NASA bets on a lunar base

WASHINGTON (EFE).— NASA revealed a plan to establish a permanent base on the Moon in seven years, an ambitious roadmap that for the moment excludes space stations and requires that an intense schedule of manned moon landings begin in 2028, something that no nation has attempted in half a century.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced in a press conference the phased lunar deployment strategy, which will be the most ambitious in history since the Apollo program (1961-1972) and will cost at least $20 billion over the next seven years.

Isaacman said that in order to address this new accelerated plan they will pause the Gateway project, which was intended to establish a space station in lunar orbit and whose construction involved Northrop Grumman and Vantor.

In exchange, he proposed a plan divided into three phases that would culminate with three permanent habitats on the Moon, several rovers (manufactured by Toyota), a nuclear fission reactor and facilities to process lunar material, obtain energy and raw materials to sustain a permanent colony.

The essential step for this ambitious roadmap is the success of the Artemis II mission, which is scheduled to send four astronauts to lunar orbit next week, as well as successive operations so that Artemis IV can return humanity to the Moon in early 2028.

NASA will count on the collaboration of Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Blue Origin to test transport and lunar landing vehicles in the coming years and ensure that they can fulfill the intense plan proposed by Isaacman: a lunar mission every six months.

“The United States is never going to leave the Moon again,” said Isaacman, confirmed in his position at the end of December.

China has increased its unmanned vehicle missions to the Moon in recent years and proposed putting two taikonauts on the Earth’s satellite before 2030.

The project is part of the strategy of the administration of President Donald Trump to transform NASA and promote the private sector linked to its projects within the so-called National Space Policy.

The team of the so-called “Ignition” project has Dana Weigel, responsible for the International Space Station (ISS) program, and the Spanish Carlos García Galán, who is the main person in charge of the Moon Base program, as the main people in charge of making this strategy a reality within the announced deadlines.

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