“The budget would cancel the Lunar Gateway that NASA has started developing and end the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft after two more flights, Artemis II and Artemis III.”
This is the stupidest way to do this. We’re going to finish developing it and then throw it away?
kemotep · 5h ago
It’s been really interesting watching Trump II dismantle programs established by Trump I.
Trade deals, cybersecurity initiatives, election integrity programs, and this, the Artemis program created by Trump’s administration in 2017.
We are betting the farm on SpaceX now. All in on Starship, throwing away the only component of the return to the moon that was proven to actually work. If the next IATF ends in RUD then Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis.
sidewndr46 · 5h ago
I'm not much of a SpaceX fan or critic, but when it comes to manned space flight in the US we have been going "back to the moon" since around the time the Saturn / Apollo program was shuttered. I've never produced a calendar of these announcements, but it's almost a constant theme in US politics.
The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. There were some valid scientific reasons for going to the moon originally and the final Apollo mission took a geologist. Beyond that, there isn't much reason to be there. It's substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica and we don't bother living there in a permanent fashion, although it does notionally have a population there 365 days a year.
Cancelling manned moon missions would potentially free up more resources for robotic missions, which NASA and their partner agencies have an excellent track record of.
kemotep · 4h ago
Well tragically this isn’t just canceling Artemis, this executive order calls to gut nearly all scientific missions and significantly reduce the budget of NASA.
WorldMaker · 1h ago
The Lunar Gateway gets a lot of flack for being a part of how SLS and Orion budgets ballooned because of the requirements to build/operate the Gateway steps, but Gateway is also under-appreciated for how much it was trying to do in terms of giving us new scientific reasons to visit the moon. It's polar orbit would give us a platform for some interesting scientific studies of the moon that weren't possible with Saturn/Apollo.
It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs.
It's certainly easy to dislike Gateway or think it was wasteful, but it was also driving the scientific ambitions of the whole project, and pushing SLS to not just be a worse Saturn V and Orion to not just be Apollo 2: Electric Boogaloo (and pushing competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin to try for some of those same high-minded, scientifically ambitious requirements).
JumpCrisscross · 26m ago
> It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs
Yup. The Moon is a laboratory for advancing our understanding of low-gravity colonisation. We don’t, for example, know how to do trauma medicine in space, accommodate anyone who isn’t in perfect physique or sustainably grow food.
That said, you don’t need a gateway to do that science. Just a Moon base.
WorldMaker · 4m ago
Sure, but Gateway Nasa can build a lot faster than Moon base using now institutional knowledge from ISS modules for bootstrap. Nasa and its collaborators have built one ISS already. To date no one has built a moon base yet.
Even in (harder) science fiction, a station like Gateway is almost always a first step towards building a first moon base, because orbiting in a bunch of cramped Apollo-style "command modules" is a bit silly if you can build a mini-hotel waystation with a shared orbit instead and in theory save on extra modules.
The Apollo-style was considered wasteful in the long term at the time, too, it was just easier and faster in the short term. The predictions that Apollo would not lead to a continued presence on or even near the Moon were rather right on the nose. We did the short term version once already, I can't fault Nasa for trying to do the real long term route if we're going back. (Because yeah, let's go back for good, this time.)
huxley · 5h ago
“Substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica” is true of every single place that we know of outside our planet.
kjkjadksj · 2h ago
Which is exactly why humans are a terrible tool for the job of space exploration. Really a political sacrificial lamb more than something useful. A robot doesn’t need to sleep. It can take radiation. It doesn’t need to develop some long term farming system. It doesn’t need to come back home either.
panick21_ · 2h ago
> The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing.
They can say that, but the reality is once Apollo and Saturn V is gone, and you have Shuttle, all deep space exploration, moon or otherwise, is dead.
sidewndr46 · 1h ago
The current "back to the moon" missions are built around the shuttle hardware, so I don't find this technical argument very convincing. The orbiter was just a convenient way to hang out in LEO and bring back some engines on each flight.
It's like saying that since my truck is rated to tow 7000 lbs, any discussion around towing 8000 lbs is impossible. Using shuttle hardware to get beyond LEO requires compromises and design changes, but it isn't impossible. The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. It's mostly just unique in that the safety record of it is really, really good.
tekla · 3h ago
> We are betting the farm on SpaceX now
When hasn't that been true? Artemis is useless for landing on the moon without Starship. BO has a contract but thats still years in the future and considered secondary.
panick21_ · 2h ago
No its not betting the farm on SpaceX anymore then they already have.
The reality is, SLS/Orion don't do much that is useful while together consuming a huge part of the budget. It has consumed huge parts of the budget for 10+ years and would do so for another 15-20 years.
The real bet is on commercial launch in general. And that is a really good bet given how the launch market has developed.
Its also a bet on staging in LEO so you can use existing vehicles to get there.
> Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis.
The goal should not be to rush somewhere. The goal should be to develop a space flight program that is best for the next couple decades.
panick21_ · 2h ago
The whole Constellation program was a complete failure from the beginning. And it was rightfully killed, in fact, it lived far to long, was a complete failure in literally every aspect. Obama tried to kill it.
But congress couldn't let the money river go, so they rescued Constellation and turned it into "Constellation 2.0: Even Dumber". Instead of actually having a mission it was literally just 'continue to build more or less the same thing' but without any mission.
