but no useful resources that cannot be obtained much more easily back on Earth. The next space race has been triggered by . It is happening closer to Earth. And it is one which America, thanks largely to a single company, is winning.