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Apollo

Project Artemis Will Send Humans Back To The Moon

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 13, 2019

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

26 responses to “Project Artemis Will Send Humans Back To The Moon”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Great name, especially as its goal is to land the first woman on the Moon! This Administrator is really doing well.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      The House controls the Nation’s checkbook and the Democrats recently elected a record number of women to the house. Seems like it was politics driving the name and inclusion. Hoping to gain funding support in the house is my guess.

      • fcrary says:
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        Some of those recently elected, female Democrats may be crazy. But that doesn’t make them stupid. They aren’t going to write big checks just because NASA is talking about landing a woman on the Moon. Actually, it could even backfire. It could be seen as tokenism of the worst sort.

  2. fcrary says:
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    Sounds good. I don’t know if he mention it, but the mythological Artemis also has associations with both the Moon and wilderness. It’s also worth mentioning that Chang’e, the name China uses for their lunar missions, is a female Moon goddess from their mythology. (And Yutu, the name they use for lunar rovers, is her pet rabbit.)

  3. moon2mars says:
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    I bet Andy Weir is pretty happy about now over some free publicity!

  4. MAGA_Ken says:
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    Superman 2

    Prepare for Zod.

    But really, good name.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Don’t forget that in the 1990’s there was the Artemis Project, a non-profit advocating a private lunar return.

  5. Skinny_Lu says:
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    I like it. NASA to pay for developing “turn key” lunar landers by commercial competition. I just wonder how closely will NASA micro-manage those contracts. If past performance is any indication, it will be bumpy. I am very excited because each company that proposes a solution has a chance to be awarded a portion of the contract. Will NASA pick the top 2 options like commercial crew and commercial cargo) or single source it? Much to be discussed about that. 2024 is pretty tight.
    But again, we need landers regardless of which vehicle takes them to the moon. Silver lining, when SLS (and/or Orion) falls under it’s own weight, these landers could be launched by SpaceX or Blue Origin… or even ULA may stay competitive. Orion can be replaced by Crew Dragon or Boeing Starliner. 2024 is a pipe dream, IMHO, but even if it’s late it is worth doing.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      These low payload capacity “Turn Key” Lunar landers will be dead if SpaceX or Blue Origin is involved.

      The Blue Moon lander effectively replaces all landers with payload capacity of less than 6 tonnes. The Blue Moon lander funding is stable and could be drastically increase if required.

      By 2024 the SpaceX Starship should be able to land on the Moon with 50 tonnes of payload then return to Earth without refueling staging from high elliptical Earth orbit. If SpaceX keep their development schedule, the Falcon rocket family along with the Dragon should be retired around the end of 2023.

      • fcrary says:
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        From what I can tell, Blue Moon can’t land six tonnes without refueling somewhere. Possibly several somewheres. But I also don’t think a large lander, either Starship or Blue Moon, will kill the smaller landers. Look at the business plan for Rocket Lab. They are doing well, by offering small launches to orbit. Specifically to the orbit of the customer’s choice. If I want to land a dozen, MER-class rovers on the Moon, at a dozen different locations, a single, large lander isn’t useful. That might be a niche market, but lots of companies live off niche markets.

        • Zed_WEASEL says:
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          There is 2 versions of the Blue Moon lander. One got more propellant tankage so can land with an manned ascent module of about 6 tonnes.

          Don’t think small niche Lunar landers make much financial sense, IMO. Especially if you are staging them from the LOP-G Gateway and are more or less expendable.

  6. james w barnard says:
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    Is this the name for an actual project and is it strictly related to SLS/Orion? Interesting: Artemis killed Orion supposedly by mistake. Any significance to that?

  7. richard_schumacher says:
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    Good name, anyway. Musk should name his first lunar lander Artemis and beat Trump to the punch.

  8. Ray Gedaly says:
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    Their original choice was to name the project Alice.

  9. Jeff2Space says:
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    They’re doubling down by giving SLS/Orion even more funding under this proposal. This is short sighted and will not lead to a sustainable approach to crewed lunar surface missions. I am therefore completely disappointed in NASA Administrator Bridenstine at this point. I had some hope when NASA was evaluating more commercial approaches, but those hopes have been dashed.

