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NASA Moon

NASA Lays Out $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman on the Moon (vice.com) 185

Posted by msmash from the marching-ahead dept.
Last year, NASA had said that in four years, it would be landing the first woman ever on the moon, and returning to Earth's only natural satellite for the first time since 1972, through its Artemis programme. Now, in a release on September 22, NASA has shared an update outlining its plan, announcing a whopping $28 billion plan for the return to the lunar surface. From a report: The funds are all going to be used for the development of machinery; one billion dollars of the budget will go directly to the development of a commercial human lunar system that will take humans to the moon's surface. An allotment of $651 million will be used to support the Orion Spacecraft and the rocket that Boeing is building for the moon mission -- called the Space Launch System or SLS, on which NASA has already spent at least $11.9 billion.

The mission is named Artemis after the Greek goddess of the moon and the twin sister of Apollo. It's the antithesis to the NASA mission which last landed humans on the moon, Apollo 17. Only 12 humans, all male, have ever walked on the moon and they were all American, according to Bettina Inclan, NASA Communications Director. And with Artemis, they are finally planning to launch women on our satellite too. Currently, there are just 12 active women astronauts, excluding the five other female astronauts who graduated from training earlier this year. The crew for the 2024 mission, however, has not yet been named. According to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, the first woman to walk on the moon would be somebody "who has been proven, somebody who has flown, somebody who has been on the International Space Station already."
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NASA Lays Out $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman on the Moon More

NASA Lays Out $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman on the Moon

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  • why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by colonslash ( 544210 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:10PM (#60536720)
    Or maybe we could do research and inspire a new generation by doing something new and different? This sounds like they're spending $28B of taxpayer funds just to appease feminists, which is a completely fruitless endeavor.

    • Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:18PM (#60536758)

      Or maybe we could do research and inspire a new generation by doing something new and different? This sounds like they're spending $28B of taxpayer funds just to appease feminists, which is a completely fruitless endeavor.

      The goal is to put a feather in Trump's hat. That's why the target year is 2024--sure he may not be President but that's the gamble he took. The first woman angle is both an end in itself, and a way to get it funded. But it's not the main purpose.

      • Only the 2024 part has anything to do with Trump. The project has existed since before that. But that's how it all works. The 2024 stuff, the first woman on the moon etc. Its all there to sell it to politicians. NASA doesn't get to set their budget. They have to suck some Washington dick to get anything so they will play all sides in the hope of currying enough favor to get anything done. That's how its been since 1972. They got lucky with the whole Kennedy mandate thing. Johnson couldn't kill Apollo, it wa

        • Which project? LOP-G existed, but no landers were in sight, as far as I'm aware.

          • Senate Launch system and more broadly the entire idea of returning to the moon using shuttle derived hardware has been around since the early 2000's.

            • You're drawing a very nebulous connection there. In the "early 2000s" the whole idea looked very different from what is proposed now.
        • Donald Trump set the timeline, and it's no secret that we would be shooting for mars in the same timeframe [futurism.com] if he thought it were possible. I am not criticizing anyone, here. If it has to happen in the span of one President's administration for us to get back to doing interesting things with manned spaceflight, so be it.

    • Or maybe we could do research and inspire a new generation by doing something new and different? This sounds like they're spending $28B of taxpayer funds just to appease feminists, which is a completely fruitless endeavor.

      Fifty years ago we went there, teed off, drove cars around, and brought back some rocks.

      What are we going to gain by spending 28 billion for a return trip? Besides the cost, why risk the lives for something you could accomplish much more easily with rovers?

      • Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:32PM (#60536828) Journal

        We need to go back to the moon because getting to the moon is an important initial step in humanity's ultimate presence beyond earth. While yes, we've already been there, but then we stopped trying for half a century or so, so now we kind of need to start over.

        There's a shit ton of stuff that we've learned about the moon since the Apollo missions ended might make the return trip to investigate firsthand worthwhile. Rovers are fine for some things, but they are no replacement for actually being there.

        Eventually, a permanent human-habitable base can be stationed on the moon, as well as manufacturing facilities, and we could build spacecraft there that are designed to go to Mars and beyond (launching from the moon, after all, is far easier than launching from Earth).

        • Yes we've already been there, but then we stopped trying for half a century so now we kind of need to start over. ... in typical millennial fashion. Forget history and try to do the same damn thing all over again.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Find a cave and crawl right in, you;ll be comfortable in there, those fancy modern wooden huts, not for you, the cave is just fine.

