{"id":13190,"date":"2019-05-13T17:52:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T09:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/trump-adds-1-6-billion-to-nasa-budget-request-to-kick-start-artemis-moon-mission\/"},"modified":"2019-05-13T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T09:52:31","slug":"trump-adds-1-6-billion-to-nasa-budget-request-to-kick-start-artemis-moon-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/trump-adds-1-6-billion-to-nasa-budget-request-to-kick-start-artemis-moon-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump adds $1.6 billion to NASA budget request to kick start \u2018Artemis\u2019 moon mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"
Artist\u2019s illustration of a lunar lander. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Trump administration is adding an additional $1.6 billion to NASA\u2019s $21 billion 2020 budget request to kick start plans to return American astronauts to the moon in 2024, four years earlier than previously planned, NASA announced Monday.<\/p>\n

In a surprise announcement, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the revitalized moon program will be named Artemis after the Greek goddess of the moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time humanity went to the moon it was under the name Apollo,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Apollo program forever changed history. \u2026 It turns out that Apollo had a twin sister, Artemis. She happens to be the goddess of the moon. Our astronaut office is very diverse and highly qualified. I think it is very beautiful that 50 years after Apollo, the Artemis program will carry the next man \u2014 and the first woman \u2014 to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump announced the administration\u2019s supplemental budget request in an afternoon tweet, saying \u201cwe are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA, of course, is already in space in a big way with ongoing operations aboard the International Space Station, development of new crew ferry ships to carry U.S. astronauts to and from Earth orbit and ongoing work to develop a new super rocket \u2014 the Space Launch System \u2014 and Orion crew capsules to carry astronauts back to the moon.<\/p>\n

NASA also is developing plans for the lunar \u201cGateway\u201d space station that will be assembled in orbit around the moon to serve as a staging base for eventual piloted flights down to the surface using commercially developed landers and ascent vehicles.<\/p>\n

But until recently, NASA was planning to execute that program over a 10-year period, an already difficult schedule calling for the first boots on the moon in 2028, some 59 years after Neil Armstrong\u2019s \u201cgiant leap for mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on March 27, Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the reconstituted National Space Council, gave NASA new marching orders during a speech at the agency\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the direction of the president of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first woman and the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts, launched by American rockets from American soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moon mission architecture remains in place, but development will have to be rapidly accelerated to give NASA any chance of meeting the administration\u2019s ambitious 2024 deadline. And that will cost money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis additional investment is a down payment on NASA\u2019s efforts to land humans on the moon by 2024,\u201d Bridenstine told reporters in an evening teleconference. \u201cIn the coming years, we will need additional funds. But this is a good amount that gets us out of the gate in a very strong fashion and sets us up for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s illustration of NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft approaching a \u201cGateway\u201d station in lunar orbit. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to a NASA fact sheet, the new budget request includes $1 billion \u201cto enable NASA to being supporting the development of commercial human lunar landing systems three years earlier than previously envisioned. This acquisition strategy will allow NASA to purchase an integrated commercial lunar lander that will transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gateway development will be limited to what is needed to make the station a viable staging base for trips to the surface. That will free up $321 million for other moon spending.<\/p>\n

An additional $651 million is earmarked for the Space Launch System \u2014 SLS \u2014 heavy lift rocket and Orion spacecraft. Lunar surface technologies and propulsion systems would receive an additional $132 million with $90 million going to robotic exploration and research near the moon\u2019s south pole.<\/p>\n

In a YouTube video message to NASA employees, Bridenstine said the additional funding \u201cwill allow us to move forward with design, development and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong other things, it will allow us to accelerate our development of the Space Launch System (rocket) and Orion, it will support the development of a human lunar landing system and it will support precursor capabilities on the lunar surface, including increased robotic exploration of the moon\u2019s polar regions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are many steps ahead in the budget and appropriations process, all of us at NASA should be very proud and excited by this unique opportunity,\u201d Bridenstine said in the video address. \u201cOur efforts will include new work at NASA centers to provide the key technologies and the scientific payloads needed for the Gateway and lunar surface, adding to efforts that are already underway all across our country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdditionally, we envision strong commercial partnerships that will help increase innovation and reduce costs to the American taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional funding will be required in follow-on budgets, but no details were immediately available. Some early estimates ran as high as an additional $8 billion per year, but Bridenstine insisted such numbers were far beyond anything NASA envisions. But he added that higher amounts will, in fact, be needed in the coming few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working through that diligently,\u201d he said. \u201cKnow this, any development program such as this follows a very standard bell curve where the initial years are pretty low and then they ramp up and then they come back down to get to a sustainable kind of operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer is we expect in future years it will be more than the current $1.6 billion for 2020. We all know that, and we are working day in and day out to come up with what those numbers are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to industry executives and engineers earlier this month, Bill Gerstenmaier, director of space operations for NASA, said a critical element for meeting the schedule is fast action by Congress.<\/p>\n

