Astronaut Gene Cernan paused for one last look at Earth from the moon’s surface before climbing a ladder to board a spacecraft and closing the hatch on NASA’s last lunar mission more than 50 years ago.
Before the commander of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission fired the lunar module’s thrusters, he delivered a solemn message to humanity from space. The Future – Let me just say what I believe history will record: America’s challenges today have shaped humanity’s destiny tomorrow. ”
For decades until his death in 2017 at the age of 82, Cernan could never muster the political will for humanity to return, despite bravely speaking out on the edge of the moon’s tranquil waters. , was dissatisfied with the fact that he was still burdened with the title of “the last man.” “On the moon.”
But now Cernan’s prediction that the astronaut crew will finally return home is about to be fulfilled. There is also talk of a mission to Mars in the future.
If all goes to plan, within a year, four astronauts (three Americans and one Canadian) will fly within 6 miles of the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis II mission. This will be a plane flight.
The crews of all Apollo missions (from 1967 to 1972) were 100% white male. Therefore, reflecting the spirit of our times, one of the Artemis astronauts will be a woman and the other a black man.
Mission Specialist 1 Christina Koch and Pilot Victor Glover join Commander Reed Wiseman and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy as part of NASA’s “diversity and inclusion” initiative called “Mission Equity.” – Plans to participate in Artemis II with Hansen. success’.
Canadian-born Hansen’s presence is due to his country’s financial investment in the Artemis mission, which will make him the first non-American to approach the moon. But Koch and Glover are not newbies. Both of them have traveled to space once. Koch, a 44-year-old flight engineer who is married and has no children, holds the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, spending a total of 328 days in space on the International Space Station.
But critics have accused the U.S. space agency, which relies on the enormous power of the professed “progressive” Biden administration, to be obsessed with identity politics. And although it was announced during the Trump administration that the Artemis program, named after a Greek goddess rather than a god, would have gender parity for the first 18 astronauts, Republicans are worried that some He’s trying to blame the Democratic Party for what he’s alleging. “My mission to the planet has awakened.”
At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in May, Republican Sens. Eric Schmidt and Ted Cruz said Schmidt had “woke up on misguided efforts related to climate change and diversity, equity, and inclusion.” He attacked the Biden administration and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson over what he described as “policies.”
Nelson countered that the Artemis II quartet represented “the crew of humanity.”
For many years, the United States viewed the idea of sending women in particular into space as an irrelevant distraction, and women were not allowed to participate in the astronaut program until the late 1970s.
Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space in 1983. Public opinion was deeply shocked when Christa McAuliffe, a 27-year-old teacher who became the first civilian to fly into space, died along with six others in the 1986 Challenger disaster. .
Whether NASA has made costly mistakes in mission equity (estimated to cost up to $93bn (£73bn) by 2025) remains to be seen as astronauts move humans closer to the moon. We’ll find out as we begin testing systems designed to take us far. . But until now, Artemis has only used test dummies whose bodies are dotted with sensors to measure radiation and vibrations.
The Artemis II flight test, which builds on the success of the unmanned mission Artemis I completed a year ago, is expected to last about 10 days and is scheduled to launch next November.
The quartet will not land on the moon, but if the mission is successful, a landing could be planned as early as 2025.
It will be his “first” mission. It is the first manned mission to exceed low Earth orbit (more than 1,200 miles altitude) since Apollo 17 in 1972, and the first for any of the 19 billion pound Space Launch System (SLS) rockets. The most powerful spacecraft to ever leave Earth, or the Orion spacecraft, was used to take astronauts to high Earth orbit (about 32,000 miles above the Earth’s surface). This mission will take humanity further into space than ever before.
Artemis II also provides an important opportunity to explore how humans can live and operate in deep space.
The SLS rocket is 322 feet tall, making it slightly shorter than the Apollo-Saturn V that took astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
Four RS-25 engines, similar to those aboard the Space Shuttle, are powered by both solid and liquid fuels and provide much higher top speeds of up to 24,500 miles per hour. This is fast enough to fly a large spacecraft 240,000 miles to the moon.
