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On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence hosted his final National Space Council meeting in Florida, taking the opportunity to announce a list of NASA astronauts who will be considered for future missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
This cadre of astronauts, called Team Artemis, includes 18 astronauts, some with previous flight experience and others who have not yet flown into space. The list includes some notable names, like Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, the two women who made history by conducting the first women’s spacewalk. Two of the astronauts, Victor Glover and Kate Rubins, currently live aboard the International Space Station. Five of the 18 made an appearance at the National Space Council meeting today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida: Meir, Jessica Watkins, Anne McClain, Matthew Dominick and Joe simply.
With no flight assignments yet, it is unclear which of the nine women in the group will be chosen first to fly to the Moon, a goal NASA has been promoting since the inception of the Artemis program. And this group may change, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “This is the first group of our Artemis astronauts,” he said at the meeting. “I want to be clear, there will be more.”
The meeting didn’t just focus on astronauts. Pence also announced that President Trump released a new National Space Policy, a 32-page document that sets out the president’s spatial vision for the executive branch. “It emphasizes that space is critical to our security and our way of life, and sets out the fundamental principles for putting America first in space,” Pence said of the policy. The previous National Space Policy was published in June 2010 under the Obama administration. Pence also announced today that the administration would change the name of two Air Force bases, Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, to Space Force bases. Another base will also be named after pioneering aviator Chuck Yeager, who died at the age of 97 on December 7.
The astronaut’s announcement, in particular, is an interesting statement to make as the country prepares for a new administration. In the past, transitions have led to abrupt changes in space policy. Under the Obama administration, NASA had focused on getting people to Mars, but in 2017, President Trump signed a space policy directive that assigned NASA the task of returning people to the Moon. Since then, NASA has been hard at work coming up with a program to get astronauts to the lunar surface, using a combination of hardware that has been in development for a long time, as well as spacecraft that have yet to be built.
In 2019, Pence challenged NASA to achieve its first lunar landing under the Artemis program by 2024, an incredibly ambitious deadline that would be difficult to meet. Bridenstine has worked hard to secure additional funding, lobbying Congress to spend an additional $ 3.4 billion next year to help fund the lunar landers that will bring humans to the surface of the Moon. So far, lawmakers have drafted legislation that would partially fund these landers, but they seem reluctant to provide the full amount.
With President-elect Joe Biden set to take office in January, the future of the Artemis program is even more uncertain. No official associated with the incoming Biden administration has provided hints of what the new president’s space agenda will look like, especially as it relates to the human exploration program.
But for now, NASA is still working towards its lunar goal. The Space Launch System, the giant rocket the space agency plans to use to send people to the Moon, is about to undergo a key test in Mississippi ahead of its first unmanned flight, scheduled for late 2021. Early next year, NASA also plans to select two companies to go ahead with the creation of new lunar landers. And now, NASA has a different group of astronauts from which to choose when it is time to take people to the moon again.
With all these pieces in place, it may be more difficult for the new administration to cancel the Artemis program. But there may still be major changes.
