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Washington DC – A few hours after the administration of President Donald Trump has asked the US Congress more money to achieve an accelerated schedule for the return of astronauts to the moon, NASA's administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said that a lunar mission was only the beginning.
"We are going to the moon because we want to go to Mars with humans," Bridenstine said Tuesday at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, DC.
Bridenstine said NASA's lunar mission schedule had been sped up with a mission on Mars in the lead. "The reason why it's important is that we are accelerating the lunar program, we're accelerating by definition the Humans to Mars program," he said.
The initial NASA budget submission, submitted on March 11, totaled $ 21 billion. Of this amount, $ 10.7 billion was allocated to the "Campaign for Exploration", which included a landing on the surface of the moon in 2028 – and which would lay the foundation for a mission to 39; sending human beings on Mars.
The White House now wants to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon by 2024.
On Monday, the Trump administration issued a modified budget request requesting an additional $ 1.6 billion to achieve this goal.
The additional funds would bring the total budget demands for the NASA program to $ 22.6 billion.
In March, Vice President Mike Pence set the stage for speeding up a lunar landing mission, telling the National Space Council that the United States will send astronauts back to the moon here. five years "by all means", and that "the success of the mission will require more than money". Pence's remarks were seen as a response to China's efforts to build a lunar research center.
The US-China space competition does not end with the moon. China also said that it was trying to become the first space country to reach Mars.
Partnership with private companies
The key to the lunar mission is the development of a lander capable of transporting humans to the moon's surface.
Rather than developing the lander itself, NASA relies on commercial space companies to achieve it.
NASA requires that it be reusable and integrated into two facilities under construction: a surface outpost and what is called the Lunar Gateway – an office, laboratory and laboratory project. space of life destined to orbit the moon.
Last week, the world got a glimpse of a possible candidate after Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, unveiled Blue Moon, a model of a human-class lander developed by his company private space, Blue Origin.
Tuesday at a meeting of NASA staff, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier said that if Congress approves, he plans to sign contracts in October and to integrate NASA engineers to business partners during the development phase.
"NASA employees who are there can join the agency and participate in the dynamics of computer fluids, they can mobilize more resources, etc. to help these small businesses to go forward, so that we can truly form a partnership, "said Gerstenmaier. "We build what we did with commercial freight [and] what we did with [the] commercial crew. "
"We think it's good and, in general, we support the lunar program's acceleration," said Eric Alwan, Firefly Aerospace's business development director at Al Jazeera.
Firefly is one of nine companies selected by NASA to submit lunar commercial freight service proposals. Salwan said: "The SPDP [Commercial Lunar Payload Services] program has [also] been accelerated. "
NASA has been looking for ways to explore and study space at a lower cost for some time. In April, the agency awarded a $ 69 million contract to SpaceX for the launch of the asteroid redirection test mission in 2021. This mission aimed to deflect an asteroid.
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