On December 13, 1972, American Apollo-17 mission member Gene Cernan was the last man to set foot on the Moon. But now NASA is once again preparing to land humans on the moon. But after the postponement of the first launch of its Artemis mission, opposition to the project has increased. Even former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has questioned the usefulness of the Space Launch System (SLS), the launch vehicle of the Artemis mission. The special thing is that he raised this question when he was the boss of NASA.
The biggest reason for the opposition is the increasing cost of this project. The project is expected to cost more than Rs 7 lakh crore by 2025. The cost of one-time launch will be around 32 thousand crores. NASA wants to take humans first to the moon and to Mars in the future through this launch vehicle.
Opponents argue that Elon Musk's company SpaceX's Starship project aims for the same and that its per-launch cost would be less than half that of SLS due to the reusable rockets. Opponents of reliance on the private sector in cases such as space launches consider the SLS necessary. But the truth is that NASA itself is going to use SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in the Artemis mission itself.
This debate is also important for India because at present ISRO is engaged in the Gaganyaan mission to send humans to space. Its first test demo is also possible by the end of 2022. The government has considered the cost of this mission to be 9 thousand crores, while according to experts, this cost will be only above 10 thousand crores. Understand, how the picture of space research can change with increasing private sector intervention in space launch and decreasing cost.
US has canceled the mission to send it back to the moon once
NASA's Space Shuttle program used for space travel was canceled in 2004 by US President George Bush.
The very next year, NASA announced the Constellation Project, the successor to Space Shuttle. Its main purpose was to take humans to space and return them.
By 2010, the cost of the Constellation Project had increased so much that President Barack Obama canceled it.
Project started again with the intervention of US Parliament
At the time the Constellation project was canceled, NASA had issued several work orders for it.
Due to the cancellation of the project, these work orders would also get cancelled. In the US state of Alabama, this was going to create an employment crisis.
In 2010, the Space Launch System (SLS) was announced to replace Constellation and work orders were continued.
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