December 16, 2022
Thirteen years ago I let some other people do the talking on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo XI launch. As I write this, it's now been 50 years since Apollo XVII departed the Moon for its trip home.
Humanity was supposed to be ushering in a new era of exploration back then. There was occasional talk of sending people to Mars, and Space Station Freedom was going to be built using the space shuttle that was in the planning stage.
We all know how that turned out.
Half a century later, the shuttle has come and gone. At the moment the US can only reach the ISS via SpaceX's Dragon capsule, or by leasing a seat on a Soyuz -- and the one attached to ISS just sprang a coolant leak within the last few hours as I'm writing this.
The imaginatively-named Space Launch System (SLS) and its Orion capsule just finished its Artemis I mission, doing a bunch of technology tests and demos en route to, around, and coming back from the Moon. Artemis II is expected no sooner than May 2024, and the SLS rocket it will ride will cost more than a billion and a half dollars to build, launch and throw away.
SpaceX is building and testing its Super Heavy rocket and Starship vehicle that are also part of the upcoming Moon program. The biggest problem they have, aside from not having launched it yet, is that firing up half the first stage's rockets rips the launch pad apart. And also the fact that the vehicle is so large it barely has the fuel to get itself into orbit, so to actually go anywhere it'll need to use in-orbit refueling. Which is a technology that doesn't actually exist outside of drawings yet.
Artemis III, an actual landing, is slated for 2025, but I'll believe it when I see it. My guess is that one thing or another delays it into the 2030s. But still, we're actually launching hardware again. Nothing designed for people has gone past the Hubble telescope's orbit since 1972 so that's a big step on its own. It's looking more likely that I'll actually live long enough to see a moon landing, which is not something I would have thought 13 years ago.
