From Apollo to Artemis: Why America is betting big on private space

Reputation will be at stake when Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C spacecraft launches atop a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday, following recent touchdowns accomplished by China, India and Japan.

So why entrust such tasks to the commercial sector, especially after last month’s failed attempt by Astrobotic, another company with a similar goal?

The answer lies in how NASA has fundamentally reorganized itself for Artemis, the agency’s flagship Moon-to-Mars program.

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During the Cold War, the space agency was handed blank checks and managed industrial contracts down to the last level – but the new paradigm bet on America’s powerful market economy to deliver breakthroughs at a fraction of the historical cost.

Although the current approach has borne some fruit, it also risks leaving the United States behind its major space rival China in achieving key milestones – namely the next manned mission to the Moon, and the first rocks back from Mars. Bring in.

SpaceX success

The focus on fledgling companies under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative builds on the example set by the meteoric rise of SpaceX, which was derided as reckless in its startup phase but is now likely the agency’s preferred contractor.

Scott Pace, a former member of the National Space Council, told AFP that NASA had deliberately adopted a policy that prioritized “more shots on target” at lower costs.

“The credibility that SpaceX has now is a result of painfully blowing up many rockets along the way,” he said.

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Following the end of the NASA-led Space Shuttle program in 2011, which left NASA dependent on Russia’s Soyuz rockets, SpaceX launches are currently the only way to launch astronauts from US soil.

Elon Musk’s company beat heavily favored aerospace giant Boeing to be the first to certify its system, proving to experts the importance of competition between companies offering different options.

According to a study in the journal Nature, each space shuttle launch costs more than $2 billion, adjusted for inflation, while NASA’s estimated average cost to buy a seat on a SpaceX flight, according to a government audit, Is approximately $55 million.

on artemis

During the Apollo era, NASA was given more than $300 billion — far more than the $93 billion expected to be spent on Artemis by 2025, according to an analysis by Casey Dreier of the nonprofit Planetary Society.

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Rather than telling private industry exactly what to build, the agency now buys services from companies – although this piecemeal approach sometimes has some drawbacks.

While NASA owns the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew capsule, it has contracted with SpaceX for an unconventional and as-yet-unproven landing system based on the company’s next-generation Starship rocket, which could lead to the first crewed lunar touchdown. will provide.

Starship has yet to complete unflyed flight testing – and it will need to undergo ultra-cold refueling several times while in orbit before traveling to the Moon independently of the SLS, to dock with Orion and pick up astronauts. Is required.

Future space fuel depots could be a great way to facilitate long-range missions to Mars — SpaceX’s founding ideal, which Musk embraces with messianic enthusiasm — but getting it right would be a long way from returning American boots on the Moon. There may be a delay.

NASA has said this could happen as early as 2026, although that timeline is at risk of being pushed back. China, meanwhile, has set a 2030 deadline for its own crewed landings – and has recently stuck to its promises.

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A former top NASA official G. “The Chinese are not going to go through all the American tricks, including threats of a government shutdown followed by extreme polarization followed by sustained resolution,” Scott Hubbard told AFP.

For better or worse, America is locked in its new public-private paradigm.

Artemis was intentionally designed with multiple international partnerships — Europe, Canada, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and others — to prevent it from being scrapped, Dreyer said.

Additionally, a previous Moon-to-Mars program called Constellation, which was conceived in the 2000s and managed like Apollo, was canceled largely due to budget constraints, so there was no realistic alternative. Is.

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Published: Feb 13, 2024, 11:06 am IST