A new lunar mission must surpass the achievements of Apollo

A new lunar mission must surpass the achievements of Apollo

NASA astronauts marked the first landing on the moon, setting the American flag on the satellite surface

People went to the moon 7 years after the famous speech of President John F. Kennedy, who considered this task a national goal. Why is NASA forced to wait another 11 years for the next visit?

This is the question that was asked by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein on September 26 during a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee regarding the agency’s role in the global space race. Many do not understand why wait so long if people have done this before with less advanced technologies. But the administrator says that the delay is necessary, and the period is based on two factors: the scale of the mission and funding.

The 11-year schedule was due to the fact that modern goals are different from the Apollo lunar mission. Now NASA will try to do a lot more than in the 1960s. The current administrator even tries not to use the term “return”. Then America landed 12 people on the moon, but since then no one has set foot on the earth satellite. The current NASA plan is to build the infrastructure necessary for multiple visits (robotic and human) to the moon. That is, it is necessary to create a gateway - a small space station in an elliptical 6-hour orbit, which will open access to the lunar surface.

It is important to take into account the fact that the Apollo mission appeared at the height of the Cold War, when America and the USSR were working ahead of the curve. America set the flag, but then the moon was literally abandoned.

The administrator has not forgotten about the budget topic. In the Apollo era, NASA received $ 50 billion annually (the current equivalent), and now $ 21 billion for all missions. It turns out that now NASA will have to perform many more tasks, but with much less funding. Therefore, the agency now welcomes cooperation with private companies and even supports the emergence of the advertising sector in space.

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