Acting NASA chief says 2024 Moon landing no longer a “realistic” target, Ars Technica
“NASA’s acting administrator said Wednesday evening that the goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2024 no longer appears to be feasible. “The 2024 lunar landing goal may no longer be a realistic target due to the last two years of appropriations, which did not provide enough funding to make 2024 achievable,” the acting administrator, Steve Jurczyk, told Ars. “In light of this, we are reviewing the program for the most efficient path forward.”
Keith’s note: This is, of course true – but it is not the whole story. It was widely assumed within NASA that when Vice President Pence suddenly advanced the Artemis lunar landing date to 2024 that it would be rather hard to make that happen. But NASA had to accept that challenge – and they did and worked hard to make it happen. But it did not happen. The prime reason for the problems lay at the feet of the chronic delays and cost overruns for SLS and its associated ground support systems. Even when NASA got the money it needed it still fell behind year after year as both the GAO and OIG noted with consistent regularity.
Then, of course, there was the ever-changing Gateway which added and then discarded features faster than the NASA graphic artists could update the pretty website imagery. And the lunar lander grew larger and more complex every time NASA mentioned it. So … Jurczyk is right – he is just not fessing up to the whole story. It is mea culpa time for NASA.
NASA is as much to blame for the Artemis quagmire as past Congresses and White House Administrations are. Now, a new Administration has thrown a hopeful lifeline to the Artemis program albeit a vague one. The pandemic, a crashing economy, exploding government debt, and dysfunctional politics is going to force every program – in every agency – to redouble its explanation as to why it needs to be done.
The Biden Administration’s slogan “Build Back Better” should be something that everyone at NASA pays attention to. Artemis is going to change – and be fixed – for the “better”. A reformatted Artemis may well accomplish much of its original intent – but NASA may also be directed to focus human spaceflight efforts elsewhere as well. But refocusing of human spaceflight at NASA – regardless of what that ends up being – is only going to work out well if NASA stops the whole smoke and mirrors, shift the blame, give-us-what-we-want-because-we-say-so, tactics and openly admits that it did things wrong with Artemis.
Moreover, instead of being an outlier when it comes to overall national priorities, NASA needs to start becoming more of a “whole of government” player. Otherwise it may just find itself standing there with an empty, outstretched hand. NASA is also going to have to learn to let go of some things and adopt other novel approaches in the process of building back Artemis better. As soon as the new TBD NASA Administrator arrives the agency needs to hit the ground running.
– Big Aerospace Still Wants Everything That Trump Promised, earlier post
– Uh Oh: The Space Community Is Writing A White Paper – Again, earlier post
– Artemis Human Lander Contract Decision Delayed, earlier post
– GAO On Artemis: Behind Schedule, Over Cost, Lacking Clear Direction, earlier post
– Surprise: SLS Will Cost 30% More Than The Last Big Cost Increase, earlier post
– NASA OIG: Surprise, Surprise: Orion Is Behind Schedule, Over Cost, And Lacks Transparency, earlier post
– Denial At Boeing Regarding Poor Performance On SLS, earlier post
– You Can’t Exert National Prestige With A Rocket That Does Not Fly, earlier post
– previous SLS/Orion posts

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

16 replies on “Building Artemis Back Better”

  3. No surprise there – the 2024 Landing proposal was effectively dead on arrival as soon as it became clear that it would require a substantial ($5-6 billion) above-the-line increase in NASA’s annual budget for several years to make it happen. That just doesn’t happen – Congress begrudges any sort of NASA budget rise, and so it mostly doesn’t happen except to cover inflation.

  4. When I was 10 years old watching Neil Armstrong on the moon, I thought that we would be on Mars by the time my kids were 10 and even further.
    Now I wonder if we’ll just return to the moon by the time I die.

      1. Next year I suspect the news from the NASA administrator will be even worse but with the usual “build it better/hope and change” double speak.

    2. My father had taught me to build balsa wood rubber band powered airplanes. I remember he bought me a plastic apollo lander model and said how I would now be building space ships for the moon. … and it never happened.

    3. A science fiction writer, now dead, once said that he had always been sure he would live to see the first person walk on the Moon. But that he had never expected he would live to see the last person walk on the Moon.

  5. When the ex-Vice President announced the goal of landing by 2024, the people of NASA had two choices: put together some sort of schedule that had a 2024 (realistic or unrealistic) landing OR tell pence that it was unrealistic and pack their desks. They decided to build a schedule, get money and spend it, and then hope that the 2024 goal went away before they were seeing too many risks piling up.

    Fortunately, the 2024 goal has gone away.

    Now hopefully we can realize that NASA has a relatively fixed budget but build a safe schedule that gets to the Moon within that budget. We will trade time for budget, hopefully we can work towards a 2028 landing.

    NASA also was told that they must use the Shelby (Senate?) Launch System, perhaps we could move towards buying two or more less expensive rockets instead of one expensive one.

    1. Shelby will not be running for another term in next year’s elections. How much of a change in priorities will we expect to see? I don’t expect much in shortterm. Another variable is what progress SpaceX will make with Starship.

  6. Maybe what is needed is a compelling and understandable reason why we need to go to the moon. General public has never heard of Artemis. I don’t follow it very closely, not personally involved with the program, and flight profiles I see, various items such as the European service module, the Gateway. I will be honest, it gets confusing. Unlike when I was in elementary school the Apollo structure all made sense even though I didn’t understand the science and engineering behind it.

    As mention before need a compelling reason rather than a campaign goal or stepping stone to Mars, the latter will immediately put planners to prepare lunar exit strategy before effectively landing on the moon.

  7. I would like to see Biden think big out of the box and push for all three to do a qualification landing and then offer the next contract with like a 60 – 40 split *dynetics and spacex

  8. ” Artemis is going to change – and be fixed – for the “better”. A
    reformatted Artemis may well accomplish much of its original intent –
    but NASA may also be directed to focus human spaceflight efforts
    elsewhere as well”

    President Biden seems to be re-engaging Obama policies; indeed, many of his staff appointments have Obama Presidency experience.

    Therefore, I will not be surprised, and Keith seems to be foreshadowing this in his quote above, that, like Obama, Biden will ditch the moon as the target for Human Space Flight, and , in an attempt to sound bold and daring, re direct efforts to landing on Mars.

    1. Artemis is a program to send humans to the Moon. Biden says he supports it. I am not foreshadowing anything such as not going to the Moon. You are reading your own wishes into what I wrote.

      1. Thanks for clarifying Keith. What I fear is NASA gets redirected to Mars. I hope they can continue on the path they are on, despite the slog that it has been.

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