            Decades ago the ability was above their desires and the space race died away, now like you their desires are all below their below, entirely focused on their genitals and colonising the stars, so what, more people must masturbate you and you must masturbate more people, is that the goal, a big old non-reproductive mutual masturbation marathon till human society goes extinct.

            I k

        • We need to go back to the moon because getting to the moon is an important initial step in humanity's ultimate presence beyond earth. While yes, we've already been there, but then we stopped trying for half a century or so, so now we kind of need to start over.

          There's a shit ton of stuff that we've learned about the moon since the Apollo missions ended might make the return trip to investigate firsthand worthwhile. Rovers are fine for some things, but they are no replacement for actually being there.

          Eventually, a permanent human-habitable base can be stationed on the moon, as well as manufacturing facilities, and we could build spacecraft there that are designed to go to Mars and beyond (launching from the moon, after all, is far easier than launching from Earth).

          The plan is a good read https://www.nasa.gov/sites/def... [nasa.gov]
          I guess we'll see how it goes.

        • Why do we need to start over? Did they just throw out all the R&D that they had? If so they should invest in better systems to store research first.

          The headline is provocative though $28 billion to put a woman on the moon, their are far better ways to help women with $28 billion dollars.

          I realize that that money mainly goes to fund everything but selecting a woman, but the headline is intentionally antagonistic to get reads, furthering division. The news media a constantly complaining the division in s

          • The headline is provocative though $28 billion to put a woman on the moon, their are far better ways to help women with $28 billion dollars.

            That's the real issue here, the provocative headline. The plan mentions putting "the first woman and next man on the moon" but it's not like the female is the focus of the project.

        • launching from the moon, after all, is far easier than launching from Earth

          Not quite. You have to get there first, and that involves several km/s in losses AND then you also face the lack of the Oberth effect when getting out of cislunar space.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )
            Getting there from earth only involves a launch powerful enough to lift the passengers and fuel to get to the moon. If you have a second craft that launches from the moon to, say, go to mars, it will need far less fuel than you would have needed it you had launched it from earth simply because you would have lifted that much more fuel.

    • Trump directed the return to the Moon. If you're pissed about that $28B cost, blame him.

      NASA is choosing to include a woman on the crew either out of fairness, for historic reasons, or for the press. Maybe all of the above. But this is the only part of the news report that is totally up to them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khchung ( 462899 )

      This sounds like they're spending $28B of taxpayer funds just to appease feminists

      No, this is $28B of pork (if Trump wins) to be distributed to different states, so as to boost Trump's chance of winning.

      That's why this was announced less than 2 months before election, and that's why the target date is 2024, i.e. to be paid off by the end of Trump's second term.

      You can bet that if Trump won, states that voted for Trump would get more pork.

    • They're going on to the moon as a step towards mars.

  • I don't see why NASA needs to spend a billion dollars on a human lander for the moon, when they could take probably half that, give it to SPaceX and get Starship fully operational to simply go up on the moon and land.

    Maybe add a little bit more to develop how you get out of the ship and onto the surface, but even with that it has to cost way, way less than the overall mission NASA is working on.

    I fully support NASAs other efforts like Mars exploration and other deep space things, but it does not seem to mak

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      I fully support NASAs other efforts like Mars exploration and other deep space things, but it does not seem to make sense to give them so much money and time for something where a commercial system is so close to operational.

      Agreed. The notion that putting a permanent base on the moon is a useful step towards a base on Mars has always seemed like a stretch to me. The differences between a base on the moon and a base on Earth are A. gravity and B. risk. We know how to build things for low gravity, so there's nothing new to be learned there, and risk generally isn't considered a benefit.

      Besides, there's already a woman on the moon. It's a harsh mistress. :-D

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        There's a tremendous capability for fuel savings once you create the right kinds of manufacturing facilities on the moon, as it will cost far less to launch a spacecraft from the moon when the fuel and materials are obtained there than it would cost to launch from earth.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          That's fair, but it's a rather large leap from building a colony on the moon to building spacecraft and rocket fuel on the moon. Unless the goal is to get to Mars by the year 2300, it won't be ready in time to do any good. :-)

          Besides, I don't think the right elements exist on the moon to build fuel for rockets (no nitrogen, no hydrogen, only bound oxygen), and most of the launch mass comes from fuel, so you're likely going to be moving a significant portion of the fuel's mass from Earth one way or another

          • That's fair, but it's a rather large leap from building a colony on the moon to building spacecraft and rocket fuel on the moon.