This resulted in SLS and continued Orion. And for years they didn't have a mission. Literally just build to keep existing contractors.
So this whole architecture is literally just 30 years of gigantic waste of money without any result. The resulting rocket sucks, is incredibly weak and has a terrible launch rate. To even match the Saturn V it would take another 5-10 years and cost another 10 billion.
So really, I don't like Trump. But finally get rid of these terrible milestone that have been holding NASA back for literally 25 years is worth any short inconvenience and will improve NASA in the long term.
The worse parts are the science cuts.
anovikov · 1h ago
I wouldn't agree with you if there was no alternative. But since there is an alternative - the Starship - which at least in expendable form, is ready now - continuing this waste made no sense at all.
jordanb · 51m ago
> the Starship - which at least in expendable form, is ready now
After 8 tries starship hasn't successfully gotten its second stage to orbit. The starship-based plan is the most bonkers part of Artemis. They haven't gotten the "easy" parts done (getting to orbit and getting back again) and haven't even started on the "hard" parts (in-flight refueling, a launch cadence to overcome boil-off, actually landing on the moon and taking off again, etc).
yakz · 49m ago
> the Starship - which at least in expendable form, is ready now
The Starship isn't ready now in expendable form: during the last two tests, it blew up during the initial burn.
This is the stupidest way to do this. We’re going to finish developing it and then throw it away?
Trade deals, cybersecurity initiatives, election integrity programs, and this, the Artemis program created by Trump’s administration in 2017.
We are betting the farm on SpaceX now. All in on Starship, throwing away the only component of the return to the moon that was proven to actually work. If the next IATF ends in RUD then Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis.
The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. There were some valid scientific reasons for going to the moon originally and the final Apollo mission took a geologist. Beyond that, there isn't much reason to be there. It's substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica and we don't bother living there in a permanent fashion, although it does notionally have a population there 365 days a year.
Cancelling manned moon missions would potentially free up more resources for robotic missions, which NASA and their partner agencies have an excellent track record of.
It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs.
It's certainly easy to dislike Gateway or think it was wasteful, but it was also driving the scientific ambitions of the whole project, and pushing SLS to not just be a worse Saturn V and Orion to not just be Apollo 2: Electric Boogaloo (and pushing competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin to try for some of those same high-minded, scientifically ambitious requirements).
Yup. The Moon is a laboratory for advancing our understanding of low-gravity colonisation. We don’t, for example, know how to do trauma medicine in space, accommodate anyone who isn’t in perfect physique or sustainably grow food.
That said, you don’t need a gateway to do that science. Just a Moon base.
Even in (harder) science fiction, a station like Gateway is almost always a first step towards building a first moon base, because orbiting in a bunch of cramped Apollo-style "command modules" is a bit silly if you can build a mini-hotel waystation with a shared orbit instead and in theory save on extra modules.
The Apollo-style was considered wasteful in the long term at the time, too, it was just easier and faster in the short term. The predictions that Apollo would not lead to a continued presence on or even near the Moon were rather right on the nose. We did the short term version once already, I can't fault Nasa for trying to do the real long term route if we're going back. (Because yeah, let's go back for good, this time.)
They can say that, but the reality is once Apollo and Saturn V is gone, and you have Shuttle, all deep space exploration, moon or otherwise, is dead.
It's like saying that since my truck is rated to tow 7000 lbs, any discussion around towing 8000 lbs is impossible. Using shuttle hardware to get beyond LEO requires compromises and design changes, but it isn't impossible. The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. It's mostly just unique in that the safety record of it is really, really good.
When hasn't that been true? Artemis is useless for landing on the moon without Starship. BO has a contract but thats still years in the future and considered secondary.
The reality is, SLS/Orion don't do much that is useful while together consuming a huge part of the budget. It has consumed huge parts of the budget for 10+ years and would do so for another 15-20 years.
The real bet is on commercial launch in general. And that is a really good bet given how the launch market has developed.
Its also a bet on staging in LEO so you can use existing vehicles to get there.
> Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis.
The goal should not be to rush somewhere. The goal should be to develop a space flight program that is best for the next couple decades.
But congress couldn't let the money river go, so they rescued Constellation and turned it into "Constellation 2.0: Even Dumber". Instead of actually having a mission it was literally just 'continue to build more or less the same thing' but without any mission.
This resulted in SLS and continued Orion. And for years they didn't have a mission. Literally just build to keep existing contractors.
So this whole architecture is literally just 30 years of gigantic waste of money without any result. The resulting rocket sucks, is incredibly weak and has a terrible launch rate. To even match the Saturn V it would take another 5-10 years and cost another 10 billion.
So really, I don't like Trump. But finally get rid of these terrible milestone that have been holding NASA back for literally 25 years is worth any short inconvenience and will improve NASA in the long term.
The worse parts are the science cuts.
After 8 tries starship hasn't successfully gotten its second stage to orbit. The starship-based plan is the most bonkers part of Artemis. They haven't gotten the "easy" parts done (getting to orbit and getting back again) and haven't even started on the "hard" parts (in-flight refueling, a launch cadence to overcome boil-off, actually landing on the moon and taking off again, etc).
The Starship isn't ready now in expendable form: during the last two tests, it blew up during the initial burn.