![]() That said, the shuttle, which had 135 launches altogether, achieved a failure rate below two percent. This reflects the trauma and consequent programme delays that followed the Space Shuttle disasters in 19, each of which killed the seven civilians on board. The steep price tag is a result of a "safety culture" developed by NASA in recent years in response to public attitudes. But such a mission, including provisions and the rocketry for a return trip, could well cost NASA a trillion dollars-questionable spending when we're dealing with a climate crisis and poverty on Earth. Something more ambitious, such as a Mars landing, will be required to elicit Apollo-scale public enthusiasm. In comparison, short trips to the moon in the 2020s, despite the $90-billion cost of the Artemis programme, will seem almost routine. They accepted high risks and pushed technology to the limit. Some of these moons could in fact harbour life in their sub-surface oceans. Robots could also explore Jupiter, Saturn and their fascinatingly diverse moons with little additional expense, since journeys of several years present little more challenge to a robot than the six-month voyage to Mars. Likewise, if mining of lunar soil or asteroids for rare materials became economically viable, this also could be done more cheaply and safely with robots. ![]() Instead of astronauts, who need a well equipped place to live if they're required for construction purposes, robots can remain permanently at their work site. Such projects can be entirely constructed by robots. Similarly, engineering projects-such as astronomers' dream of constructing a large radio telescope on the far side of the moon, which is free of interference from Earth-no longer require human intervention. ![]() Within the next one or two decades, robotic exploration of the Martian surface could be almost entirely autonomous, with human presence offering little advantage. Improvements in sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) will further enable the robots themselves to identify particularly interesting sites, from which to gather samples for return to Earth. This is unlike its SpaceX competitor Starship, which enables the company to recover and the reuse the first stage.Īdvances in robotic exploration are exemplified by the suite of rovers on Mars, where Perseverance, NASA's latest prospector, can drive itself through rocky terrain with only limited guidance from Earth. Each launch therefore carries an estimated cost of between $2 billion (£1.7 billion) and $4 billion. Like its predecessors, the Artemis booster combines liquid hydrogen and oxygen to create enormous lifting power before falling into the ocean, never to be used again. ![]() ![]() The Artemis mission is using NASA's brand new Space Launch System, which is the most powerful rocket ever-similar in design to the Saturn V rockets that sent a dozen Apollo astronauts to the moon. In our recent book " The End of Astronauts", Donald Goldsmith and I argue that these changes weaken the case for the project. Moreover, superpower rivalry can no longer justify massive expenditure, as in the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. The most relevant differences between the Apollo era and the mid-2020s are an amazing improvement in computer power and robotics. The US-led Artemis programme, however, aims to return humans to the moon this decade-with Artemis 1 on its way back to Earth as part of its first test flight, going around the moon. ![]()
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