Getting a group of up to 12 people to land on the ground remains one of NASA’s greatest achievements, if not the greatest. From those exploits, the astronauts collected rocks, took photos, conducted experiments, put up some flags, and then returned home. But those week-long stays during the Apollo program did not establish a lasting human presence on the Moon.
More than 45 years after landing on the Moon – with a crew – with the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 , there are many reasons to return astronauts to Earth’s dusty natural satellite.
What to do on the moon
Researchers and entrepreneurs believe that a manned base on the Moon could become a fuel depot for missions in deep space, lead to the creation of unprecedented space telescopes, make it easier to live on Mars and solve scientific mysteries about the Earth and the creation of the Moon. A lunar base could even grow into a thriving off-Earth economy , perhaps one based on lunar space tourism.
It’s the next logical step , according to former astronaut Chris Hadfield.
But many astronauts and other experts suggest that the biggest impediments to crew missions to the Moon in the past four decades have been depressing. Is it really expensive to get to the moon? Yes, but not as much as it seems.
The biggest problem
A tried and true obstacle to any space flight program, especially for missions involving people, is its high cost.
A law signed in March 2017 by President Donald Trump gave NASA an annual budget of approximately $ 19.5 billion and in 2019 the US president stated that he would be willing to give NASA an unlimited budget if the space agency can manage to send someone to Mars by the end of his term.
A budget of almost $ 20 billion may seem like a lot of money, until you consider that the total is divided between all the divisions and ambitious projects of the agency: the James Webb Space Telescope, the giant rocket project called the Space Launch System and Far missions to the Sun, Jupiter, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, the Kuiper Belt and the edge of the solar system. (Curiously, the US military has a budget of roughly $ 600 billion a year.)
Also, keep in mind that NASA’s budget is somewhat meager compared to past allocations.
“NASA’s portion of the federal budget peaked at 4% in 1965. For the past 40 years it has remained below 1%, and for the past 15 years it has been heading toward 0.4% of the budget. federal, “said Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham.
The difference is palpable.
Trump’s budget calls for a return to the moon, and then an orbital visit to Mars. But given the mounting costs and concatenated delays related to NASA’s SLS rocket program, the project is getting a bit of an uphill battle.
A 2005 NASA report, for example, estimated that returning to the Moon would cost about 104 billion (about 133 billion today) in about 13 years. The Apollo program cost about $ 120 billion in today’s dollars.
“Manned exploration is the most expensive space endeavor and consequently the most difficult to gain political support,” Cunningham said during his testimony.
The important thing is the mission
From the astronauts’ perspective, the important thing is the mission . The process of designing, engineering and testing a spacecraft that could take humans to another world easily exceeds the mandates of a single president. But there is a predictable pattern of incoming presidents and lawmakers scrapping the previous leader’s space exploration priorities.
“I would like the next president to support a budget that allows us to accomplish the mission that we are asked to undertake, whatever the mission,” wrote astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space.
The race to conquer space
In February of this year, Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator, proposed returning to the Moon by 2028 and establishing a settlement there. However, the Trump administration did not seem to like this date and issued a warning for NASA to hasten the return of the astronauts by 2024 . Vice President Mike Pence said that “if private rockets are the only way to get American astronauts back to the Moon in five years, then they will be private rockets.”
Minutes later, Bridenstine responded: “message perfectly received”, and promised to accelerate the construction of the SLS so that it is ready in 2020.
A new race for the conquest of space begins.
