Some lawmakers are worried about delays to NASA’s Artemis moon program.
Last week, NASA announced that the Artemis 2 mission, which will fly four astronauts around the moon, has a goal of September 2025, and the Artemis 3 mission, which will land on Earth’s closest neighbor for the first time in more than six months, has a goal of September 2026. announced that it was set to . century.
These new Artemis service dates represent a delay of approximately one year for each flight. The need to do more research on key Artemis hardware, such as the heat shield for NASA’s Orion crew capsule, has spurred the shift to the right, but the unmanned Artemis 1 mission in late 2022 will perform as expected. I didn’t.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing today (January 17) on the new Artemis program, with multiple members expressing concerns about the plan’s slippage.
In his opening remarks, Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) said, “I want to remind my colleagues that we are not alone in our interest in putting a man on the moon.” Ta.
“The Chinese Communist Party is actively recruiting international partners for a lunar exploration mission called the Lunar Exploration Station, and has expressed its ambition to land manned astronauts on the moon by 2030,” he added. . “The first country to land could set a precedent for whether future lunar activities will be conducted with openness and transparency or in a more restricted manner.”
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need to restart [Artemis], don’t get off track. ”
Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator
California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the committee’s ranking member, expressed a similar sentiment.
“Let me be clear: I support Artemis,” she said in her opening remarks. “But I want it to be successful, especially in a situation where China is behind us. And we here at the Commission hope that Artemis is strong and that we work hand in hand with China to bring the world together.” We look forward to working with you to ensure we are on track as we aim to be a leading partner in human exploration of the Moon and beyond. ”
Several other committee members emphasized that the New Moon race is part of a broader competition with China and that second place could jeopardize U.S. national security.
“It’s no secret that China has a goal of surpassing the United States as the world leader in space by 2045,” Sen. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said at the hearing. We cannot allow something like this to happen.” “I think the cutting edge of space technology that we have is going to protect America. It’s going to protect not just our economy, but the technologies that benefit humanity.”
Bill Posey (R-Florida) called space “the ultimate military high ground” and said those who lead the final frontier “will determine the fate of this planet.”
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Four witnesses testified at the hearing. Katherine Kellner, deputy administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. George Scott, the agency’s acting inspector general. William Russell, Director of Contracts and National Security Acquisitions, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO); Mike Griffin is co-president and co-founder of the consulting firm LogiQ, where he served as NASA administrator from 2005 to 2009.
Russell and Scott discussed future challenges for the Artemis mission, which aims to establish a manned base near the moon’s south pole by the end of the 2020s. Those challenges, they said, include an ambitious launch schedule and lack of transparency around the planned timeline, as well as the program’s price.
“NASA has not produced a comprehensive estimate of all costs for Artemis,” Scott said. (He noted that a 2021 report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General found that the total cost of the program from 2012 to 2025 would ultimately be about $93 billion.)
“Unless NASA fully calculates and accurately reports the total costs of current and future missions, it will be difficult for Congress to make informed decisions about NASA’s long-term funding needs. Deaf,” Scott added.
Kellner acknowledged these and other challenges, but emphasized that NASA is working to overcome them and is moving in that direction.
“We believe that we will reach the moon before China, and the Administrator talked about that last week, and it is our intention that that will happen,” said NASA Administrator. He said this while quoting comments from Bill Nelson. On January 9th, delays for Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 were announced.
Mr. Griffin does not share that optimism. In fact, he is very dismissive of the Artemis project currently being constructed.
“In my judgment, the Artemis program is overly complex, unrealistically priced, jeopardizes crew safety, poses too high a risk to mission completion, and, even if successful, has very little chance of timely completion.” ,” Griffin said at today’s hearing.
These perceived shortcomings are a major problem, he stressed, given the current importance of lunar development “in the world of global power politics.”
“It is unacceptable for the United States and our partners not to go to the moon when other countries are going to the moon,” Griffin said. “We need a program around that theme. Artemis is not that program. We need a reboot instead of staying on track.”