{"id":3351,"date":"2021-02-27T14:00:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1340671"},"modified":"2021-02-27T14:00:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T14:00:52","slug":"the-us-space-policy-keeps-changing-at-the-expense-of-the-next-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=3351","title":{"rendered":"The US space policy keeps changing \u2014 at the expense of the next Moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Harrison Schmitt<\/a> and Eugene Cernan<\/a> blasted off from the Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon in their lunar module Challenger on December 14, 1972. Five days later, they splashed down safely in the Pacific, closing the Apollo 17 mission<\/a> and becoming the last humans to visit the lunar surface or venture anywhere beyond low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Now the international Artemis program<\/a>, lead by NASA, is aiming to put humans back on the Moon by 2024. But it is looking increasingly likely that this goal could be missed.<\/p>\n

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<\/i><\/a>President Nixon welcomes astronauts aboard the USS Hornet. wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

History shows just how vulnerable space programs, which require years of planning and development spanning several administrations, are. After Apollo 17, NASA had plans for several further lunar Apollo missions, even including a possible flyby of Venus<\/a>. But budget cuts in the early 1970s and a reprioritizing of human spaceflight to focus on the Skylab project<\/a> precluded any further lunar missions at that time.<\/p>\n

It was not until July 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, that President HW Bush<\/a> inaugurated the Space Exploration Initiative<\/a>. This involved the construction of a space station called Freedom, which would later become the International Space Station<\/a>, aimed at returning humans to the Moon, and eventually undertaking crewed missions to Mars.<\/p>\n

The project was to take place over an approximately 30-year time frame. The first human return flights to the Moon would take place in the late 1990s, followed by the establishment of a lunar base in the early 2010s. The estimated cost for the full program, including the Mars missions, was US$500 billion (\u00a3350 billion) spread over 20-30 years. This was a fraction of what would be spent on the Iraq <\/a>War in 2003 but, the project nevertheless ran into opposition in the Senate, and was later canceled by the Clinton administration in 1996.<\/p>\n

Another eight years would pass before, in 2004, President GW Bush, partly as a response to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster<\/a>, announced a revitalized Vision for Space Exploration<\/a>. In response, NASA began the Constellation program<\/a>, which would oversee the completion of what was now the International Space Station and then retire the Space Shuttle<\/a>. It would also involve the development of two new crewed spacecraft: the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle<\/a> and the Altair Lunar Surface Access Module<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Read: How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Orion, optimized for extended trips beyond low-Earth orbit, was to be developed by 2008, with the first crewed mission no later than 2014, and the first astronauts on the Moon by 2020. To lift the Orion and Altair spacecraft a new series of launchers would be developed under the name Ares, with Ares V<\/a> having lift capability more akin to the massive Saturn V rockets of the Apollo era.<\/p>\n

President Obama took office in 2009 and in 2010 instituted a review of US human spaceflight \u2013 the Augustine Commission. It found that the Constellation program was unsustainable<\/a> with current NASA funding levels, was behind schedule, and that a human Mars mission was not possible with current technology. The prototype of the Ares I rocket was nonetheless launched on a successful test flight<\/a> from the Kennedy Space Center on October 28, 2009.<\/p>\n

The Constellation program was canceled by President Obama in 2010. This was the same year in which private company SpaceX made their first flight with the Falcon 9 rocket<\/a>. Obama\u2019s space plans were praised by some, including SpaceX\u2019s founder Elon Musk, but criticized by others<\/a>, including several Apollo astronauts.<\/p>\n