"You can ask even the most news-savvy peoplefor their opinion on Artemis and be answered with blank stares. The other day, I was in a gaggle with six neighbors, all highly informed professional people-two of them with long careers at the National Science Foundation-and none knew anything about Artemis except one thing: It's a plan to send people to Mars."
"Nope. Artemis is a moon mission. There is no Mars mission. NASA has no Mars rocket, no Mars capsule, no Mars mission crew. NASA has Mars aspirations,but it doesn't even have a timetable for such a venture. What it does have is a very troubled moon program. Artemis faces fundamental engineering challenges that have called into question the program's basic architecture."
"A new administration always means turnover, but NASA has been in an uncontrolled spin every bit as alarming as the one Neil Armstrong famously pulled out of during Gemini 8 in 1966. More than a year ago, President-elect Donald Trump nominated a billionaire entrepreneur and Elon Musk ally, Jared Isaacman, to become NASA administrator. It was an unconventional choice, but Isaacman drew support from many quarters in the space community."
NASA plans to send a crew around the moon in early 2026 and attempt a lunar landing in 2027. Public awareness of the Artemis program is low, with many people mistaking it for a Mars mission. Artemis is explicitly a moon program intended for a sustained presence. NASA currently lacks a Mars rocket, capsule, crew, or timetable. The Artemis program faces fundamental engineering challenges that have called its basic architecture into question. Reconfiguring the mission is difficult and is occurring amid unprecedented internal turmoil and leadership turnover at the agency.
Read at Slate Magazine
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