{"id":13073,"date":"2019-07-17T23:58:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-boss-pleads-for-funding-to-ensure-2024-moon-landing\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T23:58:20","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:58:20","slug":"nasa-boss-pleads-for-funding-to-ensure-2024-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-boss-pleads-for-funding-to-ensure-2024-moon-landing\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA boss pleads for funding to ensure 2024 moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine testifies to lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate panel Wednesday that a budget impasse and subsequent spending freeze later this year would be \u201cdevastating\u201d to the agency\u2019s goal of sending the first woman and next man to the moon by the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Bridenstine said if Congress fails to reach consensus on a budget for fiscal 2020 and instead implements a continuing resolution, freezing funding at 2019 levels, development of a new lunar lander would be stopped in its tracks.<\/p>\n

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said Bridenstine earlier indicated the the Artemis program \u201ccould cost $20 (billion) to $30 billion over the next five years. By my math, that calls on the Congress to appropriate $4 (billion) to $6 billion in extra funding each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s talk about not getting a budget number for defense and non-defense discretionary (spending), getting to Oct. 1 and moving to a CR, maybe a short-term two-week CR, month long or even a year long,\u201d Wicker said. \u201cThat would be counter productive to getting you where you need to go, is that correct?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes sir,\u201d Bridenstine replied, \u201cit would be devastating. What we lack right now is a lander. The United States of America has not had a moon lander since 1972, the last time we landed on the surface of the moon. That\u2019s something we need to develop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we end up in a CR, that lander doesn\u2019t continue to get developed. We don\u2019t have money in the budget right now to develop a lander. \u2026 If we end up, sir, in a CR for a period of a year or even more, it would be devastating for trying to achieve the goal of landing the next man and the first woman on the south pole (of the moon).\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ordered NASA to accelerate its plans to return astronauts to the moon, moving landing up from 2028 to 2024. The administration has requested $1.6 billion in supplemental funding for NASA\u2019s fiscal 2020 budget to help with development of the new Space Launch System booster and other required systems.<\/p>\n

Bridenstine said NASA is working to refine program costs and plans to include Artemis budget projections for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 in the agency\u2019s fiscal 2021 budget request, which will be released next February.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s illustration of the Space Launch System\u2019s core stage and two solid rocket boosters. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, Bridenstine removed Bill Gerstenmaier from his role as chief of space operations at NASA Headquarters, along with another key manager overseeing development of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, in a major management shakeup.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt NASA, safety is our highest priority,\u201d Bridenstine wrote in a letter to agency employees. \u201cCost and schedule also matter. It is important that we all stay focused on the work ahead to successfully land on the moon in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get there, NASA plans to launch the first SLS rocket and an uncrewed Orion capsule on a flight around the moon in 2021. The mission is known as Artemis 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go around the moon uncrewed, we will be able to navigate around the moon, to be able to change orbits, to test all of the systems we need to test with the Orion crew capsule and the European service module,\u201d Bridenstine said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In the 2022-23 timeframe, NASA plans to launch Artemis 2, the first flight of an SLS and Orion spacecraft with a crew on board. The astronauts will initially test Orion\u2019s systems in Earth orbit before heading out on a trajectory that will carry them on a \u201cfree return\u201d loop around the moon and back to an ocean splashdown.<\/p>\n

Along the way, NASA plans to remotely build a small space station \u2014 Gateway \u2014 in orbit around the moon, along with a commercially provided, yet-to-be-designed landing craft.<\/p>\n

With the lunar infrastructure in place, the Artemis 3 mission will be clear to take off in 2024. After docking at the Gateway station, crew members would board the landing ship and descend to the surface. The lander\u2019s ascent stage would carry them back to Gateway and Orion for the return to Earth.<\/p>\n

Planners currently envision one crewed flight to the moon per year with week-long stays on the surface, Bridenstine said in prepared remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cExpanded Gateway and surface capabilities later in the decade could support surface exploration that lasts for weeks or months and test the technologies and systems needed for missions farther into the solar system, including Mars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be critical to supporting the agency\u2019s plans for sustainable lunar exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine testifies to lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate panel Wednesday that a budget impasse and subsequent spending freeze later this year would be \u201cdevastating\u201d to the agency\u2019s goal of sending the first woman and next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,1700,783,708,1545,2043,625,190],"class_list":["post-13073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-1","tag-artemis-2","tag-artemis-3","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-lunar-lander","tag-moon","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}