The US space policy keeps changing — at the expense of the next Moon landing
The future of Artemis
In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed “Space Policy Directive 1,” which reoriented NASAto a lunar landing by 2024. NASA implemented the Artemis program in the same year, and ithas been endorsedby the new Biden administration. This is the first time in decades that a new US administration has continued with the deep space human spaceflight policies of the previous one.
Artemis is also an international program, with theLunar Gateway— an international orbital outpost at the Moon – being an essential part of the project. The international nature of Artemis might make the program more robust against policy changes, although the Lunar Gatewayhas already been delayed.
Officially, the first uncrewed test flight of Orion to lunar orbit, Artemis 1, is scheduled for later this year, with the 2024 return to the lunar surface still on the books. The effects of the pandemic and recent engineering concerns with the new and still unflownSpace Launch System, may push this back. Furthermore, in 2020 NASA requested US$3.2 billion (£2.3 billion) in development costs for theHuman Lander System, a critical component of the first lunar landing mission, Artemis 3. Congress approvedonly a fractionof what was requested, putting the 2024 landing date in further jeopardy.
A delay of any more than a year would move Artemis 3 beyond the end of President Biden’s first term in office. This would make it vulnerable to the many vagaries of US deep space human spaceflight policy that we have seen for most of the spaceflight era.
By contrast,NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, which began in 1993 and whose goals are driven primarily by scientists rather than politicians, has resulted in a series of highly successful robotic orbiters and landers, most recently thespectacular landingof the Perseverance Rover at Jezero Crater. Undoubtedly, the robotic exploration of Mars carries less political weight than human missions and is considerably cheaper – with no inherent risks to astronauts.
If the current Artemis 3 schedule holds, then 52 years will have passed between Cernan and Schmitt departing the lunar surface in Challenger and the next human visitors to the Moon, in 2024.
This article byGareth Dorrian, Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Space Science,University of Birminghamis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
