Since the Apollo program was completed almost 10 years ago, every newly elected U.S. The President is stunned by the same question: where to send astronauts from now on?
NASA’s current target is the moon, but the moon is the last generation of American pioneers. One of the great, more appropriate ambitions for the space program that first landed man on another celestial body is Mars – a place where NASA has been preparing to go since the days of its early dreamer. Now is the time to make their dreams come true.
The Artemis program is at the heart of NASA’s human spaceflight today. It aims to place astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024, but the prospects for that date are unclear. There is still no well-defined mission plan, and work on the Artemis rocket and capsule is behind schedule and behind budget.
Speaking of sending astronauts to Mars, NASA has always done a tedious job for several years away from sending astronauts to Mars, thanks to the changing priorities of successive pres presidents. This will be followed by a mission to Mars since 1988 when George HW Bush pushed the moon back. Bill Clinton canceled the lunar plan (to say nothing about Mars) and accepted the International Space Station. George W. Bush revived the lunar-Mars sequence. Proud of the lunar part of the program, Barack Obama said that NASA “was there, happened,” and chose the planet planet and then Mars instead. Donald Trump rejected the Mars plan instead of reaching the moon with Artemis, but NASA still says Mars is on its agenda.
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