China will own the moon

From: http://www.space.com/13331-china-space-race-moon-ownership-bigelow-ispcs.html

"Americans are still basking in the lunar glory from 40 years ago," [Robert] Bigelow said. "But we don’t own one square foot of the damn place. NASA is a shadow of the space agency it once was in the 1960s and 1970s."

In contrast, he argued, China has the motivation and ability to win the next space race and claim ownership of much of the moon. Bigelow argued that international law would allow a nation to make such a claim, especially if it were able to enforce it through continuous human lunar presence.

Owning the moon would be a windfall both financially and for international prestige, he said. Not only does it offer a jumping off point for further exploration of the solar system, but it also contains vast stores of valuable resources such as water and helium-3, a possible fuel for nuclear fusion.

Moreover, the symbolic and global psychological impact would be huge, Bigelow said. "I think nothing else China could possibly do in the next 15 years would cause as great a benefit for China."

In addition to China's growing technological prowess, the country has the cash, the lack of debt and the national will to become the owner of the moon, Bigelow argued. He predicted China could claim ownership of vast swaths of lunar territory by 2022 to 2026.

Update: Here is a quote from another article about his speech.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/19/8402070-will-china-take-over-the-moon

Bigelow characterized China as "the new gunslinger in Dodge" when it came to space exploration.

The way he sees it, China is progressing along a slow, steady path toward space proficiency. The steps in that path include follow-ups to the Shenzhou 8 spacewalk mission in 2008, the unmanned Chang'e lunar missions and last month's Tiangong 1 space lab launch. In the coming years, China will have plenty of cash for great leaps forward in space, while the United States will be hamstrung by higher debt and tighter budgets.