NASA safety watchdog says it's time to rethink Moon landing

"Artemis III aims to land astronauts near the lunar South Pole, relying on SpaceX's Starship-derived Human Landing System (HLS) - a vehicle that has yet to achieve orbit, let alone venture anywhere near the Moon. It's an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking, and one the ASAP report has formally classified as high risk."

"The problem is that there are an awful lot of firsts associated with the mission. It'll be the first to depend on SpaceX's HLS, the first to need multiple in-space refuelings (the report estimates 15), the first time a crew will use the HLS, and so on."

"It does not have the human resources it had during the Apollo era, when staffing exceeded 35,000 full-time employees. Today, that figure is dropping fast. According to the report, it neared 15,000 in 2025. The agency also has nowhere near the budget it had during the Apollo Moon missions."

NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reports that Artemis III carries significant risk by attempting too many firsts in a single mission, including SpaceX's untested Starship-derived Human Landing System, multiple in-space refuelings, and first crewed HLS operations. The panel recommends a stepwise approach similar to Apollo's proven methodology, where each mission built on previous successes. However, NASA faces substantial constraints: staffing has declined from 35,000 during Apollo to approximately 15,000 in 2025, and budget limitations are far below Apollo-era levels. These resource constraints drive NASA's desire to consolidate objectives into fewer missions, creating tension between technical safety and programmatic efficiency.

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