NASA Stalls Artemis Mission to the Moon

Transcript

Good morning everyone. I’m Michele Carroll and welcome to the News Diet where I’ll give you daily news bites in under 10 minutes. Today I’m gonna talk about why NASA canceled their anticipated Artemis 1 launch and the program's plans for sustainable living on the moon. Let’s be informed so we can get on with our day.

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NASA's latest mission to the moon - Artemis 1 was scheduled to launch yesterday on a highly anticipated journey. The core technology to this program is what’s called the Space Launch System, which is the most powerful rocket ever built using 8.8 million pounds of thrust, and costing almost $24 billion. This mission was to be the first of at least three that are all focused on creating sustainable environments on the lunar surface. This launch attracted thousands, and even Vice President Harris, to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to witness take off. But unfortunately, the launch was canceled last minute after a liquid hydrogen line did not cool one of the rocket’s engines adequately. And apparently the weather conditions were also likely to call off the launch as well. The next chance to conduct the launch would be this Friday, but NASA officials say they won’t know if they’ll make that date until they’ve assessed the issue. If it doesn’t happen by then, then the rocket will be rolled back to the Vehicles Assembly Building that likely means a delay of a month or more.

I mentioned that this was the first of three planned missions. This first mission is going to be without any crew, and is to serve as an initial test for the Orion capsule where astronauts will sit in the future. NASA wants to make sure that this capsule can survive the 5,000 degree reentry back into Earth’s atmosphere as it’ll be traveling at 25,000 miles an hour. This Artemis 1 mission won’t have a crew, but it will have three manikins also conducting tests for future human crew members. The first manikin will measure vibrations, g-forces, and radiation; the second manikin, which is representative of a woman will be wearing a radiation vest; and the third, also a female manikin will be sitting as control. One of the reasons for these tests is to determine the level of radiation as women are more vulnerable to the risks and the plan is for a female member to be on future missions. The manikins, in their capsule, are to take a 42-day trip around the moon and return to Earth, totalling 1.3 million miles.

The Artemis 2 mission will be the same, but with a human crew.

The Artemis 3 mission is where NASA will attempt to land the crew on the lunar surface. The idea is to start the process of planning to build a lunar space station called Gateway, which will help further activities on and around the moon. With that said, chief astronaut Reid Wiseman announced at a meeting, “Our sights are not set on the Moon. Our sights are clearly set on Mars.” So it looks like the insights gained from this Artemis program are also for future explorations to the Red Planet. The current goal is for Artemis 1 to launch now, Artemis 2 to launch in late 2024, Artemis 3 in 2025, and then possibly the Mars initiatives in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

This program has so far cost more than $40 billion and is said to be years behind schedule. However, it continues to gain support from both government and NASA officials. It’s also involving other agencies such as the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.

One fun fact is that even though I mentioned the Space Launch System is the most powerful rocket ever built with 8.8 million pounds of thrust, the upcoming launch vehicle by Elon Musk’s SpaceX called Starship will double that with 17 million pounds of thrust.

Outside of missions, earlier this summer in July NASA also recently released the first views of the cosmos using the James Webb Space Telescope. The James Webb telescope is the largest optical telescope in space that’s able to view objects too distant or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

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You’ve just been informed so now it’s time to get on with your day. I’m Michele Carroll. Thanks so much for listening.

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#nasa