NASA leader promises to make an ambitious and expensive plan to return to the moon "a reality"

NASA's mission, which has been plagued for decades, now has a new name and urgency. The Artemis program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, aims to land astronauts on the southern pole of the moon by 2024, four years earlier than planned. It's an ambitious and expensive plan and NASA needs commercial support and congress to remove it.

Fifty years ago in July, two Americans left their first footprints in the lunar dust. Since then, no other country has matched the Apollo Moon walkers, although five of them have sent probes and robots, including Israel and China, this year.

"It's no coincidence that many countries in the world are going on the moon.And they are not all going on the Moon just to collect rocks," said NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine, Mark Strassmann. "It is imperative that the United States also be present in the country."

When Bridenstine became the administrator of the agency, a planned landing on the moon was expected in a decade, but in a speech in March, Vice President Mike Pence lit a fire under NASA and its subcontractors. in five years, we must change the organization, not the mission. "

According to Bridenstine, the problem of NASA is that it has created many projects that have not yet succeeded, the administrations change and these projects are canceled.

"Billions of dollars have been wasted by the taxpayer," Bridenstine said. "We will shorten the deadlines … we will make it a reality."

This begins with accelerating the development of NASA's new mega-rocket, called Space Launch System, or Space Launch System, or SLS. The new capsule of NASA's crew, Orion, would be at the top. At approximately 400,000 km from the Earth, Orion will dock with a planned lunar orbit space station called Gateway. But the Artemis program lacks one key element: a lunar lander.

"Lunar landers are hard to build, they take time, they take money, and we do not have that capability," Bridenstine said.

Not yet, but the private sector wants this contract. Billionaire Jeff Bezos introduced Blue Moon, designing his space company for a lunar lander. Lockheed Martin also has a design.

But five years to arrive on the moon are they too intense?

"If someone says it's not sure … in the end, they have the power to throw a red flag and say stop," Bridenstine said. "It's more important to us that our astronauts be safe."

Bridenstine, a former Congressman from Oklahoma, thinks he has votes at Capitol Hill for this new budget increase. More important requests will surely follow. But without this support, the moon looks terribly far away.