Moon To Stay With Matt Warren

NASA’s new goal of getting astronauts to the south pole of the moon in 2024 comes at the same time as NASA is fighting to maintain it’s shrinking budget before congress. It was in this proposed budget that NASA had actually scaled back it’s investment in the SLS rocket system capable of reaching the moon due to slipping timelines on the part of Boeing and sub-contractors to deliver a working rocket. It doesn’t look like there will be a bold budget to match the bold demands that the white house is placing on NASA. Instead, most of the money will likely to come from cutting costs.   This goal puts everything on the table and will probably force some difficult decisions, and even tougher arguments. The plan was to build the Gateway station which orbits the moon, establish gateway as a base of operations and then proceed to the lunar surface for missions. 5 years isn’t enough time to build the full gateway first so something will have to give. To further complicate the matter are the international partnerships -