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Congress

Hearing On Moon2024 – We'll Get Back To You

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 8, 2019
Filed under , ,

NASA’s plan to get to the Moon by 2024 isn’t ready yet, The Verge
“Horn demanded to know why the amendment isn’t ready yet during today’s hearing. “We recognize that this is a really serious challenge we have to weigh in front of us, and we need a really solid plan,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and an expert at today’s hearing, responded. He added: “We need to make sure it’s all integrated and all put together in a way that really makes sense.” Gerstenmaier noted that the amendment also has to get approval from the White House, which may also be slowing things down. However, he claimed that details will be ready soon. “We’re probably several weeks away, maybe a week to two weeks away from being able to give you a plan,” he said.”
Opening Statements
Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson
Chair Kendra Horn
Ranking Member Brian Babin
Ranking Member Frank Lucas
William H. Gerstenmaier and Mark Sirangelo
Patricia Sanders
Jonathan Lunine
Walt Faulconer

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

6 responses to “Hearing On Moon2024 – We'll Get Back To You”

  1. Engineer1 says:
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    Sounds like the next hearing needs spaceX in attendance since they are the means to getting to the moon by 2024.

    Or, spaceX is at least the most likely option to meet 2024 since they will be already be there to the moon by 2021, and will be providing passenger tours to the moon by 2024 when SLS finally gets there.

    • fcrary says:
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      SpaceX will only be at the next hearing if they are invited. They will only be invited if the Congressmen on that subcommittee want to hear what they think SpaceX will say. We aren’t talking about people who want to hear experts explain the best solution. We’re talking about people who want supposed experts to say the words they want to hear, and thereby make that part of the official record.

  2. Engineer1 says:
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    All congress needs to do, is say “get us to the moon or your all fired/outsourced ” and the delays will stop occurring, SLS and Onion would be scrapped, falcon heavy and dragon 2 will be the means, and the schedule would move up to 2021.

    NASA in terms of rockets and transport would just be an advisor board, support, and space regulatory safety board which they already are and then outsource their technical work to India like everyone else in technology.

    As the leaders of STEM, NASA is disappointing for the future, and represent the failure of the system to adapt or progress is so apparent in this meeting compared to other technology groups operating in North America. Where is NASA in AI or neural nets or software theory? I feel like I am watching hobbyist talk about something they are playing with. If this is a race, these guys ain’t moving fast enough. They can’t even say the word “China” at the hearing. Other technology groups on AI or neural nets always can talk about and talk about China openningly. Blinders to reality.

    • chuckc192000 says:
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      Paying India to get us to the moon is no better than paying Russia to get us to the ISS — it just shows that America can’t do it on its own. And threatening to fire people due to schedule slips will cause them to take reckless chances that may result in another Apollo 1-type incident.

  3. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    All of our space people (NASA, industry, etc) are trying to react to statements by the president that may or may not be giving them direction. It does appear that the Administration wants to land on the Moon by 2024 (as of this morning) but is that a firm requirement or was that the idea of yesterday? After all the Administration has had many “policies” that are articulated but then are dropped – like the infrastructure plan. That gets a mention once in a while but no serious effort. We know that they are possible because President Obama had a wonderful one. Similarly with the wall – it was a talking point for two years and suddenly was an emergency but there was no research behind it, no plan, no funding, nothing.

    Should NASA put enormous resources into this “direction” which may languish in speeches but not be funded? The president has previously spoken casually about advancing various dates but those has never been followed up.

    We must all realize that it is NOT possible to advance a very risky project like a Moon landing without accepting lots more risk, by cutting a lot of corners, etc. We are heading towards the next Apollo 1 fire, the next Challenger accident, the next Columbia loss. Has NASA learned anything from those?

    People who know nothing claim that we can hand this off to industry because you can pay people to take risks. You can, for good causes. What would we have to pay a crew to accept the risk of crashing into the Moon on landing? What would we have to pay a crew to accept the risk of being stranded on the Moon? Some things you just cannot pay people to do. Apollo was an accepted risk because of our contest with the Soviet Union, there is no similar race today. The Apollo program also had enormous popular support (for the early missions) and enormous funding. Today we don’t have that – no one is going to take those kind of risks for a political stunt.

    NASA is in a tough spot – they must use SLS because the Senate says so. They want to show a schedule and budget that lands people on the Moon in 2024 – but not have it too obviously unacceptable. So they need to leave it vague. But then the Congress will call them out for handing in a vague plan. But if they present a realistic plan the landing year will be 2028 at the earliest.

  4. Brian_M2525 says:
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    NASA cannot get the job done. They have no plan, no vision, and based on recent performance a five year job will wind up taking them 25 years. Jeff Bezos says he can do the job. Maybe some others too. Give them the go ahead and some limited resources to help them try.