            You don't need to build spacecraft on the moon, only manufacture fuel, which can be something as simple as liquefied hydrogen and oxygen. You don't even need a colony for that, though it's probably easiest if you do have some people around to ride herd on the equipment. Of course, NASA has no LH2/LOX rockets, so...

        • Provide numbers, please. Otherwise such claims are pointless and easily dismissed.

        • There's a tremendous capability for fuel savings once you create the right kinds of manufacturing facilities on the moon, as it will cost far less to launch a spacecraft from the moon when the fuel and materials are obtained there than it would cost to launch from earth.

          Really? SpaceX is offering launch into orbit for $1500/kg right now, and expects to cut this cost sharply over the next decade, as low as $10/kg or $20-30/kg to send something to the Moon. "Stuff on the Moon" will cost "tremendously less" than this? Are you including the costs of building a industrial base on the Moon?

          Although I very much doubt the $10/kg myself, it being based on extremely high launcher reuse rates, the reason why it is even possible to claim a cost this low is that the spacefan fascinatio

        • There's a tremendous capability for fuel savings once you create the right kinds of manufacturing facilities on the moon, as it will cost far less to launch a spacecraft from the moon when the fuel and materials are obtained there than it would cost to launch from earth.

          Only if you have rockets that can be fueled with fuel that can be easily manufactured on the moon. NASA has no such rockets. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is working on LH2/LOX rockets that would work, and the reason they've chosen hydrogen fuel is specifically so they can use fuel manufactured off-planet. But that's not part of NASA's plans.

      • I think the idea of a permanent base on the moon is to be like a spaceport.

    • Re:Serious question- why not pour that into Starsh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EndlessNameless ( 673105 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:36PM (#60536856)

      NASA isn't completely free to choose its own missions. They have to do what the President and Congress tell them to do.

      The SLS system supports jobs in a lot of states. There are a lot of Representatives and Senators with a vested interest in keeping the program alive regardless of its utility. So NASA receives the direction and funding to continue it.

      As a government agency, NASA cannot spend any money without authorization from Congress.

      NASA could do something completely amazing, and it would mean nothing without Congress. Imagine if NASA engineers designed a rocket that's a 50-year leap forward in technology---and it was done for free, in their spare time. It would be amazing, but it wouldn't go anywhere without approval. They could only build, test, or use that rocket if they convince Congress to fund it.

      NASA isn't a political agency, but their goals and projects come and go at the whims of politicians. It's a uniquely awful position for their engineers, I'd imagine.

    • SpaceX is doing fine and getting some grant money from NASA for Artemis. Although, interestingly enough one of the challenges for Starship is that it is so big that landing on the moon will kick up a lot of dust causing potential problems. In one of their concept art pieces they had some thrusters positioned fairly high up on Starship to avoid such landing events.

    • Because Starship is still mostly unproven, won't feature abort during atmospheric launch, and at this point NASA requirements would shape it more than it would shape NASA requirements.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Because Starship is still mostly unproven

        Yes, and SLS has so many flights under its belt that it's a throroughly proven system.

        • Because Starship is still mostly unproven

          Yes, and SLS has so many flights under its belt that it's a throroughly proven system.

          It's a re-arrangement of existing engines and hardware in a conventional, known configuration. It features a crew vehicle that sits on top of the stack and has a tractor tower escape system, conventional re-entry, and engines throughout that have been used in previous vehicles. Starship will run on engines that haven't flown higher than a few hundred feet, that also have to be reliable enough for landing, no launch escape system, in-orbit refueling unlike anything that's ever been attempted before and a who

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sconeu ( 64226 )

            That's what they thought about Ariane 5 before its initial launch...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            ...a tractor tower escape system, conventional re-entry, and engines throughout that have been used in previous vehicles

            One of those previous vehicles did blow up and kill all the passengers because of a combination of design flaws and launching in inappropriate weather conditions. It does seem worth noting that. To be fair, they did some redesign after that.

  • This BS is old (Score:2, Redundant)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 )
    Seriously, the female astronauts hate this kind of BS. Oddly, it is the grounded ppl with loads too much time on their hands to fuck around with politics that push this garbage.

    Instead, a much better reason to take women up there is less resources needed / individual.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      Any differences in resources needed based on the size or sex of the individuals is going to be insignificant. They're not going to be constrained to limit every ounce like they were with Apollo, and they'll be bringing a ton of extra supplies in case they have to extend the mission to do some emergency anyway (which I expect they'll leave behind to have more room for rocks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      I don't like the headline focus, but it's fair for NASA to say that they made a mistake by excluding women and people of color in the past, and they won't be excluding them on this mission.

