Orion
In 2006, NASA announced the Orion capsule, this would be a replacement for the Shuttle (which flew its last mission in 2011).
The plan was for Orion to be running cargo to the ISS by 2014, and return to the moon by 2020.
Obviously, 2014 went by and Orion was not supplying the ISS.
Space is tricky. But, the Orion is still on the way, and will be the vehicle for pushing outwards from the planet.
Since this plan was announced, we have had manned launches returning via SpaceX and Demo 2 - but that is low Earth orbit.
Of course, this is important, and the technology is impressive (with SpaceX landing its rockets). We also have ULA with commercial cargo launches). Low Earth orbit is moving from the realm of superpowers and is becoming the realm of companies. But returning to the moon and going beyond is a different order or difficulty - and one without the commercial prospects of Low Earth Orbit (for now). It remains the realm of governments.
They are aiming for this to happen by 2024 - politics comes into play, and it is useful to be able to promise something for both the current president hoping for relelection and a milestone to end his term, or for the next president to have a big event in their first term.
In this endeavour, we need, as a planet, to rebuild the expertise from Apollo - as humans have not been out to the moon since 1972. Though technology has advanced, we need to rediscover institutional knowledge, and prove the new technology.
In the 1960s and early 70s, Apollo was right on the edge of the technologically and financially possible; it only just succeeded with a significant effort from the US in competition with the USSR (who produced their own lunar landers).
Today, technology has advanced - and we expect even better reliability. On top of this, we are now looking to make lunar exploration a continuous endeavour.
The first step will be Artemis Ⅰ , an unmanned mission to fly the equipment around the moon. This is a step that was never taken with Apollo. There were unmanned flights, and Apollo 8 was circumlunar - but there was no unmanned circumlunar test flight.
Artemis Ⅱ will be a crewed lunar flight, pencilled in for 2022. Artemis Ⅲ would be the landing.
For Artemis Ⅲ, the plan is to build a lunar gateway. This is a craft that will orbit the moon, much as the ISS orbits the Earth. It will act as a staging post for cargo, and thus resources can be sent in multiple missions, building up resources locally.. From gateway, multiple lunar landings can be made, and the whole enterprise becomes much more sustainable. However, I would not be shocked to see the initial landing transition to being in the mould of Apollo, bypassing gateway for the speed of ‘getting it done’. We shall see.
Once gateway is up, NASA expects to launch a lunar mission roughly annually.
But, with the pace of change, I would not be shocked if commercial lunar missions followed surprisingly quickly; SpaceX’s “starship” has this ambition. I would then expect commercial space to take over in the following decades within the Earth-moon system, leaving NASA to look outward toward Mars - and government interest in low-Earth orbit being driven by military and other Earth-bound concerns.
The ISS has given us experience at living in space but it is still, relatively speaking, close to the surface. The lunar gateway, and the lunar surface, are both a long way from the surface of the Earth, and so will give experience in living away from the magnetosphere; and away from relatively fast communication with Houston and short emergency return flights. The moon and gateway will be a training ground for the next step outward to Mars.
It should be an exciting few years. I suspect that it will seem to be a long time before we see the missions start; then the pace will seem to accelerate as lots of things are happening in parallel and the cost/benefit is much more favourable than in the sixties - thanks to standing on the shoulders of giants.
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Source of Orion in flight image (Photo Credit: Nasa / Wikipedia)
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