Still, whether or not space is a national priority, let alone the national priority, it certainly is a business priority. “If going to the moon is not the national priority, there’s a limit to what you can do,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of the space history department of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Federal funding today is a fraction of its level during the Apollo era, as is political enthusiasm. While almost 550 people have reached space since Yuri Gagarin’s launch in 1961, only 24 have orbited the moon-and only a dozen have walked on it.
Saul loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesĮven so, getting back on the moon won’t be easy. The company says one version will be able to take people to the moon by 2024. “We haven’t been this close-ever,” he says of a return.Ī mock-up of the Blue Moon lunar lander being developed by Blue Origin. space projects including the new Orion crew capsule, which Mr.
“The pieces are coming together to get back to the moon,” says Mike Hawes, a 33-year NASA veteran and now vice president of human spaceflight programs at Lockheed Martin Corp. The Trump administration, which has made space exploration a policy priority, recently set the goal of returning Americans to the lunar surface in just five years, though President Trump’s personal commitment to the goal is uncertain. The result is more serious debates, activity and funding around moon missions than at any time since the 1960s. In the process, both men simultaneously are forced to vie with the parallel ambitions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Owner of Blue Origin LLC, are racing to populate the moon and Mars. Similarly, at home, rival billionairesįounder of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., and finds itself in a race with China, which has pledged to establish a lunar base by 2030.
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