“I think this nation should commit to putting a man on the moon and bringing him back to earth safely by the end of the decade.”(John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the USA)
In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of the god Apollo, who served as the namesake for NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the aims of the newly launched Artemis program is to bring the first woman to the moon. Several commercial providers are also tinkering with various unmanned lunar missions on behalf of NASA, which are intended to bring experiments and equipment to the moon. The US company SpaceX is already assembling the lunar module that will be used on the Artemis III mission. But it will still be a while before then, because Artemis-III is scheduled to start in 2025 at the earliest. And perhaps by then the man to whom NASA owes the Artemis program will be back in office: former US President Donald Trump.
The moon is doable, Mars is not yet
But why has the moon not received a human visit since 1972? The simple answer is: no one wanted to go, and it’s expensive. At the time of the Apollo program, there was a space race to be won with the Soviet Union and a dramatic speech by then US President John F. Kennedy to heed: “I think this nation should commit to the goal, by the end of the decade to land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to earth.” NASA’s annual budget in 1965 and 1966 was therefore more than four percent of the US federal budget.
After 1972, NASA’s budget continued to shrink until, in 2020, it was less than 0.5 percent of the total US budget. But the race to space and the moon had long since been won.
That’s not to say NASA wouldn’t be happy to fly there again. But there was no rocket, no spaceship, no money and ultimately no reason. NASA has been working on a new heavy-duty rocket since the end of the space shuttle program. The Orion space capsule has also been in development since 2005. But the Constellation program for astronautical exploration of space announced by then US President George W. Bush in 2004 was canceled in 2009 by US President Barack Obama. The giant SLS rocket was supposed to be built – after all, they were already there – but nobody was supposed to land on the moon.
© NASA / Joel Kowsky (detail)
heavy lift rocket | The “Space Launch System” is on its launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.
Obama’s successor, the 45th US President Donald Trump, would now like to see Americans on Mars during a potential second term. Since that was not feasible even with a lot of goodwill, he chose instead to return to the moon and launched the Artemis program: one should first concentrate on a trip to the moon and then target Mars. The administration of US President Joe Biden committed itself to the Artemis program.
Perhaps a factor in all of this is that China is apparently calmly building its own space station in Earth orbit, has carried out several successful unmanned moon missions and has already landed its own rover on Mars. Officially, the country does not give a date when Chinese astronauts should land on the moon. However, one can assume that this is only a matter of time.