"Think back.  The Russians sent the first rocket to the Moon, it crashed.  The United States and Canada combine to send another one; it gets back but leaves nobody on the Moon.  So when the United States and the Commonwealth are getting set to send a colonizing one jointly under the nominal sponsorship of the Federation and Russia is mounting the same deal on their own, General Atomics steals a march by sending one of their own from an island leased from Ecuador - and their men are still there, sitting pretty and looking smug when the Federation vessel shows up... followed by the Russian one.