On March 26, at a meeting of the National Space Council, US Vice President Michael Pence announced the new United States space program. Its main point is the landing of astronauts on the moon no later than 2024. Pence noted that US citizens will be the first woman and the next man on the moon. Then, until 2028, it is planned to provide a "stable human presence" on a natural satellite of the Earth. In this case, the landing site was not selected near the equator, but the south pole of the moon, where there is water ice. How does America intend to accelerate and is it realistic to fulfill such promises?
Space and military journalist Mikhail Kotov talks about this.
This is how NASA imagines the participants in a future expedition to the moon.
We will have to start not with technology, but with politics. Full-scale preparations for the next presidential election have begun in the United States, and the current head of the White House, Donald Trump, has already announced his intention to run for a second term. So the program released yesterday is the first swallow of promises in the spirit of "choose me and everything will work out."
The most important thing here is the date of the proposed landing on the Moon, which takes only five years to prepare the expedition. In the event of a delay in the program, all the discontent will fall on the very end of the next presidential four-year period, when Trump, if he still manages to be re-elected, will no longer care about the level of support. And if Trump loses the election, then his supporters will blame the failure of the next president's mission. Well, completely different people will have to disentangle the brewed porridge.
And although yesterday's statement by Michael Pence sounds beautiful, it can be predicted with a high degree of certainty that American astronauts will not appear on the Moon in the next five years. And that's why.
What will we fly on?
Promotional video:
The main transport of NASA's current lunar program is the SLS super-heavy rocket. It has been under development since 2011 and, according to the plan, should have been ready in 2017. Its first unmanned launch is currently slated for 2020, but it looks like it will be postponed more than once. In addition, Boeing Corporation, the developer and manufacturer of SLS, is currently in a difficult situation with the Boeing 737 Max, which may indirectly affect space production.
For manned missions, a second version of the SLS Block1B rocket is required, equipped with an upgraded EUS (Exploration Upper Stage) upper stage, to increase the carrier's payload to 105 tons in low-earth orbit. By now, EUS is not yet ready, and two weeks ago NASA proposed to postpone the start of its creation.
Purely theoretically, SLS can make test flights by the required time and get an upgraded stage, but the chances of this are very, very small. First of all, it is necessary that the first start of SLS takes place ideally on time, in 2020. Whether it works or not, it will become clear in the coming months.
US Vice President Michael Pence at a meeting of the National Space Council.
Maybe you should also consider using private companies? Moreover, the head of NASA Jim Bridenstein spoke about alternative ways of delivering the manned Orion spacecraft. If NASA accepts this option, we can expect a serious increase in funding for private space projects. But for now, these are just words, and do not expect dollar rain to fall on the Falcon Heavy or New Glenn. In any case, the implementation of this solution will also require additional time.
Arrived, get out
And if NASA's rockets are not very good, then with a descent vehicle capable of a soft landing and delivering astronauts to the moon, and then returning them back to a manned spacecraft, it is even worse. According to official information, to date, there are only projects of landing modules carried out by private companies on their own initiative, for example, the Lockheed Martin project.
NASA itself has not even begun work on the terms of reference yet. Given the current pace of development of such documents, it will take hardly less than five years, no matter how much Michael Pence says about the need to "speed up as much as possible."
Fans of Elon Musk may suggest using the Big Falcon Rocket. According to the plans of the leadership of SpaceX, by 2024 this super-heavy rocket can already be sent to the moon. Alas, so far both stages of this rocket - Starship and Superheavy - are only at the initial stage of development.
Therefore, one should not seriously expect that a manned flight to the Moon will take place in 2024. The development of Falcon Heavy has already shown that postponement is a common practice, and it is connected not with a lack of motivation, but with the complexity of development and the inability to take into account all factors in the initial planning.
Mikhail Kotov