Dr. Leroy Chiao is the CEO and co-founder of OneOrbit LLC, a motivational, training and education company. He served as a NASA astronaut from 1990-2005 and flew four missions into space aboard three Space Shuttles and once as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. On that flight, he served as the commander of Expedition 10, a six-and-a-half-month mission. Dr. Chiao has performed six spacewalks, in both US and Russian spacesuits, and has logged 229 days in space. In 2006, he was the first American allowed to visit the Astronaut Center of China in Beijing, where he first met Yang Liwei and Fei Junlong, the first two Chinese National astronauts. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) China started out the year by doing something that no nation has done before: It landed a spacecraft and an accompanying rover on the far side of the moon with an ambitious scientific payload package and an exciting mission ahead to study the interior structure of the moon with the help of ground-penetrating radar, among other things.

Almost equally impressive from a technical standpoint, China successfully placed a communication relay satellite into a lunar halo orbit to enable the command of, and communication with, both the spacecraft and rover, which do not have line-of-sight views of Earth for direct radio contact.

Leroy Chiao

I had mixed feelings about these events.

I was born in the United States, but my parents were both born in China, before they made their way to Taiwan and immigrated to America in the 1950s. On the one hand, I am proud of my heritage and what China has accomplished. On the other, my family is American, and we take pride in US accomplishments. And because the Apollo moon landing in 1969 was what inspired me to become an astronaut, I strongly believe the US can and should maintain a leading role in space exploration.

China has surpassed all other nations with a new achievement. Though not exactly poised to take the United States' spot, China has fired a warning shot. The US must now step up its game to maintain its place as the leader.