NASA Sets Artemis Moon Mission Timelines

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This week, President-elect Donald Trump named entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman as his pic to be administrator of NASA. It’s a bold pick, as my PJ Media colleague Rick Moran reported on Thursday.

“Isaacman will run into the usual bureaucratic inertia in getting anything done at NASA,” Rick wrote. “His enthusiasm may be enough to overcome the obstacles and compete on an even plane with China for supremacy in space.”

One of the challenges that Isaacman will face if he wins confirmation is the future of NASA’s Artemis program, whose purpose is to get us to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Cost overruns and delays have made even the most optimistic space fans wonder whether we’ll ever get the program off the ground.

On Thursday, NASA released a new timetable for the Artemis II and Artemis III missions. The new target dates came at the same time as the announcement of the results of the study of heat shield issues with the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I test flight in 2022.

From the press release:

Experts discussed results of NASA’s investigation into its Orion spacecraft heat shield after it experienced an unexpected loss of charred material during re-entry of the Artemis I uncrewed test flight. For the Artemis II crewed test flight, engineers will continue to prepare Orion with the heat shield already attached to the capsule. The agency also announced it is now targeting April 2026 for Artemis II and mid-2027 for Artemis III. The updated mission timelines also reflect time to address the Orion environmental control and life support systems.

“The updates to our mission plans are a positive step toward ensuring we can safely accomplish our objectives at the Moon and develop the technologies and capabilities needed for crewed Mars missions,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

While I understand that crew safety is paramount — after all, what good is sending people into outer space if you can’t bring them home safely? — these timelines are the opposite of the “Go Fever” that gripped the country during the space race of the late ‘50s and ‘60s. Bureaucratic caution, bloated budgets, and a public that no longer sees space exploration as magical characterize the modern version of NASA.

Flashback: The New Space Race: Pence Announces America’s Return to the Moon

Contrast that with the original announcement of our return to the moon, which I wrote about five years ago:

Vice President Mike Pence announced on Tuesday that the United States has set a goal of returning astronauts to the moon by the year 2024 — that’s right, just five years away! Pence spoke at the meeting of the National Space Council at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where he outlined a plan to put American men and women on the moon in less time than it took the United States in the ’60s.

[…]

Pence stated that such an aggressive goal will take an “all hands on deck” approach and will necessitate a partnership between public and private space enterprises. He also noted that getting back to the moon is a critical objective because we’re not the only ones trying to step up the game of space exploration.

Back then, Pence pointed out that NASA’s prior goal of putting Americans back on the moon by 2028 was “not good enough,” and now we’re pushing uncomfortably close to that date. NASA is a big organization, but if it would stop trying to chase the monster of climate change and focus on its primary mission, it might not be struggling with such a long timeline.

The partnerships with private spacegoing companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have kept NASA from pushing that timeline out even further, so leaning on those innovators can only help. Hopefully, Isaacman can get us to the moon and beyond even faster as NASA administrator.