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Old July 25th 19, 11:43 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default Artemis 3 Mission in 2024

In article ,
says...

Anyone want to predict whether this will actually happen in 2024?
It would be interesting for sure.


Zero chance. This program is a burning dumpster.

Artemis 3 (previously the Exploration Mission-3 or EM-3), is a
planned 2024 flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft to be launched
on the Space Launch System. It is planned to be the second
crewed mission of the Artemis program and the first crewed
lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.


Depends on a crewed lander that is notional, at best. NASA is seeking
proposals for the lander. So they have to go from nothing to an
operational crewed lander (that NASA approves of) in five years. Not
going to happen. The funding required would be at least a couple
billion more a year.

On top of that, NASA has no lunar EVA suits. Those need cash to be
developed. And that's just for a "flags and footprints" mission. To do
something "interesting" they need things like a crewed lunar rover.

The landing zone would be in the south polar region. It is
planned to have two astronauts on the surface of the Moon
for about one week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3

It's a fantasy, IMHO. Will never happen by 2024. Kudos to Bridenstine
for trying to prod NASA into actually doing something, but no bucks, no
Buck Rogers. They'll never get the "blank check" style funding needed
to do this program in that short amount of time.

Jeff
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