Artemis 1: behind Nasa’s ‘Moon-to-Mars’ mission

For Artemis 1, the Orion capsule, which can hold up to six astronauts, will carry just mannequins, including Commander Moonikin Campos, and a Snoopy soft toy to float around the cabin as a zero gravity indicator.

Provided this initial test flight is a success, Artemis 2 will carry four as-yet-unnamed astronauts on an eight-to-ten day mission that includes a fly-by of the Moon.

Artemis 3, planned for 2025, will finally land humans on the lunar surface, with Nasa saying the crew will include the first woman and person of colour. All 12 people to have landed on the Moon, between 1969 and 1972, have been white men from the US.

What is the timeline?

Nasa is not commenting publicly about the rescheduled Artemis 1 launch but it could be as soon as Friday or next Monday, weather permitting and provided engineers solve the engine cooling issue.

“Launch opportunities are limited by the stage of the moon and lighting conditions upon re-entry, among other considerations,” reported Space.com, so if Nasa misses this window then the next launch attempt is likely to be in October.

No firm timeline for the next stage of the project, which includes establishing a permanent base on the Moon followed by a manned mission to Mars, has been announced but it is not likely to get the go-ahead until the end of the decade or into the 2030s.

Is it worth it?

With the world in the midst of an energy and cost-of-living crisis, many are questioning the value of spending tens of billions of dollars on sending a handful of people into space.

It is estimated that US taxpayers will end up paying $93bn to fund the Artemis programme, with Florida Today arguing that the giant SLS “stands at risk of going down as one of the biggest boondoggles in spaceflight history if Nasa can’t find a way to control costs”.

The Observer said in an editorial: “It is a colossal investment and there are nagging doubts that it is justified at a time when private space companies, such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are developing giant reusable rockets that could slash deep-space mission cost.”

Others have suggested it would be more cost-efficient to send robots into space in place of humans, seeing as they require no life-support system and do not need to be brought home.  

Yet for all the talk of cost-benefits, there are other factors to consider.

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/science-health/957786/artemis-1-behind-nasa-moon-to-mars-mission