China, meanwhile, launched a new crew of taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) toward its new space station on Tuesday.

While NASA is testing its moon hardware in lunar orbit, China is stuck firmly in Earth's orbit. Chinese officials say their space station is a crucial step toward the moon, and they're developing the hardware for a lunar landing.

China could land its own people on the moon by 2030, Chinese lunar program designer and engineer Ye Peijian told state broadcaster CCTV in November 2021, according to Andrew Jones, the leading English-language journalist covering Chinese space programs.

"We have every reason to believe that we have a competitor, a very aggressive competitor, in the Chinese going back to the moon with taikonauts," Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator, said in a press briefing in November 2021.

"The Chinese space program is increasingly capable of landing Chinese taikonauts much earlier than originally expected, but whatever," Nelson said, adding, "We are going to be as aggressive as we can be in a safe and technically feasible way to beat our competitors with boots on the moon.".

That will be a critical resource for space programs that plan to send astronauts from the moon to Mars — as NASA plans — since they can break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel.