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"NASA has largely been living off the successes of space projects launched up to a decade ago — including the now 'dead' Mars Opportunity rover. It hopes to launch its first manned space flight since the demise of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
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But now the Trump administration appears to be determined to get a new Moon project off the ground. And it's eager to pay private companies to carry its cargoes.
NASA has been considering the prospect of a 'Lunar Gateway' space station placed in orbit around the Moon, acting as a stopover point for missions to the surface and, perhaps, Mars.
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NASA documents indicate the earliest date for an American to tread the lunar surface again is 2028." foxnews.com/science/nasas-new-grand-space-race-plan
Hopefully we can speed that one up.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday February 22 2019, @03:38AM (1 child)
It's under contract to develop and fly, so the billions are spent either way. Getting out of the contract is laughably unlikely.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday February 22 2019, @03:51AM
A certain number of $billions are allocated to SLS, Orion, etc. through NASA each year. If Congress wants to cut that money off, they can do it (NASA has actually gotten more than requested to prevent the schedule from slipping more). But it's going to require great success on the part of SpaceX, great failure on the part of the SLS contractors, and probably a PR campaign. Nothing stopping it from happening though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]