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The Road Back to the Moon

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The Road Back to the Moon RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEW POLICY BRIEF ADMINISTRATION The Road Back to the Moon George W.S. Abbey, Senior Fellow in Space Policy This brief is part of a series of policy recommendations for the administration of President Joe Biden. Focusing on a range of important issues facing the country, the briefs are intended to provide decision-makers with relevant and effective ideas for addressing domestic and foreign policy priorities. View the entire series at www.bakerinstitute.org/recommendations-2021. INTRODUCTION 1969 MOON LANDING It has now been over fifty-one years since When astronauts first flew to the moon astronauts first walked on the moon and a half century ago, they used the lunar- almost forty-eight years since Gene Cernan orbit-rendezvous concept. A Saturn V and Harrison (Jack) Schmidt became the rocket launched two spacecraft—the Apollo last humans to visit the moon. During the command and service module and the administration of former President Donald lunar module. The command module was Trump, NASA agreed to return to the moon attached to the service module containing by 2028. However, former Vice President the propulsion system, expendables, and Mike Pence, at a meeting of the National fuel cells, which were mounted atop the Space Council on March 26, 2019, ordered powerful Saturn V booster. The lunar NASA to accelerate its plans for lunar module was mounted below the service return, and the new date was set for 2024. module within the spacecraft lunar module It has now been over This expedited timeline requires additional adapter (SLA). Below the lunar module was modules and capabilities and an accelerated the Saturn V instrument unit that controlled fifty-one years since mission sequence. The program also lacks the Saturn V rocket. The instrument unit astronauts first walked any realistic cost estimates (not to mention was atop the third stage of the Saturn on the moon and almost the program’s excessive development V. The third stage of the Saturn V rocket forty-eight years times and the significant cost overruns was launched into Earth orbit, and the that have already occurred). Therefore, as engine was shut down upon reaching since Gene Cernan and the administration of President Joe Biden orbit. It was subsequently re-started to Harrison (Jack) Schmidt now takes control, a systematic review of perform the trans-lunar injection burn, became the last humans this accelerated plan is in order. It is crucial sending the third stage, the command and to visit the moon. that officials at NASA and the White House service module, and the lunar module on a review and adjust the current plans in order trajectory to the moon. The command and to ensure a successful return to the moon, service module then separated from the even if that means it won’t occur by 2024. SLA and performed a 180 degree turn to dock with the lunar module, separating the lunar module from the SLA and third stage of the Saturn V. RICE UNIVERSITY’S BAKER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY // POLICY BRIEF When the two docked spacecraft reached astronauts to return to Earth. The lunar the moon, the service module engine was orbital space station, referred to as the utilized to place the two spacecraft in orbit Lunar Gateway (or simply the Gateway), is around the moon. Two astronauts then a collection of modules that include living entered the lunar module, separated from the quarters, an air lock, and a power and command and service modules, which were propulsion module. left orbiting the moon with one astronaut, The origin of the lunar gateway concept and, using the descent stage engine of the goes back several years. It was conceived by lunar module, landed on the moon. After NASA during a previous administration that completing their activities on the lunar envisioned a robotic spacecraft grabbing service, they reentered the lunar module, a small, near-Earth asteroid and bringing which was a two-stage spacecraft, and it into an orbit around the moon, where it lifted off from the moon in the ascent stage would be visited by astronauts. There was to rendezvous and dock with the orbiting concern about the feasibility and costs of command and service module. The service such a mission, and it was never approved. module engine was then utilized to perform NASA maintained, however, that the burn needed to depart from lunar orbit human space exploration should utilize and place the command and service module a presence in cislunar space—the area on a trajectory to return to Earth. The lunar- between the Earth and the moon—to test The concept of building orbit-rendezvous approach was the subject technologies for future missions to Mars a space station to orbit of much analysis and study before agreement and beyond. This evolved into a concept the moon (a God-given was finally reached to use this method called the Deep Space Gateway, a collection space station that nearly a year after President Kennedy’s of modules in a distant retrograde orbit already orbits Earth), announcement in May, 1961 to go to the around the moon. By the late 2020s, moon. It proved to be a very straightforward astronauts operating from the Gateway is also very costly and and fundamental approach that helped could begin assembling a separate potentially less safe to ensure the landing was successfully spacecraft, the Deep Space Transport, for than going directly completed before the end of the decade. long-duration missions to Mars. to the moon and The administration of President Donald Trump, in a December, 2017 space policy investing our resources NASA’S CURRENT PLAN: THE directive, refocused the U.S. space program in a lunar outpost. ARTEMIS PROGRAM on human exploration and returning American astronauts to the moon.1 It called NASA’s current plan for sending astronauts for the use of commercial and international back to the moon is considerably more partnerships. It did not, however, specify an complex and challenging and will be much architecture for returning to the moon. NASA more costly. It is envisioned that rockets proposed the Gateway, formally renaming purchased commercially will be utilized to it the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, and launch the components of a space station presenting it as a staging area for lunar that will be assembled in high lunar orbit. missions. The Gateway would be assembled Another rocket will launch an unmanned in a different orbit, a highly elliptical one lunar lander to dock with the lunar orbiting over the poles of the moon, called a near- space station. The Space Launch System rectilinear halo orbit. Using the Lunar Orbital (SLS) rocket will then launch an astronaut- Platform-Gateway approach, NASA planned manned Orion spacecraft to dock with a lunar landing in 2028. the space station orbiting the moon, and NASA also approached international astronauts will utilize the attached lander partners involved in the International Space to descend to the lunar surface. After Station (ISS). The Canadian Space Agency completing their activities on the moon, (CSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the crew will lift off from the moon to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency rendezvous and dock with the orbiting (JAXA), and Roscosmos, the Russian Space station. The Orion spacecraft, docked with Agency, were all considering participating the orbiting station, will be utilized by the with NASA in the Gateway by early 2019. 2 THE ROAD BACK TO THE MOON The vision changed dramatically when data-handling capabilities, energy storage, former Vice President Mike Pence, at a power distribution, thermal control, meeting of the National Space Council on communications, and tracking capabilities. March 26, 2019, ordered NASA to accelerate It will have environmental control and its plans for lunar return. “At the direction life-support systems to augment the Orion of the president of the United States, it spacecraft and support crew members. is the stated policy of this administration It will also have several docking ports and the United States of America to return for visiting vehicles and future modules American astronauts to the moon within as well as room for science projects and the next five years.”2 stowage. Cargo deliveries, initially provided The program to land astronauts on the by SpaceX, will service the Gateway with moon was named the Artemis Program, pressurized and unpressurized cargo, and NASA announced it would be landing including food and water for crew, science both a man and a woman on the moon by instruments, and supplies for the Gateway the 2024 date. To achieve a lunar landing and lunar surface expeditions. by this earlier date, NASA modified its ISS partners are all considering providing plans relative to using the Gateway. The support to the Gateway. The CSA is proposing accelerated return to the moon required to provide robotics, and the ESA and JAXA the agency to minimize the number of have plans to provide support to the Gateway systems involved with landing humans on as well. Roscosmos has also expressed the surface. While future lunar landings interest in cooperating on the Gateway.5 will still use the Gateway as a staging NASA has selected three companies point in lunar orbit for missions to the to begin the development of the HLS that surface, NASA, in procuring a commercially will land astronauts on the moon and then provided Human Landing System (HLS), has safely return them to lunar orbit before considered proposals that don’t use the their return to Earth during the Artemis Gateway on early Artemis missions. missions. Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX The Gateway, a key element of NASA’s offer distinct lander and mission designs.
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