NASA just launched a new rocket. The Space Launch System is larger than the Statue of Liberty. The world's most powerful rocket stage is also present.
The purpose of the rocket is to send astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years.
On August 29th, SLS will push its spaceship into a journey around the moon and back. If everything goes well, NASA will land boots on the moon in 2025.
The last moonwalk of the Apollo program took place in December 1972, and it would be the first time in 40 years that a person has set foot on the moon.
It's crucial that this initiative succeeds. "We've tried two other times, and they've been stillborn." Since then, the goal has been pushed back.
Bush wanted to return astronauts to the moon. It was supposed to happen by 2020 according to those plans. Technical delays are some of the ones that have happened. SLS, the cornerstone of the Artemis lunar program, is 12 years and more than $20 billion in the making.
According to astronauts and NASA administrators, the main reason it took so long to launch a new moon mission has nothing to do with science or technology. Lack of budget and political will are obstacles.
Congress and the president had to make compromises to fund a new NASA moonshot.
Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator, told Insider on Tuesday that spaceflight is hard and inherently risky. Nelson was a senator from Florida and a member of the Congressional committee on space.
Nelson's predecessor was more indirect.
Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator under former President Donald Trump, said that the program took too long.
Bridenstine said that if it weren't for the political risk, they'd be on the moon right now.
NASA needs funding to get back to the moon in the near future.
The lack of public interest has made matters worse. Climate research, monitoring hazardous asteroids, and basic space science are more important than sending astronauts to the moon or Mars, according to a survey done last year. The majority of respondents think it's essential for the US to maintain its world-leader status in space exploration. The results of last year's Morning Consult survey were the same.
"Manned exploration is the most expensive space venture and, consequently, the most difficult for which to obtain political support," said Walter Cunningham, an Apollo 7 astronauts.
New presidents often change NASA's plans. NASA can be whiplashed by being ordered to drop certain projects or focus on others every few years. It's hard to commit to expensive projects that will take a long time.
Wouldn't you believe what a president said about two administrations in the future? Chris Hadfield was an ex-astronaut. That's just talking.
In 2004, the Bush administration asked NASA to come up with a way to replace the Space Shuttle, which was set to retire. The program to land astronauts on the moon was created by the agency. The human-spaceflight program cost NASA $9 billion over the course of five years.
The President pushed to scrap the program after the Government Accountability Office released a report about NASA's inability to estimate the cost.
It takes commitment and dollars, and that's what's going to be required, according to an Apollo 9 astronauts.
A lot of what NASA can and cannot do is dependent on money.
The federal budget peaked at 4% in 1965, Cunningham told Congress. For the last 40 years it has been below 1%, and for the last 15 years it has been driving towards 0.4% of the federal budget.
Cunningham said at the time that NASA's budget was too low to do all the things they had talked about.
President Joe Biden requested that Congress grant NASA a whopping $25.9 billion for the next five years, including an increase in funding for the Artemis program.
The new moonshot may have enough money to meet its goals for the first time.
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