NASA to put humans on the Moon soon!
Wanna bet? According to NASA officials, the agency is accelerating its manned effort and expects to return to the Moon with humans by 2028 at the latest!
Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, told reporters Thursday that the agency plans to speed up plans backed by President Donald Trump to return to the moon, using private companies.
“It’s important that we get back to the moon as fast as possible,” said Bridenstine in a meeting at NASA’s Washington headquarters, adding he hoped to have astronauts back there by 2028.
“This time, when we go to the Moon, we’re actually going to stay. We’re not going to leave flags and footprints and then come home to not go back for another 50 years” he said.
Why does this announcement remind me of similar enthusiastic predictions made by Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, all of which have never come true? In fact, why does Bridenstine’s prediction remind me of many past NASA predictions since the 1980s, all of which either never happened, or happened decades behind schedule and in a manner that was far from grand?
If NASA is the agency to run this program, this prediction will not happen, period. For NASA to get back to the Moon by 2028 would require them to somehow build Gateway (which Bridenstine labels as a key component in this program) while also accelerating the launch schedule of SLS, a rocket NASA has spent fifteen years building that it doesn’t expect to launch for at least two more years, and will not put humans on it until 2024, at the earliest.
Gateway has not even been funded. It provides no way to get to the lunar surface. If it is funded it will cost billions, and likely take as long to build as SLS. SLS itself is expensive, unwieldy, and incapable of providing launch services for such an ambitious program.
Bridenstine’s announcement though did contain a ray of hope. He and his associates made a big deal about how they wish to hire many different private companies to achieve their goals. If the agency gets out of the way and lets free Americans do the job, then maybe it will happen.
We shall see. NASA’s track record when it comes to letting privately-built manned commercial spacecraft do the job is dismal, and that’s being kind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Wanna bet? According to NASA officials, the agency is accelerating its manned effort and expects to return to the Moon with humans by 2028 at the latest!
Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, told reporters Thursday that the agency plans to speed up plans backed by President Donald Trump to return to the moon, using private companies.
“It’s important that we get back to the moon as fast as possible,” said Bridenstine in a meeting at NASA’s Washington headquarters, adding he hoped to have astronauts back there by 2028.
“This time, when we go to the Moon, we’re actually going to stay. We’re not going to leave flags and footprints and then come home to not go back for another 50 years” he said.
Why does this announcement remind me of similar enthusiastic predictions made by Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, all of which have never come true? In fact, why does Bridenstine’s prediction remind me of many past NASA predictions since the 1980s, all of which either never happened, or happened decades behind schedule and in a manner that was far from grand?
If NASA is the agency to run this program, this prediction will not happen, period. For NASA to get back to the Moon by 2028 would require them to somehow build Gateway (which Bridenstine labels as a key component in this program) while also accelerating the launch schedule of SLS, a rocket NASA has spent fifteen years building that it doesn’t expect to launch for at least two more years, and will not put humans on it until 2024, at the earliest.
Gateway has not even been funded. It provides no way to get to the lunar surface. If it is funded it will cost billions, and likely take as long to build as SLS. SLS itself is expensive, unwieldy, and incapable of providing launch services for such an ambitious program.
Bridenstine’s announcement though did contain a ray of hope. He and his associates made a big deal about how they wish to hire many different private companies to achieve their goals. If the agency gets out of the way and lets free Americans do the job, then maybe it will happen.
We shall see. NASA’s track record when it comes to letting privately-built manned commercial spacecraft do the job is dismal, and that’s being kind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I thought they’d only need to buy some tickets from Elon, shouldn’t be too hard.
@Andrew_W
That was the first thing I thought of, but you were faster on the draw.
Andrew _W
You wrote: “I thought they’d only need to buy some tickets from Elon, shouldn’t be too hard.”
You’re right. It shouldn’t be too hard. SpaceX might be able to use a Starship as a permanent outpost, and another Starship to travel to and from the Moon. Including Musk’s development cost estimate, this would cost between $2-1/2 billion to $10-1/2 billion, and could probably be completed by 2028.
However, this is not Bridenstein’s complicated plan.
For NASA, buying some tickets seems to be very hard indeed. Considering the trouble that NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is having due to politics, I doubt that they would be able to do something that reasonable.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/nasas-political-and-corrupt-safety-panel/
Clearly, these days, NASA likes to place a heavy hand on the projects that it runs, and Jim Bridenstine’s description of the mission seems no different.
“This time, when we go to the Moon, we’re actually going to stay.”
This will require a permanent ground station on the first manned flight, otherwise the mission is just “going to leave flags and footprints and then come home.”
“we’re making it sustainable so you can go back and forth regularly with humans. … NASA plans to build a small space station, dubbed Gateway, in the Moon’s orbit by 2026. It will serve as a way-station for trips to and from the lunar surface”
Thus, Robert concluded that ((F)LOP) Gateway (To Nowhere) will have to be involved. Do any of you remember how much that is supposed to cost? NASA has stated that part of Gateway’s purpose is to be a way station for missions that regularly go back and forth to the Moon’s surface.
“As with the ISS, NASA would seek the participation of other countries, who could provide some of the necessary [hardware] needed, such as modules for the Moon station or vehicles to allow landings on the surface.”
For ISS, international participation resulted in some of the delays that were experienced. This complicates the program.
Rather than speed up plans, they seem to complicate the mission. 2028 gives them only nine years to build their Gateway lunar space station, a lunar surface outpost, and a lunar lander.
If they hadn’t put ISS and SLS together in less than a decade, I would have little confidence in NASA’s ability to get back to the Moon in nine years using three yet-to-be-developed pieces of hardware.
Oh, wait …
I still do not understand the need to the (f)LOP-G station.
If the SpaceX Starship is designed to land on Mars why can it not land directly on the Moon? No fuel and time-wasting stop and a lunar orbital station.
NASA needs (f)LOP-G because they can’t turn the Orion module into a lunar lander. So they now have to make a lunar lander and a place to park them. An orbital gas station.
Sadly, NASA is a joke for the most part today.
To recap American crewed space flight since 2011:
Not A Single Achievement
Not sure what they want an orbiting flop house for but just move ISS to lunar orbit to do it on the cheap. It has power and life support and can be reconfigured as needed. If you’re not in a hurry, you could shove it there with ion engines.
Moving Terok Nor from Bajor to the worm-hole
ST: DS9
https://youtu.be/vX7Tm33gz_Y
1:58