'There is no SpaceX without NASA,' a top official at the US space agency told us this week. More here:
However, the inevitable question creeps up: what is the point of Artemis? With commercial space companies taking people off this planet, and the off-world robot missions making extraordinary discoveries, why go to all this effort – not least billions and billions of dollars – putting boots back on the lunar surface of all places?
"We do Artemis for three reasons," said Zurbuchen."There is, without a doubt, a reason to do science … a second one is a reason to inspire, and the third one is to show national and international leadership." The Apollo missions, he said, visibly achieved at least the second and third points, with Neil Armstrong famously sticking a US flag into the Moon's regolith and leaving footprints on the surface. Ergo, that's a good enough reason for the US to do the same again.
Zurbuchen next argued it's useful to have astronauts out in space, even on the Moon, as humans are a little more flexible than robots, pointing out that the Mars Perseverance rover spent almost a week at a standstill while engineerssmall debris detected on its equipment. It had to be stopped and instructed what to do next, and the results studied, before work could continue.
"That's because we are talking to a robot," Zurbuchen said."A human there would have spent one minute on this and learned the same thing."
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