    • MAGA_Ken says:
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      They are looking at commercial for the Gateway. At least that means commercial launchers are getting into the project. I suspect the costs will be so much higher under the SLS that further development will be stopped and the whole program eventually cancelled.

    • Patrick Underwood says:
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      Given the political forces he has to deal with, he’s doing an amazing job. Shelby, by way of his committee chairmanship, holds NASA hostage. Amazing that this one old man has absolute power over the direction of official US HSF.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      I suppose the only way Alabama would go along with the 1 billion for commercial SLS and Orion would need to get a little shot in the arm with 600 mil.

  10. Ray Gedaly says:
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    I read elsewhere that the lunar landing would likely feature a crew of only two. As much as anything else, this tells me that the accelerated schedule is merely a political stunt. Previous studies recommended extended stays on the surface with crews of three or four. With a crew of two, you won’t even necessarily need an airlock. This really will be just a repeat of Apollo.

    • fcrary says:
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      $1.6 billion is the cost of a smallish flagship mission, by robotic exploration standards. I think the equivalent of Apollo 18 would have comparable scientific return. More to the point, if it’s done right, a two-person, brief stay on the Moon could be the precursor to a more substantial, human presence. The _reason_ we’ve never been back to the Moon in 47 years is because all previous plans insisted on being bigger and better than Apollo from the very start. That costs so much they never even got off the ground. What’s wrong with repeating Apollo, but doing it in a way we can then build on? (Repeating Apollo, but in a dead end way would, or rather will, be a different matter…)

  11. TiminSoCal says:
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    I doubt by 2024 if it’s the SLS they use.

  12. Homer Hickam says:
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    I wish we could get past these cutesy names for spaceflight. We’re building a permanent infrastructure to live and work on the moon. That’s all we need to know. It’s OK to give a name to a rocket type or crew habitat as pieces of equipment so that it’s easy to classify them but we don’t need a name for opening the moon for business. When the coalfields of West Virginia or the oil fields of Texas were developed, we didn’t give those efforts silly names. Nor did we apply the name of some obscure god to the trans-continental railroad when it was built. It’s time to get serious and move spaceflight out of childhood fantasy and into the serious work of life out there that’s going to require blood and sweat and tears to make real.

    • james w barnard says:
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      Well, Project Artemis should also have a name for the SLS launch vehicle. We’ve usually used the names of the outer planets. Neptune doesn’t sound like something beyond LEO, and Pluto isn’t a true planet, so they say. That leaves the next planet beyond Saturn. But you have to be careful how you pronounce it! Too bad we can’t get Artemis to kill Orion..not by mistake, and the SLS and Gateway along with it. Then let SpaceX and Blue Origin, et al get the job done… cheaper and quicker!

    • Vladislaw says:
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      “We’re building a permanent infrastructure to live and work on the moon”

      Where was that in the budget .. I didn’t see it?

    • fcrary says:
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      That’s a practice which predates NASA and spaceflight. I don’t know when it started, but it was common practice during the Second World War. Operations and projects were given names, either for deliberate obfuscation (e.g. Manhattan District) or simply as a convenient shorthand (e.g. in discussions about resources going to Watchtower versus Torch.)

      But I think it’s meaningful to contrast them with your example of prospecting, mining and drilling in West Virginia or western Texas. The projects which were given some name, cute or not, were all large coordinated and collective efforts. Just the existence of terms like wildcat drilling says that’s not what prospecting in Texas was like.

  13. cb450sc says:
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    A couple weeks ago I woke up early to see Bridenstine talk at the Planetary Defence Conference. He gave this ridiculous stump speech about SLS and landing the first woman on the moon. It even had a slick patriotic video full of vague platitudes about space and America. It was the most naked political pandering to the SLS crowd I had ever seen, and wholly inappropriate for the audience. And I’ve been to a lot of HQ talks. The food was excellent, however, so I believe I rolled my eyes and went and got some bagels. At least now I know where this was coming from.