🚀 Getting lapped in the space race

When NASA's Artemis II lifted off this week, carrying astronauts toward lunar orbit for the first time in half a century, it sent us back to a question worth revisiting: What about Brazil's space program?

Brazilian researchers are, in fact, part of the Artemis II mission — a team from Embrapa, the national agricultural research corporation, is contributing to space farming experiments aimed at growing crops in microgravity. 

The logic is compelling: transporting food from Earth to the Moon costs roughly USD 1 million per kilogram, making local cultivation not a novelty but a necessity. As such, Embrapa’s participation in the mission is meaningful, yet it serves as a metaphor for Brazil’s space standing: present, capable, but operating at the margins of a contest others are winning.

Twenty years ago, Brazil, China and India occupied roughly similar rungs on the space ladder. All three had fledgling launch programs, modest satellite capabilities and ambitions that outpaced their budgets. Today, the distance between them is stark…

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