On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Katie Britt highlighted Alabama’s critical contributions to the next era of American space exploration during a recent hearing of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Britt extolled the many contributions to the advancement of space exploration made by the scientists and engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. 7,000 Alabamians work at Marshall.
“They have created a legacy of excellence,” Britt stated. “The men and women there have put in the work to literally take us to new heights, and we are all better for it.”
On November 16, 2022, NASA successfully launched the most powerful rocket in history – the Space Launch System (SLS) – for the first time during Artemis I. Marshall’s engineers designed the SLS, and Marshall is tasked with leading the management of and testing for the SLS program.
“Tens of thousands of very talented and smart people throughout the country – including in my home state of Alabama – were responsible for a flawless SLS launch,” Britt continued. “I am deeply proud of what they have accomplished, and I’m very interested in making sure we keep this momentum going.”
There have been many astronauts and cosmonauts in the last 50 years, but they have all gone to the same place: low Earth orbit. Not since the Apollo missions has man ventured further out. NASA will return Americans to the Moon as early as 2025. The Artemis II mission next year will take astronauts back to Moon orbit. Artemis III will put an American back on the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis IV in 2028 will set the stage for NASA to continue missions to the lunar surface annually. The SLS will be used to launch a man to Mars sometime in the late 2030s if all goes well.
“NASA has set a bold vision for the future, one defined by innovation and exploration throughout the heavens,” Administrator Nelson said in his testimony before the subcommittee.
Sen. Britt questioned Administrator Nelson about the funding needed to keep the Artemis program on schedule and meet NASA’s lofty goals.
“We have to take advantage of the progress we have made and the workforce that has been built over the years. We need to be preparing now for a more sustained cadence of launches for Artemis IV, V, and beyond,” Britt said. “There will be a new generation of boys and girls across America who look up to the Moon at night, knowing that walking its surface is not just a dream but a reality. Once again, it will be thanks to the innovation, grit, and determination of Alabamians that our nation not only expands the limits of human achievement – but quite literally grows the imagination of what one day might and will be possible.”
Landing on the Moon remains a complex engineering feat. A Japanese corporation, ispace, apparently has failed in its recent effort to land two rovers on the Moon. The mission to land a Japanese-designed rover and a United Arab Emirates-built rover has failed to communicate back that it has successfully landed on the Moon. While engineers are still working on establishing communications with the lander, the assumption is that the landing has failed. Ispace would have been the first private company to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. Only NASA, the former Soviet Union, and China have been able to accomplish that to this point in time. Ispace has signed a contract with NASA to deliver unmanned loads of cargo to the Moon in support of NASA’s ambitious plan to return astronauts to the Moon. At this point, it is unknown how this apparent failure will impact those plans.
NASA recently released its first Moon to Mars Architecture review. This is the technology that the space agency needs to accomplish its lofty mission goals in the next twenty years.
China also has ambitious plans to send its astronauts to the Moon and Mars.
Nelson said it is possible that China could attempt to dominate Moon exploration.
“It is a fact: we’re in a space race,” Nelson told Politico. “And it is true that we better watch out that they don’t get to a place on the Moon under the guise of scientific research.”
Nelson is scheduled to testify before the House Science Committee on Thursday.
Katie Britt was elected in 2022.
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