      • Not sure if NASA excluded them, or previous education/jobs that lead to those positions actually did that. I am inclined to believe the later.
        But what is needed is to simply to send the BEST ppl and not worry about Gender. Obviously when going to Mars for 5-10+ year long missions, then it makes sense, but for less than a year long mission to LEO or the moon? Nope.
  • 28 Billion. Let's think about that.

    • 28 Billion. Let's think about that.

      OK, in what context do you want to think about it? How about in terms of less than 0.1% of the Department of Health and Human Services budget?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:30PM (#60536816)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Good comment there, but are you sure it was a SJW which wrote the VICE headline? Could have been some anti-SJW type who wanted to stir up trouble. The line I read from more sane writers is this one, "NASA is planning on sending the first woman ever and the first man in nearly five decades to the moon by 2024,..." (https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/us/nasa-moon-2024-trnd-scn/index.html). I imagine that is more in line with NASA's internal and external position.

  • $28B? Our tax dollars at work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:34PM (#60536834)

    Federal agencies(DOD & DHS too) tripping over themselves to see who can waste the most money. SpaceX could probably do it for half that.

    • Federal agencies(DOD & DHS too) tripping over themselves to see who can waste the most money. SpaceX could probably do it for half that.

      They may yet do it for half that. As it stands, SLS is still the safer bet. The tipping point point might come sooner than later, though.

    • Federal agencies(DOD & DHS too) tripping over themselves to see who can waste the most money. SpaceX could probably do it for half that.

      They won't get the chance. None of this money has yet been appropriated, and it is a good bet that it never will be.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      SpaceX will do this on their own, but 2024 may be too aggressive for them without a big funding boost. They should be able to land a Starship on the moon by then, but getting it from a cargo vessel to a human-rated ship will probably take several more years. (Of course, they could just put a Dragon in as cargo and call it good for the life support side, but that wouldn't cover all the safety issues of the rocket itself.)

      I don't think SpaceX has a realistic public timeline, but I would guess that they'll

  • Just pay Ralph Kramden (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaatochacha ( 651922 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:35PM (#60536842)

    Problem solved.

  • Hopefully they remember to pack enough spacesuits for all the women they intend to send.

  • the $28B dollar vagina (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:59PM (#60536954)
    So, just because this was done almost 60 years ago by MEN, we must IMMEDIATLY, SEND A WOMAN!! NOW!!
    what nonsense. What a complete waste of money. what complete screwup of priorities. It's like the Hillary campaign... everyone was so obsessed trying to put a vagina in the white house, nobody stopped to evaluate the viability of the candidate- how controversial she is, how illegal, how arrogant, how unpopular, how divisive, but no, she HAD to be on the ticket- and look what happened.
    do you know you could end homelessness in America for $20B?
    https://www.americanprogress.o... [americanprogress.org].
    Let’s forget life diversity on the planet is crashing
    https://www.un.org/sustainable... [un.org]
    but instead, let’s put a vagina on the moon. well spent,

    • That makes it a veritable bargain: MacKenzie Bezo's vagina cost him $38 bn, and he didn't even get to go to the moon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgibson ( 131396 )

      do you know you could end homelessness in America for $20B?

      Yeah, but how will they adapt to the Moon's low gravity?

  • NASA Lays Out $28 Billion Plan To Land First Woman on the Moon

    How much to bring her back?

  • They need to start stockpiling resources and materials on the moon. Water, air, food and a shelter or shelter parts minimum. Perhaps sub-assemblies for grander plans too. Leave behind all the junk you can too, never know what might be handy one day. If they have a plan to do that, return away. Being standardized with anyone else who might do the same would be handy too.

  • Not Even NASA Believes This (Score:3)

    by careysub ( 976506 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @02:24PM (#60537076)

    But they are required by the Administration to pretend that they do.

    A good summary of this "project" is this one prepared a few weeks ago by the Congressional Research Service. [congress.gov]

    It lays out the reason for the sudden acceleration of the program from 2028 to 2024 last year:

    Why 2024?
    As recently as early 2019, NASA was planning the first post-Apollo human lunar landing for 2028. The acceleration to 2024 was announced by Vice President Pence in March 2019. Supporters of the 2024 goal argue that it instils a sense of urgency, focus, and motivation, and that the U.S. space program is in competition with Russia and China. Opponents argue that the 2024 date is driven by political goals rather than by technical or scientific considerations.

