Will Japan's And Italy's Investments In Artemis Save The Day?
80-billion-yen budget request in the works for lunar probe, Ashai Shimbun
“The science and technology ministry’s budget request for the next fiscal year will include an ask for some 80 billion yen ($760 million) to develop key equipment for a U.S.-led, manned lunar exploration mission. The ministry, which also oversees sports, culture and education, is aiming to accelerate the development of a new unmanned supply spacecraft, a life-support machine and other related equipment to help enable Japanese astronauts to land on the moon.”
Joint Statement Of Intention In The Artemis Program By Italy and The United States, ASI
“Italy and the United States are interested in exploring potential Italian contributions to the Artemis Program, including but not limited to: the provision of crew habitation capabilities on the surface of the Moon and associated technologies to enable short-duration stays for crews on the Moon; the conduct of lunar surface science experiments and investigations; and the provision of telecommunication services through surface assets and lunar orbital constellations.”
Keith’s note: There are some who’d say that this large investment – with real money – by Japan (and likely Italy) will help make the Artemis program more stable and able to withstand attempts by the U.S. Congress or a future administration to cancel or delay it. They could be right. Yet back in the 1990s, despite billions in sunk investments by the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Canada, the U.S. Congress came within one vote of cancelling the space station while the White House also toyed with turning it off too. Just sayin’.
If Japan were to become involved, how much influence in the project management of Artemis will they have?
The elephant question should be “will their hardware contributions fit in an 8×17.25 or 8×22 meter payload bay?”
(Starship’s standard options)
Seems to me the fact that NASA spent $8B (which is the original cost estimate under Reagan administration) on the station program and failed to launch anything is one of the reasons it faced so much opposition.
You could say the same thing about SLS.
Well, for almost two years now I think, Congress has been saying, “No” on Artemis while NASA said “Yes”. I’ve been wondering where they’d get the extra money if Congress didn’t provide it and I haven’t been able to see how just privatizing more flights was going to make up for the funding shortfall. Maybe this is how.
The think we need to note is that if Italy and Japan are spending the money, then it is likely that that money will be spent IN Italy and Japan. THAT tells me that Congressional disfunction will result in space spending somewhere else but here, just because certain folks here refuse to pull their heads out of their collective…umm, sand.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, that strategy. the original Exo Mars program was originally envisaged as a coherent inter-agency effort with fully integrated planning and interoperability but was defunded and broke up into small elements with limited co-operation. Historical co-operative missions have been thrashed like LISA. In fairness these were more due to JWST than congress.
ESM seems to be still serving its function as a budget lock, so there is that.