May 2025

Artemis program

Artemis - program to return humans to the moon - was conceived during the Trump administration. A program in which Congress has invested. ¹

56 years after Apollo 11

In 2019, the agency set a 2024 date for landing astronauts , but the timeline slipped. This is after 56 years after Apollo 11's heroic journey. ¹

Artemis I - 2022

Artemis I sent an uncrewed capsule around the moon in 2022 without landing ¹

Artemis II -

Artemis II, a similar journey with a crew, is supposed to launch next year. ¹

Artemis III

Artemis III, which aspires to land astronauts near the moon's south pole is schedules for mid 2027. ¹

Criticism

Artemis program has drawn criticism from outside NASA, and even from Musk, who called it a distraction from the greater goal of reaching Mars. ¹

$100 billion +

Artemis and precursor programs have been costly, on the order of $100 billion already. ¹

Orion and Space Launch System

The current plans uses NASA owned heavy lift rocket, Space Launch system, to send 4 astronauts to lunar orbit in a NASA owned capsule, Orion. ¹

Challenge

• The biggest challenge is getting those astronauts to the surface and back again safely. ¹

Height of lander

• The lunar lander is so that - more than 160 feet, that the astronauts will have to take an elevator to the surface. ¹

SpaceX and NASA

• NASA has given SpaceX $4 billion in Artemis contracts, for a modified Starship called the Starship Human Landing System, to dock with Orion and then transport the astronauts to and from lunar surface. ¹

• When blasted back to lunar orbit, they would rejoin the other 2 astronauts in Orion, which would send them back to earth. ¹

• To carry out its tasks, SpaceX has to launch a set of uncrewed starship tankers to orbit to create a fuel depot. Fuel will then have too be transferred to another starship that would travel to the moon. SpaceX also must land an uncrewed Starship on the moon before attempting to do it with astronauts. ¹

• ["] Musk has a history of over promising on meeting mission milestones. ¹

References

Footnotes

1. The Washington Post 30.05.2025 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