    And includes points out the massive reservations anyone commenting on this "program" must inevitably have:

    Even among congressional supporters of the Artemis program and the 2024 goal, concerns remain about cost and schedule. ... In addition, repeated slips in the launch dates for Artemis I and II—September 2018 and August 2021 in the baseline plan; currently November 2021 and August 2023—have made some policymakers doubt the credibility of the 2024 schedule for Artemis III.

    The circumspection of bureaucratic language and the CRS needs to be taken into account - no one believes this program really exists.

    And of the 28 billion dollars that needs to be spent between now (should have been 18 months ago when Pence cut four years off of an engineering schedule) and the end of 2024, how much has already been appropriated (much less spent)? Why zero dollars! Nothing has been appropriated! This effort is thus far running on gas fumes and sofa money, stuff taken from other activities (I suspect mostly the PR budget).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      2024 is all about having this as the centerpiece of Trump's re-election campaign.

  • Damn sexist crap! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @02:36PM (#60537146)

    What about sending the best qualified person, no matter whether man, woman, other? That would be rational. This is just sexist crap.

    • What about sending the best qualified person, no matter whether man, woman, other? That would be rational. This is just sexist crap.

      After reducing the original timeline from 2028 to 2024, it has become nothing but a footprints and flags mission for the aggrandizement of Trump. Anybody with feet qualifies.

  • Here it is from one of the many female astronauts [time.com]

    They do not care. They just want to go to space, the moon and mars.

    • The only thing that is important is that kids have appropriate role models so that young girls, in this case, are not misled into thinking that being an astronaut is not a possibility for them. That's an issue for the realms of sociology and developmental psychology, not space exploration. Is anyone at NASA qualified to speak on those terms?

  • Do it within the next 3 yrs. and you will get the best price ever ..

  • Ralph Kramden would do it for free for the sheer join of it.

  • Clickbait for the Incels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @03:38PM (#60537426)

    The headline is designed to get the incel chauvinists all frothing at the mouth. NASA is spending a bunch of money to go to the moon, and they were mandated to do by Congress. The gender of the astronauts was and is incidental to that.

    • In a good universe you'd be right, but sorry that's exactly the language the government is using on NASA webstie. We're putting a cunt wielder, er, vagina er female on the moon along with a cock er penis wielder.

      No matter real qualifications as an astronaut, they gotta have a cunt. And probably be black and lesbian and hey maybe even a cripple for bonus points.

      That's how low we're sinking in our woke pandering politicially correct b.s. society.

  • identity politics (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @05:09PM (#60537856)

    So the mission is identity politics? Where is this going to end? How many of us care what sex or skin color or preferred sex partner the next person landing on the moon is? This is shallow and stupid, and quite frankly, embarrassing.... especially coming from a supposedly science-oriented agency.

    I want what probably most people want and expect- the *best* candidate for the mission, whoever that turns out to be. I doubt sex has any bearing on it.

  • .. nerdy dudes on tech site forum argue and exchange pointless banter about mysterious "woman"

  • Isn't nice to know you got the job partly because of your sex?

  • This article might give some insight into what people think internally at NASA about gender politics and how it shapes their media presentation:
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/l... [forbes.com]

  • To the moon, Alice! To the moon!!!

  • I know, the President wants to send people to the moon again, but if we really wanted to advance things, we would send astronauts to Mars, and some of those astronauts would be women. Hell, first one on the surface should be a woman. Why not? It's strange to me that Congress is okay woth spending all this money on something we've already done. It seems rather wasteful.

  • If someone (let's say: SpaceX) were to have a small fleet of reusable launchers... and then used that fleet to put a small station in orbit... and then put a fuel depot next to the small station... and then built, in orbit, an Earth/Moon round trip vehicle, to be fueled at the depot when done... and finally shipped up several moon landing craft...

    at that point they would have the infrastructure in place to go to the moon on a routine basis.

    Note that this hypothetical Earth/Moon round trip vehicle need not b

  • It's hard to see how the money isn't better spent on telescopes, rovers, satellites or even schools, clean energy and basic infrastructure. ISS has also been a very expensive experiment with minimal return. The Space Shuttle also slowed down our scientific progress due to the cost. Sending resources to the wrong places has real world penalties, prioritizing them to the areas that get you the most return has real world benefits. A moon base won't be worth the yearly costs and initial setup vs exploring the m
  • 28 billion for social justice. This is how our civilization ends.

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