Recently, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party issued the report: “Reset, Prevent, Build: A Strategy to Win America’s Competition with the Chinese Communist Party.”
One of its recommendations concerns how the United States military could secure the Earth-moon Lagrange Points — areas where the gravities of the Earth and moon cancel out — against the Chinese.
“Fund NASA’s and the Department of Defense’s programs that are critical to countering the CCP’s malign ambitions in space, including by ensuring the United States is the first country to permanently station assets at all Lagrange Points.”
What those assets might be and how they might secure the Lagrange Points the committee leaves for NASA and DOD to figure out.
An article in Ars Technica suggests putting up satellites at the L1 and L2 points, which are near the moon, and at the L4 and L5 points, which are 60 degrees ahead and behind the moon’s 360-degree orbit around the Earth. These satellites can be used for communications relay, navigation, observation and so on.
The Chinese have already deployed the Queqiao satellite at L2, over the far side of the moon, to relay........