Why is sending humans back to the moon so difficult?

Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo missions launched a total of a dozen astronauts to the lunar surface, and that was before the explosion of modern technology.So why do our current efforts look like NASA’s Artemis Programso slow, choppy and complicated?

There’s no easy answer, but it comes down to money, politics and priorities.

Let’s start with money. Yes, the Apollo missions were very successful and expensive.At its peak, NASA consumed about 5% of the entire federal budget, more than half of which was spent on Apollo program. Allowing for inflation, the cost of the entire Apollo program would have been more than $260 billion in today’s dollars. If you include the Gemini program and the robotic moon landing program (a necessary precursor to the Apollo program), the number exceeds $280 billion.

related: Astronauts won’t land on the moon until 2026 as NASA delays next two Artemis missions

By comparison, today NASA’s budget accounts for less than 0.5 percent of the total federal budget, but its priorities and directives are much broader. Over the past decade, NASA has spent approximately $90 billion on the Artemis program.Of course, spend less money to buy new ones moon Once we land, our progress may slow even as technology improves.

Closely related to financial realities are political realities. In the 1960s, the United States was in space race, competing with the Soviet Union to achieve as many firsts as possible in space, especially landing humans on the moon. The public and the lawmakers who direct NASA’s massive budget were both involved and motivated by the idea.

However, this kind of spending is highly unsustainable. After the US “win”, the public quickly lost interest and NASA’s funding was significantly reduced. There is simply no political or public appetite to spend that much money on a second moon landing.

Lower political will and fewer financial resources forced NASA to make some key decisions in the late 1990s and early 2000s that still impact Artemis today.

That is, as space shuttle The program is coming to an end, and NASA administrators don’t know how to leverage the industrial capabilities and partnerships that led to the space shuttle. They decided to preserve that infrastructure by reusing many space shuttle parts (especially the engines) and folding them into the Artemis design.

On the other hand, one could argue that keeping the infrastructure in place and hiring aerospace engineers was the right decision because that was the technical foundation we needed to launch our recent projects. The resurgence of private aerospace companies But that’s a separate discussion.

Finally, the modern Artemis concept has very different priorities than the Apollo missions. For example, our risk tolerance is much lower than it was in the 1960s. The Apollo missions were extremely dangerous and the likelihood of failure was high. In fact, several missions did encounter disaster: Apollo 1 fire A near-fatal design flaw that resulted in the deaths of three astronauts, an engine shutdown during Apollo 6, and a near-fatal design flaw that almost killed an astronaut Apollo 13 Astronauts. NASA, lawmakers, and the public are unwilling to take this level of risk again, especially in challenger and colombian disaster.

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The Apollo program spent a lot of money to send astronauts to the lunar surface for dozens of hours. They went, collected some samples, did some simple experiments, and then left.

Artemis missions are designed around a completely different set of goals. First, astronauts will stay on the lunar surface for up to a week, which will require more food, water, fuel and scientific instruments. Second, while the Apollo missions treated science as an afterthought, with the primary goal being to defeat the Soviet Union, scientific research would take center stage in the Artemis program, meaning it would require a longer, more complex mission design.

Ultimately, the purpose of the Artemis program is not just to return humans to the moon;is to start building infrastructure to maintain There is a permanent human presence there.From orbital gas station to Site selection for future colonies Belongs to the Artemis project. This is a more complex plan because it provides the framework for future generations to realize their dreams.