To put astronauts on the moon by the end of 2024, \u201cI honestly need a budget come Oct. 1,\u201d he said. \u201cTypically, we\u2019re in a continuing resolution. I need some mechanism to get funding, I\u2019m going to need some ability to transfer money across accounts, I\u2019m going to need support from Congress to go do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the schedule, \u201cit fits on paper, it looks like something we can go do,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I will tell you it\u2019s not easy, and it is not risk-free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see lots of challenges in terms of can we get the budget and can we get it sustainable,\u201d Gerstenmaier said. \u201cIf we go through another wonderful furlough like this year, that\u2019s the end of the world for us. This is a plan, but we\u2019re going to try to expose all those risks, all those dependencies and then see if this country is willing to step up to this challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gateway modules will be launched aboard commercial rockets while the SLS mega booster is used to launch astronauts to the vicinity of the moon aboard Orion capsules. Gateway will feature a power and propulsion module on one end would be used to provide solar power and to change the orbital parameters as needed to allow access to the entire moon, not just the equatorial regions explored by the Apollo astronauts.<\/p>\n

NASA is seeking Gateway module designs from a variety of American aerospace companies and is encouraging foreign partners to participate along the lines of the European Space Agency\u2019s participation in the Orion program. ESA is providing the Orion capsule\u2019s critical service module, housing life support, power and propulsion systems.<\/p>\n

Orion astronauts will dock at the Gateway station, carry out science observations, oversee robotic landings on the moon and, eventually, board reusable lunar landers and fly down to the surface. After carrying out their missions, the astronauts will use an ascent stage of some sort to fly back to Gateway where their Orion capsule will be waiting to carry them back to Earth.<\/p>\n

The general target area for astronaut landings is the moon\u2019s south pole, where ice is present in permanently shadowed craters.<\/p>\n

Gaining access to ice on the moon is a sort of holy grail given that it can be melted to provide water for astronauts and can be broken down, through solar-powered electrolysis, into hydrogen and oxygen, providing, in theory, rocket fuel, air and water.<\/p>\n

But getting from Gateway to the surface poses major hurdle given the short time available. In an interview with CBS News on April 9, Bridenstine said one of the most difficult hurdles for meeting the 2024 challenge is development of a lander.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most significant piece is gonna be the landing capability,\u201d he said. \u201cLunar landers are difficult to build. They take time, they take money. And we don\u2019t have that capability. We did in the 1960s. There\u2019s not another country on the planet that has anything near the capability to land on the surface of the moon. And we\u2019re going to start right away building that capability. That will be unique, and impressive and enable our astronauts to get to the surface of the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same day Bridenstine talked of the challenge of landing on the moon, Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos unveiled a lunar lander called Blue Moon that could put 6.5 metric tons on the surface of the moon. He said Blue Moon, carrying an ascent stage, could meet NASA\u2019s schedule for landing astronauts on the surface by 2024.<\/p>\n

Bezos said Blue Origin engineers began designing the spacecraft three years ago, allowing the company to offer a ready-made solution to its landing problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this,\u201d Bezos said of the agency\u2019s accelerated plan to return to the moon. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing to do, and for those of you doing the arithmetic at home, that\u2019s 2024, and we can help meet that timeline, but only because we started three years ago. It\u2019s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerstenmaier said NASA expects lander proposals from several companies and hopes to have contracts in place by September or October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist\u2019s illustration of a lunar lander. Credit: NASA The Trump administration is adding an additional $1.6 billion to NASA\u2019s $21 billion 2020 budget request to kick start plans to return American astronauts to the moon in 2024, four years earlier than previously planned, NASA announced Monday. In a […]<\/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":[304,1508,291,419,1545,466,2043,625],"class_list":["post-13190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-blue-moon","tag-commercial-space","tag-gateway","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-jim-bridenstine","tag-lunar-lander","tag-moon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190"}],"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=13190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}