So why did it take so long to return to the moon, especially given the confident predictions of early astronauts like Cernan? The reason is not technical, but always The consensus is that it is both political and financial.
Accounting for inflation, the Apollo program cost more than £205 billion, but US politicians were unable to justify the cost as the space race was considered a key part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. I was able to convert it into
Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine argued in 2018 that the United States probably would have already sent a mission to Mars if it weren’t for the “political risks,” adding that it would take too long and cost too much.
Meanwhile, space research skeptics in Washington are wondering whether it’s worth spending huge amounts of money to conduct a few eye-catching experiments, like planting strange flags or taking home bags of rocks. I’m always wondering what’s going on. Manned exploration is by far the most expensive form of space venture and the type of mission most difficult to gain political support.
But NASA leaders believe they can convincingly redefine the purpose of returning to the moon. They say the moon is no longer the final destination, but just the beginning.
Because the ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, exploit its mineral resources, and use it as a launchpad for expeditions to Mars and beyond.
Given the Moon’s weak gravitational pull, launching a spacecraft does not require as much fuel as launching from Earth, making it an ideal environment for a launchpad.
Supporters added that the moon is only a three-day flight away, so help would not be far away if there was a problem with the lunar base.
The lunar base could also be used to store fuel for deep space missions and coordinate drilling for materials such as iron, lithium and rare earths, which are coveted by mining companies, as well as ice and ammonia. There is.
Scientists are also particularly interested in the moon’s “dark side,” primarily as a site for distant radio telescopes that is protected from Earth’s electromagnetic disruption and provides a clear boundary into space.
And, of course, the possibility of a lunar base has also sparked enthusiasm for the space travel industry. There was once so much interest in Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic that the deposit for a ticket for the trip reached £180,000.
Indeed, dreams of tourism and colonization have captured the imaginations of Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who are engaged in a rocket-building race. Musk’s SpaceX company was selected by NASA to build the lunar landing system for Artemis III, the mission that will take astronauts to the moon’s surface.
Mr Musk also won a £2.3bn contract to build a version of the Starship rocket for the Artemis mission. (This biggie’s rocket has a big advantage over his NASA rocket: unlike the SLS and the old Saturn, his rocket is reusable.)
Meanwhile, NASA has tasked a team led by Bezos’ company Blue Origin to build a 50-foot “lunar lander” to fly to and from the moon’s surface for the Artemis V mission, scheduled for 2029. A £2.7bn deal was signed.
In addition to SpaceX and Blue Origin, other private companies are also competing to collaborate with NASA. The first lunar lander, Peregrine, built by the American space robot company Astrobotic, should be launched early next month.
They will arrive at the moon using a rocket made by US aerospace manufacturer United Launch Alliance, and aim to land on the moon’s rocky surface (which is notoriously difficult) in February.
Peregrine is the first of a number of private spacecraft scheduled to head to the Moon over the next few years, under NASA’s plan to deliver payloads including everything from drilling equipment to rovers before humans’ scheduled arrival. It’s a fleet.
But Americans aren’t just competing to go into space.
Russia is supporting China’s mission to land its own astronauts on the moon in the 2030s.
India successfully landed an unmanned lunar lander near Antarctica in August.
Israel and Japan also have their sights set on the moon.
NASA’s long-standing desire to return to the moon has been hampered by the fact that its priorities are determined by the sitting US president. And what we’ve seen is successive White House incumbents dismantling their predecessors’ space ambitions, almost out of exasperation.
This pivot reportedly added £16bn to the cost of Artemis, apart from years of wasted time and effort.
And there are suggestions that this disgraceful pattern could be repeated if someone other than Joe Biden is elected president next year.
But as space becomes an increasingly important area from both defense and resource development perspectives, future U.S. leaders may conclude that the United States cannot afford to let other countries take the lead. .
“It’s mad that we’re still a tiny civilization on one planet!” Musk recently exclaimed.
Gene Cernan and his fellow Apollo space adventurers would no doubt wholeheartedly agree.